Comics, old time radio and other cool stuff

Friday's Favorite OTR

noreply@blogger.com (Tim DeForest) — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 13:00:00 +0000

Dragnet: "The Big Press" 6/15/50

Women are getting mugged and beaten by the same two guys. Friday is tasked with catching them.

Click HERE to listen or download.

Short Story Genre Survey, Part 5

noreply@blogger.com (Tim DeForest) — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 13:00:00 +0000

Sports

Adventure  

Mystery

Crime

Horror 

Science Fiction 

Fantasy

Western 

War

I've added a category. Today, we'll be looking at a mystery that is a traditional whodunit. I realized that we also need a category for hard-boiled crime stories. Some of them do have a whodunit element, but its not a necessary component and I think you can consider traditional mysteries and noirish crime tales to be separate genres.

Anyway, as I said, we'll be looking at a traditional whodunit--this one by the Queen of Whodunits, Agatha Christie. Gee whiz, the woman was brilliant. Her mysteries are fair-play. The clues are always there for us to see. But they are so casually dropped into the story that we easily miss them.

"A Christmas Tragedy" (originally titled "The Hat and the Alibi") was published in the January 1930 issue of The Story-Teller. It's part of a series of stories in which the clever Miss Marple is at a gathering with friends. In each story, a friend tells of an experience that includes a mystery. Miss Marple, of course, inevitably figures out the mystery part of it.

This time, it's Miss Marple's turn to tell a tale. And it's a good one. She tells about a time that she realized a husband was planning to murder his wife and make it look like an accident. But she has no proof and knows the wife won't believe her. 

Then the wife was murdered. But it's not an accident. It's obviously a murder. She was bashed over the head in her hotel room. 

But the husband has a solid alibi. He couldn't have done it. It was, the police conclude, a burglar she caught in the room.

This doesn't sit well with Miss Marple. But she concedes that the husband does indeed have an alibi for the time his wife was murdered.

Or so it seems...

It's a story I can't summarzie any further without spoilers. The clues are there and the solution is clever and satsifying. This is the sort of puzzle that Christie did better than anyone else. I'm afraid I don't have a link to take you directly to the story this time, but its worth searching out. It's available in the anthologies The Thirteen Problems and The Complete Short Stories of Agatha Christie. 

Yet Another Imperial Super Weapon!

noreply@blogger.com (Tim DeForest) — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 13:00:00 +0000

cover art by Walt Simonson

After the release of The Empire Strikes Back, Marvel's Star Wars comic was in an interesting place. The writers would have no idea how the cliffhanger of Han being captured and frozen would play out. They had no idea what position either the Rebels or the Empire would be in when the next movie eventually came out. So the comic had to come up with good stories that didn't upset the overall continuity too much. Sadly, they had to also avoid using Han Solo.

It's notable that they still succeeded in telling some good Star Wars stories. In Star Wars #51 (September 1981), writer David Michelinie and artist Walt Simonson give us the first half of a pretty nifty two-parter.

An X-Wing with a dead pilot reaches its base ship. The pilot had been on a spy mission and set the X-Wing's course before he died, knowing the information canister he had was vitally needed by the Rebellion.

What's in that canister? It's a minor irony of the comic that we find out the Empire isn't building a second Death Star (though we learn in the next movie that they were), but are taking the Death Star's planet-destroying laser and strapping engines and defensive systems to it. Same idea, but more compact and defensible. The new weapon is called the Tarkin. Though why you would name it after the ol' Grand Moff after the Death Star was destroyed on his watch is an open question.

If I might digress for a moment, the expanded Star Wars universe really did overdo the notion of the Empire continually building superweapons. The idea is revisited in a number of novels. If the sequel trilogy produced in the 2010s really existed (and we all know now that these films were a collective nightmare that DON'T REALLY EXIST), then we'd have to add the sun-destroying whatever-it-was from The Force Awakens to the list. But many of these stories were individually good, such as the one we are reviewing here.

It also gives Simonson a chance to draw a fantastic full-page panel image of the Tarkin. Simonson was the perfect artist for Star Wars. Or, for that matter, just about any science fiction comic. His imagination and artistry brings SF worlds to vivid life.

