Unusual Tales - Ten Billion B.C.

"Unusual Tales", a series presenting Steve Ditko's comics from 1957 to 1959 that are in the public domain.

"Ten Billion B.C." is a 7-page story from Charlton's OUTER SPACE #19 [1958].  I guess you could call it a cautionary fable about an ancient civilization on the world Primus, a giant globe that was then the only planet in the universe, and developed an advanced society of people with really high foreheads.  Unfortunately, there's always a hitch, in this case a man named Accra who's not content in paradise.


A very strange little story, as usual it's Ditko's visual flare that brings it to life. The balance of white-space on page 4 is nicely done, and the innovative layout on the final page works really well.

Some links to check out:
Buy Ditko's creator-owned work
Find out about the fanzine DITKOMANIA
Check out new and upcoming Ditko publications
Download public domain comics, likely including the one this story is from
(scans in this series generally adapted to my personal tastes from those copies)

Click images to big-up.

 

 

Unusual Tales - The Man Who Lost His Face

"Unusual Tales", a series presenting Steve Ditko's comics from 1957 to 1959 that are in the public domain.

"The Man Who Lost His Face" was published by Charlton in STRANGE SUSPENSE STORIES #34 [1957] and has never been reprinted since.  Sort of.  Page 3 might give some of you a feeling of déjà vu.

A man finds himself walking in a daze down a country road, not sure how he got there.  When he gets home, he finds that someone is already there with his face, and discovers his own face has changed.  Slowly his memories come back, and he has to find a way to convince the police that there's an alien invasion afoot.

For those curious, Jack Finney's novel THE BODY SNATCHERS was written in 1954, and the movie INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS came out in 1956.  I don't know why I mentioned that...

Be that as it may, that large image on the splash page is really evocative, classic Ditko, having the same effect as a really good movie poster.  And page three has some really good visual tricks, the transition into the memories and the layouts nicely reinforcing the concept of fragmented memories.

And as an example of the care Charlton put into their comics, check out the dates on the first page.

Some links to check out:
Buy Ditko's creator-owned work
Find out about the fanzine DITKOMANIA
Check out new and upcoming Ditko publications
Download public domain comics, likely including the one this story is from
(scans in this series generally adapted to my personal tastes from those copies)

Click images to big-up.

 

And now you know… the rest of the story.

Unusual Tales - The Desert Spell

"Unusual Tales", a series presenting Steve Ditko's comics from 1957 to 1959 that are in the public domain.

I've been concentrating on the eighty or so never reprinted stories from this period up until now, but I'm skipping ahead a bit for this beauty, for reasons to be discussed elsewhere.  I figure some people might want to see all five pages...

"The Desert Spell" is a 5-page story, all of those pages appearing in Charlton's STRANGE SUSPENSE STORIES #34 [1957]. Opening with a lone WWII era German tank in the desert, we get the story of a high ranking Nazi officer who managed to escape at the end of the war and use a chemical to put himself in suspended animation.  Ten years later, he's ready to resume his dreams of world conquest.  Lucky for the world he's not that sharp.  Think Bouncing Boy's origin, for you Legion of Super-Hero fans...

A wonderfully drawn story, especially noteworthy for the rather unusual use of mechanical tones for Ditko. I'm not sure of the exact artistic terms for the stuff, but in addition to the dot-screen zipatone that shows up in some of Ditko's work from the era, there's also a different tone of tightly drawn lines.  Is that doushade paper, or some other technique?  Whatever it is, it's really expertly done, look at the monocle in that closeup, and all of page 3 for that matter.  Man, that's a good page.  Unfortunately the scans don't do it justice (though at least they're all there), but then I don't think any reproduction of the story based on the printed comic can do it justice, even moreso than most comics of the era. Man, I hope the artwork for this one survived and got back into Ditko's hands.

Some links to check out:
Buy Ditko's creator-owned work
With all sorts of unusual art techniques
Find out about the fanzine DITKOMANIA
New issue coming soon
Check out new and upcoming Ditko publications
Frequently including all the pages, even
Download public domain comics, likely including the one this story is from
Scans in this series generally adapted to my personal tastes from those copies

Click images to big-up.

Ghostly Haunts #32 [1973]

"The Shetabi Legend" is an 8-page Joe Gill scripted story drawn by Ditko.  Winnie the Witch narrates the story of a pair of researchers who go into the Canadian northwest to investigate some old legends about a large, hairy beast named the Shetabi, basically Sasquatch. An old native takes them to the mountains, where one of the men gets injured when a storm comes up.  Their guide leaves them, and then they encounter the Shetabi, who ends up taking them to safety in a cave.

