Number 2359: Flying Saucers in the sky!

It was 72 years ago today, July 8, 1947, that The Roswell [New Mexico] Daily Record published its famous headline about the “captured flying disk.” It was denied by the Air Force, the newspaper withdrew the story, and it went away for many years only to return a few decades ago. It has now implanted itself in our consciousness.

I love the stories as much as anyone, and have been fascinated by UFOs since I was a kid, but I am not ready to declare any of those stories to be the absolute truth. It is the skeptic in me. But I think putting a flying saucer (as we called those unidentified flying objects in those days) on a magazine cover was a guarantee of sales. So it was with Charlton’s Space Adventures #6 (1954), which promised to tell of the “first contact” between humans and aliens from another planet. It has an attractive cover drawn by Stan Campbell; just made for attention on the comic book rack:

A young Dick Giordano, later both comic book artist and editor, in 1954 was about 21 years old by my reckoning. He did an excellent job with both pencils and inks on the story.

A major part of many legends surrounding UFOs is they are here for something we have on Earth: water, heavy metals, some people for medical exams...and this story says the well-spoken alien who talks to the two pilots is after something, also. And because we are humans and we like invasion stories, [oops! spoiler alert!] so the story ends just about the point where the 1962 gum cards, Mars Attacks! begin.*

As a final note, I do not know why the blue alien suddenly becomes comic book caucasian on the last page. A mistake by the colorist? A clever alien disguise?

*Click on the thumbnail to see the set of Mars Attacks! cards presented by Hairy Green Eyeball:

Posted in: Pappy Comics