It's decided that the rebels who escaped the Death Star were the perfect commandos to sneak about the Tarkin and somehow destroy it from within. Leia and Luke (each with one of the droids) are on separate missions to find a location for a new Rebel base after the evacuation of Hoth. Chewbacca is with Lando on the Millennium Falcon, searching for Boba Fett and Han. Each group has a mini-adventure of their own before being recalled for their new mission.

Lando is left behind, with a scene that tells us not everyone trusts him after his betrayal of Han on Bespin. The others travel to a spaceport from which workers are being transported to the Tarkin. They mug a couple of workers for uniforms and Luke uses the Force to convince a Stormtrooper they are all on the passenger manifest so they can board the next shuttle to the Tarkin.

But Vader is aboard the Tarkin as well and he senses Luke's presence. And, to add to the complexity of the situation, the issue ends with a panel that tells us a bunch of Imperial officers, sick of Vader's habit of killing anyone who makes a mistake, plan to assassinate the Sith Lord.

It's a good story with a great setup for the next issue. Simonson's art is perfect. The mini-adventures might have existed because the page count would have been short otherwise, but they are fun in and of themselves. They also give each of the protagonists a chance to shine. Besides, in Star Wars, a hero really can't go anywhere without getting into some sort of adventure. It's that sort of galaxy.

It's a story set when the original SW heroes were still heroes, not grumpy, cynical old men. It's a story written during a time when Star Wars was still fun.

We'll look at Part 2 next week.

Cover Cavalcade

noreply@blogger.com (Tim DeForest) — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 13:00:00 +0000

JUNE IS AVENGERS vs JLA MONTH!!!

From February 1974. The JLA cover is by Nick Cardy; the Avengers by Jim Starlin.

Friday's Favorite OTR

noreply@blogger.com (Tim DeForest) — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 13:00:00 +0000

Suspense: "A Week Ago Wednesday" 11/29/45

A woman comes home to discover she's lost a week of her life--and according to the newspaper, she's been murdered by her husband.

Click HERE to listen or download.

Short Story Genre Survey, Part 4

noreply@blogger.com (Tim DeForest) — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 13:00:00 +0000

This week, we look at a war story.

Sports

Adventure  

Mystery

Horror 

Science Fiction 

Fantasy

Western 

War

It is shameful that William Chamberlain's fiction (war-themed and Westerns) are out of print. The guy was good. A career military officer who retired as a general in 1946, he often wrote what he knew. Much of his military fiction is told from the point-of-view of an officer--usually a commanding officer--and dealt with matters of leadership and responsibility.  At the same time, he didn't forget about the grunts, making sure he humanized the noncoms and privates as well. 

"Hard-Luck Regiment" is a solid example of how good he is. Originally published in the September 22, 1951 issue of The Saturday Evening Post, it was later reprinted in the 1964's More Combat Stories of World War II and Korea, the second of two anthologies collecting Chamberlain's short fiction. This book was reprinted as a paperback in 1969 under the title The Zone of Sudden Death.

It's January 1945 and American troops are advancing into the Huertgen Forest, a real-life campaign that turned into a bloodbath. Maj. Clay Daggett--new to combat--has just become the executive officer of a battalion in the 26th Regiment, which has a reputation for hard luck.

The reputation seems to be well-earned. The regiment captures a couple of towns, but takes heavy losses and one of the towns is retaken. The regiment's commander, Dan Sharkey, wants to counterattack, figuring that this unexpected move and the morning fog will mean the Germans will be caught with their pants down.

Daggett, who now commands a battalion because the original C.O. was killed, thinks this plan is nuts. When orders arrive ordering the regiment to retreat and promoting Sharkey to general, Daggett is relieved. No suicide attack now.

But Sharkey has been with the regiment since the Great War. He knows what they can do. He knows the hard-luck reputation comes from the regiment getting hard missions--but also accomplishing those missions.  Daggett thinks he's making a horrible decision, but he doesn't know the regiment like Sharkey.

