Number 449


Rocky X goes by the numbers


From Boy Comics #82, 1953, here's the followup to last week's Rocky X episode. Our young rocketeers are in another mess, as usual. They encounter a flying saucer!

Sorry I don't have issue #83 to show you the "invisible" aliens promised at the end of this episode. Maybe someday I'll run across the comic and show it to you.

I like the precise Norm Maurer artwork. With his refined brushwork and careful composition he reminds me of Fred Guardineer, another Golden Age artist I like. I think I've said that before, but forgive me. You get my age you forget what you've said.

You forget what you said. Did I already say that?

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Tom Corbett, Space Cadet, Rocky X of the Rocketeers and Rocky Jones, Space Ranger, are all part of that wonderful era of 1950's science fiction brought about by the primitive rocket experiments going on after World War II. Before the war space exploration was "Buck Rogers stuff," very fanciful, but when rockets began lifting off the public became believers. As we know, President Dwight Eisenhower warned against the "military-industrial complex." It was decided to take space exploration out of the hands of the military, so NASA was formed. It made the military structure of "Rocketeers" and "Space Rangers" obsolete.

In 1954 I watched Rocky Jones, Space Ranger on TV. A couple of years ago a friend gave me this DVD, a compilation of episodes made into a feature film, and for a little over an hour I was entertained by my youthful past. With all of the corny aspects of the show--it was aimed at children, after all--there was something in there for the dads, too. The girls are 1950's-cute. As I recall the fashions from '54, skirt hems hit around mid-calf, so a hot Doris Day-style blonde in a skirt that ended mid-thigh, coupled with a boob-enhancing design on top should have made us males, even pre-pubescent ones like me, sit up and take notice. Hot rockets, indeed! Bring on the space babes!

Note to Space Ranger commander: This is a rocket ship, not a ship on the sea. Sit down.

All expense was spared in bringing state of the art special effects!

"Is that a microphone you're holding, Rocky, or are you just happy to see me?"

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Number 376


Rocky X is stranger than strange!


Norm Maurer, who was a prolific comic book artist, was also a movie producer. In 1947 he married Moe Howard's daughter, Joan. Moe was one of the Three Stooges, and in the early '60s, after the Stooges shorts got popular on TV, Maurer put them back before the cameras for a popular series of feature films.

But before that Maurer had a comic book career for Charles Biro, and also with Joe Kubert at St. John's line of comics. He had a clean and appealiing style. I like this episode of Rocky X from Boy Comics #86 because of the (to me) nostalgic 1950's science fiction, space cadet-style of story, flying saucers and a great-looking tentacled monster. Too bad the story is continued and I don't have the follow-up episode, but you can guess it probably turns out OK for Rocky.

Maurer died in 1986.

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Number 135


Rocket Ships and Dinosaurs!


This story featuring the character Rocky X (and with that blond hair, he's obviously no relation to Malcolm X), titled "Horror On Kallaxyn," is from Boy Illustories #96, December 1953. I've seen a few of the Rocky X stories and they seem to be part of some long continuity, but it doesn't seem to hurt the story much to get dropped in to the storyline as we are with this episode.

The story was drawn by Ralph Mayo, a comic book artist who had worked for Standard Comics doing work in various genres, but he seemed especially good at love comics. Mayo also did the Crimebuster strip in this issue of Boy, where he signed the splash panel.

The dinosaurs in the Rocky X story appear to be drawn by none other than Joe Kubert. Mayo didn't use the motion and "shock" lines external to the figures like Kubert did, and the dinosaurs look a lot like the dinos Kubert did for his Tor books. Mayo could have swiped them from Kubert's strip, or Kubert could have drawn them himself. There was a connection: Kubert's business partner in those days, Norman Maurer, was the principal artist on the Crimebuster strip for several years, and also drew some of the Rocky X stories I've seen. So did Kubert draw the dinosaurs in this story? I don't know for sure, but in the production of comic books with strict deadlines I've learned that any kind of artist crossover was possible.

As a bonus, I'm including a full-page ad from the same issue of Boy. This is for a Tom Corbett, Space Cadet Sonic Vision helmet, with a one-way visor. It claims invisibility, but as I found out when I was a kid, everyone knew who I was underneath the helmet. "You see people--they can't see you!" Sure.

Click on pictures for full-size images.

I love the other claims in this ad: "…sensational discovery is as new as the hydrogen bomb! As exciting as a ride through space! Makes you a super space cadet!" Overstatement was not a concept unknown to this copywriter, and in those days the term "space cadet" didn't mean the same thing as it came to mean years later.

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