Kind of an odd second half to the story, as the structure really seems to imply that the old native turned into the Shetabi, but that turns out not to be the case.  So an unexpected twist is always good.

Ditko's art is excellent in the stormy mountains, really detailed and expressive.  I especially like the first panel of page 6, seen below, a great use of heavy blacks and key details to set the mood of the scene.

New Mr. A. for sale, Old Mr. A. question

If anyone is interested, I have just one copy of the latest Ditko book, the MR. A. reprint, on hand, which I've put on Ebay, benefiting the CBLDF.  I'll probably get some more copies later, but it might be a few months.  Still have a few sets of the other recent books (see sidebar or here) and some of the older stuff, if you're interested.

Of course, all of them are always available from Robin Snyder, and if you know of a retailer interested in carrying them, they can get them wholesale from Snyder at a better discount then they get most other independent comics from their distributors.

And speaking of Mr. A., Brain Franczak pointed out this finished auction to me. Does anyone know if the Mr. A. image in question was ever published, or anything else about the image?

Thane Of Bagarth #24 [1985]

Thane Of Bagarth was the back-up feature by Steve Skeates and Jim Aparo in the late 1960s HERCULES series from Charlton.  Towards the end of their publishing life, Charlton had two issues reprinting the earliest stories, plus some other material.  In this issue, that included "The Hammer Of Thor" from OUT OF THIS WORLD #11 [1959], a 5-page story drawn by Steve Ditko.

The old mythic Norse hero Thor made any number of appearances in comics prior to the most famous one that Jack Kirby drew in 1962, including several by Jack Kirby.  In this short story, the legend of Thor is traced to a weak young man named Thor back in the days of the vikings.  In the forests where he retreats to be in peace Thor finds a cave where, for some reason, he gradually "grew strong in the rays of the cave's mysterious energy beams", and also found a metal hammer which had destructive potential when he threw it.  Later, Huns invade from the east, conquering all until they run into the now bearded Thor, who drives them away with his hammer.  Thor then retreated to the solitude of his forest and into legends passed down through the ages.

More like an outline of a story than an actual story, and some of the parts which might have made for the best visuals are just described in the captions, and no real explanation of the cave and the hammer.  A decent example of Ditko's work from the time, solid but a bit more sparse than some of this work either a few years earlier or later, made slightly more interesting by what was later done in comics with the same legends (and the probably coincidental finding of the hammer in a cave).

This issue also features a full page ad for Ditko's STATIC series which was starting up from Charlton that same month, using a large panel from the first story.

Unusual Tales - The Men From Hsin-Chiu

"Unusual Tales", a series presenting Steve Ditko's comics from 1957 to 1959 that are in the public domain.

Charlton's SPACE ADVENTURES #26 [1958] features the odd 5-page "The Men From Hsin-Chiu" drawn by Ditko.  It features a teacher in China telling a story about a doomed planet and their version of Jor-el having slightly more luck in saving some of his people from the destruction of his planet when his predictions aren't believed by the leaders.

Not quite sure what I think of this story, I guess if I was generous I'd say it's a dated product of its time.

Nice art by Ditko, though.  Of interest to those looking for echoes of work a few years in the future, take a close look at the window in the background of the middle panel of page 2.

Some links to check out:
Buy Ditko's creator-owned work
Find out about the fanzine DITKOMANIA
Check out new and upcoming Ditko publications
Download public domain comics, likely including the one this story is from
(scans in this series generally adapted to my personal tastes from those copies)

Click images to blow up images like doomed planet.

 

Ghostly Haunts #44 [1975]

The 7-page "Trophy Room" is the lead story of this Charlton comic. The writer is Gary Petras, and it features an arrogant young big-game hunter named Woodrow Kingsley. The opening is a great shot of him in this trophy room, full of the usual array of stuffed and mounted animals. As he shows off his various prizes, he rebuffs a lecture on conservation by one guest, while another expresses interest in going with him to hunt some elephant. Later in Africa, Kingley makes some joking comments about wanting to hunt humans, but it turns out he wasn't joking when the guide they hire fails to find them some illegal elephants to shoot. The guide's grandmother doesn't buy that accident story, and curses Kingsley, which he dismisses until he returns to his trophy room.

Kind of a half-formed story, really. There are some really nice bits in Ditko's art, especially the animals and the shooting scene, which captures the fear and insanity on the faces well, but other parts are the more workmanlike style with minimal backgrounds that a few stories from this era feature. And it's not a very inspiring story in any case.