It's a strong story, setting up the premise effectively, giving us supporting characters among the enlisted men so we never forget what's at stake, and introducing themes about inspirational leadership into the tale. The combat sequence is short, but effective. Not everyone we've met will be alive at the end and the success of the mission is very uncertain for a time, but we learn a thing or two about leading men from the front.

"Hard-Luck Regiment" is typical of the quality of Chamberlain's work. He really does need to be brought back into print.

Man-Wolf Goes to Space, Part 4

noreply@blogger.com (Tim DeForest) — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 13:00:00 +0000

cover art by George Perez

Marvel Premiere #46 (February 1979) brings Man-Wolf's epic Space Opera adventure to a close. The script is still by David Kraft. For this final issue, George Perez does the breakdowns and Ricardo Villamonte does the finished art.

We left off last time with Man-Wolf and one companion (Gorjoon) seeking to rescue their companions from the palace of Tyrk, the ruthless dictator.

The trouble is that Tyrk's palace floats in the air well above them.

But the moonstone is still increasing Man-Wolf's strength. Using this strength means that a rope tied to a spear will give them a way to climb up.

There's some great dialogue between Man-Wolf and the scared but still determined Gorjoon during the sequence, adding a little bit of humor to the otherwise tense situation. But when they reach the palace, things get tense once again. His companions who were captured in the previous issue are chained and about to be tortured. Man-Wolf violently objects to this and soon, after freeing some other prisoners as well, he's leading the good guys in a charge towards Tyrk's throne room.

But the charge is stopped dead when they reach the throne room. Over the last few issues of this story, there's been a sub-plot set back on Earth in which someone has kidnapped John's girlfriend Kristine Saunders. Now we find out that it was Tyrk who did that kidnapping.

Man-Wolf has a choice. Surrender or watch the woman he loves die. (Tyrk, of course, is planning on killing her no matter what.)

Man-Wolf opts to take a third option--allowing himself to access the full god-powers of the stone. Soon, stuff starts exploding.

It turns out, though, that only the bad guys blew up. Kristine is safe and the dimension is free from its evil ruler.

There's one more scare before the story ends. Kristine goes through a portal back to Earth. But before Man-Wolf can follow, a not-quite-dead Tyrk destroys the portal. At first, it seems John Jameson is getting the tragic ending that all werewolf characters seemed destined to get. But John is able to use the last of his god powers to force himself through the dimensional barrier to Earth.

Hey, a werewolf gets a happy ending!

Kraft and the artists bring this epic to a satisfying conclusion. Villamonte does justice to Perez's breakdowns, bringing the well-written story to vivid life. And the happy ending fits. Not every werewolf story has to end tragically. This time, the happy ending is earned.

What'll we look at next week? Well, with Disney doing such a good job of destroying Star Wars in modern day, it might be nice to look back at a time when Star Wars was still fun.

Cover Cavalcade

noreply@blogger.com (Tim DeForest) — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 13:00:00 +0000

JUNE IS AVENGERS vs JLA MONTH!!!

From February 1973: The JLA cover is by Nick Cardy and the Avengers by Rich Buckler.

Friday's Favorite OTR

noreply@blogger.com (Tim DeForest) — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 13:00:00 +0000

Escape: "Seven Hours to Freedom" 11/3/50

A commercial fishing boat is hijacked by escaping convicts. The two-man crew is given a choice: Die now, or take the convicts to Mexico and die later.

Click HERE to listen or download.

Cover Cavalcade

noreply@blogger.com (Tim DeForest) — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 13:00:00 +0000

JUNE IS AVENGERS vs. JLA MONTH!!!

Two Neal Adams covers, both in issues cover dated February 1972.

Friday's Favorite OTR

noreply@blogger.com (Tim DeForest) — Fri, 29 May 2026 13:00:00 +0000

Screen Guild Theater: "Destry Rides Again" 2/2/41

Henry Fonda takes the role as the soft-spoken deputy tasked with cleaning up a lawless town.

Click HERE to download or listen.

NO WEDNESDAY/THURSDAY POSTS FOR TWO WEEKS

noreply@blogger.com (Tim DeForest) — Wed, 27 May 2026 13:00:00 +0000

My wife and I are of on a river cruise down the Danube, during which we will undoubtably battle sea monsters and use brilliant deductive reasoning to solver murders. So there will be no Wednesday or Thursday posts until June 10.

