OUTER SPACE IN THE 1950s - GUEST POST BY BARRY PEARL...

Images copyright relevant and respective ownere

Space may not have been the final frontier, it may have been one of the first. Especially in comics!

Unless you're old enough to have read comics in the 1950s (I'm not) those comics have been unavailable to you, in any quantity, until now.  Even DC and Marvel have stopped reprinting much from that time.  In our current decade PS Publishing and Gwandanaland have been reprinting many of these comics, giving people like me their first opportunity to read them.

I wish I could tell you that I discovered this with great thought, but I really noticed it when fixing up my bookshelf.  (That's it below.)

I knew that super-hero comics died out mostly before the 1950s, and that crime, horror and jungle girls mostly replaced them.  What I didn’t realize is how many comic books were devoted to outer space, space travel and the world of the future. Years before Sputnik and manned space flight, but during the time of a lot of Sci-Fi movies, there was a ton of “Outer Space” comic books.  Many “fantasy” comics would also include space and alien stories too.  Even the comic strips added Jack Kirby’s Sky Masters. And, in 1964, even Dick Tracy got in on the act by adding Moon Maid to the strip.

Interestingly enough, the “Outer Space” heroes, Superman from Krypton and the Martian Manhunter, spent little time in space during that period. Later, of course, Adam Strange, a super-hero, had stories in Mystery in Space, and Green Lantern belonged to a Universal Corp.

I've included some interesting scans from that era, including the batch of comics PS has put out.

Below is a list of comic books (not strips). It's not complete or comprehensive, but gives a basic idea of just how many titles were out there.

Airboy Comics * Astonishing Tales (Marvel Boy) * Captain Video * Fantastic Worlds * Flying Saucers - Avon (1950) * Flying Saucers Comics - Dell (1967-1969) * Forbidden Worlds * Journey Into Unknown Worlds - Marvel (1951) * Lars of Mars * Lost Worlds * Mystery In Space - DC * Out of this World * Outer Space * Planet Comics * Space Busters * Space Detective * Space Man - Dell (1962-1972) * Spacemen (July 1961) * Space Mysteries - I. W. Publishing * Super Comics (1958) * Space Patrol * Space Worlds * Spaceman: Speed Carter * Strange Adventures - DC * Strange Tales * Strange Worlds * Tom Corbett Space Cadet * UFO Flying Saucers - Gold Key (1968-1977) * Weird Fantasy * Weird Science * Weird Science Fantasy #26 - E.C. (1954)

Posted in: Cartoons