Time to take it to the stars for a story of outer space love, all wrapped up rather nicely in some over the top insanity and isolation as only Robert Q. Sale can do it! RQ unloads a startlingly bonkers one here, so sit back and tune in to a true terror tale of tomorrow-- and b-b-b-beyond! From the February 1954 issue of Journey into Unknown Worlds #24.
7 comments:
Harry was crabby to begin with, but clawed his way to potential happiness after coming out of his shell. Not a bad way to go. Does Vena walk sideways?
Bill will be performing here all month, folks. Let’s give him a hand.
Well I'm going to the back of the class instead of the head because I didn't guess the ending. I do miss Atlas' constant ribbing of it's audience, so many stories with "you'll never guess what will happen!"
I love the art in this. It's dark and dismal and full of shadows and dark wrinkles and lots of dots and fills and it really fits the concept of being trapped in a metal cylinder for months on end.
The dotted burn marks are great way of showing that without over the top gore, I love the crash panels at the top of page 2, the laser blast on page 3. All excellent stuff.
The Atlas 4 panel (c) on the last page is one for the ages. It really works well for a cinematic short hand for somebody going absolutely nuts, and cleverly focuses and then pans in on our heroes face, until, what, I'm sorry, but to me, is a happy ending!
Looks like Harry got space catfished! Or should I say Venus Catfished? At least Vena got her man! Go Vena!
On every page Harry is seen yelling, or has his mouth open in horror.
For this story I am not too interested in how Eerie or Creepy would cover it, but how Basil Wolverton would draw it. If he had, it might have have been as great as The Brain Bats of Venus or Nightmare World.
Of course, I am not disparaging Robert Q. Sale's work, I am just comparing two greats of horror comics, like comparing Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle, a thought of what might have been, art wise.
In precode sci-fi comics--especially those of the horror type--some of my favorite things include: Junked-up cosmos (space? Mostly empty? Hell no! It's filled with wheeling planets and sprawling nebulae and textured swirlies), streamlined deco rocket ships, and lots of futuristic colors like purple and green. Oh and tons of craters everywhere. Weird plants a must. I'm sure I'm missing something.
This thing's a dream. Besides hitting all of the above, it has a perfectly outsider fanzine feel that somehow still manages to avoid looking too Wallywood. My favorite panel is that recreation of the splash at the bottom of page three and all of page four. Just delirious work. Honorable mention to panel five on page two, with the two space men framed in the large windshield of their streamlined deco spaceship.
Super good looking story!
Like Brian Barnes, this one really threw me as far as the ending.
For one thing, it reminded me of a dozen other stories without being TOO similar to any one of them.
There are those "Mars Is Heaven" ones where the planet seduces the astronauts (in one way or another) as a way of getting rid of them. Though that wouldn't work here because they weren't headed to the planet in the first place.
By the end, I thought of another obvious thing, that she planned to eat him. All joking aside, by the last page I expected "Vena" to be a literal Venus Fly Trap! So, I was really unprepared for the ending.
In a funny way, Harry is like a completely serious answer to the character with a one-track mind in QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE.
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