Cover Cavalcade

noreply@blogger.com (Tim DeForest) — Mon, 25 May 2026 13:00:00 +0000

MAY IS POST-APOCALYPTIC FUTURE MONTH!!!!

Killraven is having a bad day in the Herb Trimpe cover from 1974.

Friday's Favorite OTR

noreply@blogger.com (Tim DeForest) — Fri, 22 May 2026 13:00:00 +0000

Burns and Allen: "Cast Your Ballot" 2/9/43

Gracie wants to be president of her women's club, so she wants to get a celebrity speaker for the next meeting. This requires telling one fib to Charles Laughton, telling a different fib to George and a THIRD fib to the club members. What can possibly go wrong?

Click HERE to listen or download

Short Story Genre Survey, Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (Tim DeForest) — Thu, 21 May 2026 13:00:00 +0000

Today, we tackle a fantasy tale:

Sports

Adventure  

Mystery

Horror 

Science Fiction 

Fantasy

Western 

War

In the 1930s, Clark Ashton Smith wrote his Zothique tales--stories set in the far future. This dying Earth is lit by a dim, red sun and the world is infested with magic and monsters. They are fantastic stories full of vivid imagery, ornate prose and sardonic humor.

In the 1950s, Jack Vance began writing his version of a Dying Earth. In a 1981 interview, he freely admitted Smith's influence. Though Vance (like Smith, an extraordinary writer) gave his Dying Earth its own feel, it was very similar to Zothique in many ways. Dim, red sun, magic and monsters, ornate prose, vivid imagery and sardonic humor.

One of Vance's best characters lived in his Dying Earth setting. Cugel the Clever was a thief and con artist who wasn't necessarily as clever as he thought he was. His plans to make a less-than-honest living pretty nearly always went awry or led to unplanned consequences.

In 1974, Vance returned to Cugel after the thief had disappeared into Fiction Limbo for some years. "The Seventeen Virgins." first appeared in the October 1974 issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine.

It takes a while for the virgins to come into the picture. Cugel is fleeing one location and comes across a village whose people and customs are unknown to him. He makes some money running a dishonest card game and a fake fortune teller scam.

It's here the titular virgins appear. Wanting to move on, he uses a less-than-ethical plan to get a job as the night guard on a caravan transporting the virgins to another city for a religious ceremony. But Cugel is the only night guard, which means he's free to secretly visit some of the virgins. Not all of them qualify for their roles when the caravan reaches its destination.

This city bases its culture on altruism and redemption, so Cugel is given an opportnity to redeem himself. This, unfortunately, involves giving Cugel the task of talking to a captured demon and giving it a chance to give up evil. This is not likely to end well.

Like all the Cugel stories, this one is just plain fun to read. Like Clark Ashton Smith, Vance had a love for obscure words and a talent for picking just the right words to make any particular sentence a delight to read.

This story isn't quite as old as most of the prose fiction I discuss on this blog, but what the heck. It's definitely worth reading. You can find it online HERE.

Man Wolf Goes to Space, Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (Tim DeForest) — Wed, 20 May 2026 13:00:00 +0000

cover art by George Perez

Three stinkin' years. That's how long it had been since the publication of Creatures on the Loose #37 in 1975, after publishing the second part of a 4-part Man -Wolf/Space Opera epic. I wonder what the sales for the next two issues of Marvel Premiere were. In those ancient days, many of us were still depending on spinner racks at the local 7/11 to find our comics. We may have long forgotten poor Man-Wolf's dilemma by the time Marvel Premiere #45 (December 1978) came out, or we might have missed it on the inconsistently stocked spinner racks.

Well, if nothing else, that George Perez cover is eye-catching.

And his interior art, (with the script by David Kraft), is equally awesome. The story left off with John Jameson and three warriors from another dimension escaping a space station and heading for the moon. But the moonlight turned Jameson into Man-Wolf, who (unlike his human counterpart) is not a skilled space pilot.

So we pick up with the ship crashed on the moon and the three warriors unconscious. Man-Wolf, though, rips his way out of the ship. Something protects him from the lack of atmosphere and temperature extremes as he's drawn in a particular direction.

