Saturday, April 27, 2024

Today in Comics History, April 27, 1949: Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft

In 1954, EC ("Educational Comics! Plus Injury-to-Eye Motifs!") published a complete issue of Weird Science-Fantasy about UFOs, all presented with the intensity of a Reddit post. Young Foxy Mulder, purchasing this comic at the local five-and-dime, looked up to the skies and proclaimed "I want to believe!" Sadly, his voice had not dropped yet and all he succeded in was frightening the cat.


from "The Mantell-Godman Case [Project Saucer Case Number 33]" in Weird Science-Fantasy (1954 series) #26 (EC, December 1954), script by Al Feldstein, pencils and inks by Joe Orlando, colors by Marie Severin, letters by Jim Wroten

Lots of quotes and footnotes from secret government "redacted" files allowed EC Comics to propose the idea that aliens had invaded our space. As we've seen from all other EC Comics, that's never good news.


from "The Eastern Airlines Case [Project Saucer Case No. 144]" in Weird Science-Fantasy (1954 series) #26 (EC, December 1954), script by Al Feldstein, pencils and inks by Wally Wood, colors by Marie Severin, letters by Jim Wroten

By the end of the year, however, the government was backtracking because they'd just found out Ed Wood was filming Plane 9 from Outer Space the next field over.


from "The United Air Lines Emmett, Idaho Case [Project Saucer Case No. 10]" in Weird Science-Fantasy (1954 series) #26 (EC, December 1954), script by Al Feldstein, pencils and inks by Wally Wood, colors by Marie Severin, letters by Jim Wroten

I dunno...they sobered up?

at

6 comments:

  1. Blam5/06/2024 10:20 AM

    Never Mind the Bolides, Here’s the Space People

    ReplyDelete
  2. wordsmith9/08/2024 1:54 PM

    Isn''t that Joe Orlando's signature in the lower left corner of panel 1?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Bully9/08/2024 2:05 PM

    Yes! Thank you, you're right. I made a lot of mistakes with stories from this issue as they are similarly-named and I got the credits mixed up.

    Thanks for your eagle eye. I will correct it!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Blam9/09/2024 10:38 AM

    The GCD index of the story carries the note “1 panel by Wood”. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s that second panel, with the pilots, in the second image shared — although I also wouldn’t be surprised if Wood’s hand is evident elsewhere given his and Orlando’s frequent collaboration.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Blam9/09/2024 10:41 AM

    Bully, I just noticed that you don’t have the credits in that caption wrong per se but rather pasted in the wrong caption based on the story titles.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Bully9/23/2024 2:42 PM

    Thanks all! I finally untangled this and I believe I've got all the captions correct here now. Definitely my fault for being caress about the different stories in this issue!

    ReplyDelete