He enters a cave, passes through a dimensional gateway and ends up in another dimension. (The three warriors join him soon after, linking up with the other people Man-Wolf meets.)

Suddenly, Man-Wolf can think--Jameson's personality is in control. And he can communicate telepathically with the others. He discovers that this dimension's Stargod had grown old and created the gate to travel to our moon and die there, thus sparing his home dimension the effects of his decay.

John found the Stargod's stone, but not enough energy from the Stargod's home dimension leaked through to give John access to the stone's full powers. Thus, he was stuck being a mindless werewolf until now.

There's quite a bit of exposition here, as we also learn that this small band of warriors is battling the ruthless dictator who rules the dimension. But the information is delivered to us quickly and Perez's art continues to pop off the page, so the pacing of the tale does not suffer.

Man-Wolf agrees to help them. They charge into battle on flying beasts and are soon locked in combat with the dictator's undead minions.

So an astronaut/werewolf armed with a sword leads a ragtag band of extra-dimensional rebels flying dragon/pegasus hybrids into battle against undead warriors. THIS is why I love comic books.

The battle does not go well. Two of the rebels are killed. Man-Wolf and another rebel are knocked out of the sky. The remainder are captured.

But the war isn't over. When Man-Wolf sees the corpse of one of the rebels, he vows revenge.

One can argue that the moon-stone that turns John Jameson into a monster didn't need any more of a back story than "it's magic/super-science of some sort." But here, David Kraft and George Perez give that stone a super-cool origin that tosses Man-Wolf into a Space Opera epic, effectively stitching together a lot of bizarre cool elements to satisfy the nerdist of nerds. And it ends with a very effective cliffhanger.

But we will not be looking at the conclusion next week, I'm afraid. My wife and I are off to Germany to take a river cruise down the Danube and (I'm assuming/hoping) use brilliant deductive reasoning to solve a murder along the way. That means a two-week break in both Wednesday and Thursday posts. Be patient. We'll look at the last part of this story in three weeks.

Cover Cavalcade

noreply@blogger.com (Tim DeForest) — Mon, 18 May 2026 13:00:00 +0000

MAY IS POST-APOCALYPTIC FUTURE MONTH!!!!

Bob Larkin painted this 1973 cover.

Friday's Favorite OTR

noreply@blogger.com (Tim DeForest) — Fri, 15 May 2026 13:00:00 +0000

Broadway is my Beat: "The Charles and Jane Kimbell Murder Case" 3/17/50

A car is dredged up from the river. But the two corpses in it didn't drown--they were shot.

Click HERE to listen or download.

Short Story Genre Survey, Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Tim DeForest) — Thu, 14 May 2026 13:00:00 +0000

cover art by Alexander Leydenfrost

Sports

Adventure

Mystery

Horror 

Science Fiction 

Fantasy

Western  

War

Last week, we looked at a Sports story. This week, we jump from the baseball diamond to the planet Vulcan.

No, not that Vulcan. During the 17th to 19th centuries, there was a theory that another planet, tentatively named Vulcan, was orbiting inside the orbit of Mercury. This was to explain some anomalies in Mercury's orbit that Newtonian physics couldn't explain. Eventually, Einstein's relativity theory did explain Mercury's orbit, eliminating the need for Vulcan. 

It was only logical.

In her short story "Child of the Sun," Leigh Brackett (who was always making the Solar System more interesting than it is in real life) brought Vulcan back. In the story (published in the Spring 1942 issue of Planet Stories), three people are in a spaceship, fleeing the forces of the tyrant who rules the Solar System.

That tyrant uses a machine to make everyone "Happy"--content with his rule and without any desire to ever improve or advance.  Those who refuse to be "Happy" are called the Unregenerates. Most of them are hidden in the outer rim of the system, slowly dying out from the harsh conditions there.

Paul Falken, a leader among the Unregenerates, and two companions are being chased by the tyrant's ships. They pull a dangerous maneuver to escape, skimming past Mercury and coming dangerously close to the sun. There, they stumble across the previously undiscovered planet Vulcan.

They land and explore. They see visions of creatures that could not possibly exist on this airless world. And then they discover a nearly immortal being who was literally born from the sun and who has incredible powers.

Will this child of the sun help them and the other Unregenerates? Or will it prove to be even more dangerous than the tyrant?

This is a great story. Brackett gives us strong characterizations among the three humans, takes the story in some unexpected directions, and creates an alien menace that is truly... well, alien. And she brings the tale to a satisfying resolution. Brackett's stories always gave us a satisfying combination of character, imagination and pure wonder. "Child of the Sun" is a prime example of her extraordinary skill as a storyteller.

Also, as I said, she made the Solar System so much more interesting than it is in real-life. Life on Mars, life on Venus, life on the moons of the outer planets. And now, life birthed in the sun!!! WHY ISN'T OUR SOLAR SYSTEM MORE LIKE THIS?

Click HERE to find the story online.

Man Wolf Goes to Space, Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Tim DeForest) — Wed, 13 May 2026 13:00:00 +0000

cover by Gil Kane

In the previous issue of Creatures on the Loose, we left Man Wolf aboard a NASA space station, unconscious after having lost a fight with one of three aliens who had taken over the station.

With this issue (#37, September 1975), writer David Kraft and artist George Perez pick up the story right where it left off. But the alien, Garth, is attacked by the NASA crew, who are understandably annoyed that the aliens have taken over the station's control room.

Garth gets away. The astronauts tie up Man Wolf. They then destroy the artificial gravity generators, allowing them to attack the control room via access ducts that lead straight upward into that room.

But Man Wolf regains consciousness and--well, it's not easy to tie up a superstrong being. He breaks loose and Perez gives us an incredible two page spread of the ensuing zero gravity melee.

It's only when the sun sets behind the moon, cutting off Man Wolf from moonlight, that he weakens. The astronauts overpower him, lock him in an X-Ray chamber and then proceed with their assault on the control room.

Garth, though, circles around the crew, knocks out the guards at the X-Ray chamber, and releases John Jameson.

Because Man Wolf has indeed reverted to human. He was even trying to talk his guards--guys he had met during astronaut training--to let him go. But when Garth arrives, he decides to throw in his lot with the aliens.

They get back to the control room and, along with the other two aliens, everyone gets into John's original rescue vehicle. They head for the moon.

But that brings them back into moonlight, which is a very bad thing when the guy piloting the ship is a werewolf.

Also, one of the astronauts back on the station had taken an X-Ray of John, announcing to his crewmates that the moonstone isn't just a stone. It's an alien that has established a symbiotic relationship of some sort with John!

What does all this mean? Well, don't ask a Marvel reader from 1975. Creatures on the Loose was cancelled after this issue, leaving the poor readers in limbo. David Kraft, the writer, does include a page of prose describing how the story would have unfolded, but we won't look at that. Because after a three-year wait, the story would be concluded in two issues of Marvel Premiere. We'll begin a look at that next week.

I'm glad the rest of the story was eventually published. This issue continues to set up a strong Space Opera plot, given backbone by Perez's incredible artwork. It's great comic book storytelling and the world deserved to find out how it ends.

Cover Cavalcade

noreply@blogger.com (Tim DeForest) — Mon, 11 May 2026 13:00:00 +0000

MAY IS POST-APOCALYPTIC FUTURE MONTH!!!!

A dynamic Jack Kirby cover from 1973.

Friday's Favorite OTR

noreply@blogger.com (Tim DeForest) — Fri, 08 May 2026 13:00:00 +0000

You Are There: "New Amsterdam" 1/22/50

The British are demanding the Dutch surrender the city of New Amersterdam. Will they fight or will they give up?

Click HERE to listen or download.

Short Story Genre Survey, Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Tim DeForest) — Thu, 07 May 2026 12:42:00 +0000

cover art by George Gross

Recently, my Thursday posts have proportionally been concentrating on short stories more than movies or other subjects I normally cover. I didn't plan it that way, but what the hey. It happened.

So I thought "Why not give the short story reviews more structure?" Because if there is one thing that is lacking in the world, it's more structure on obscure blogs in coverage of short stories. It is, I think, the greatest failing of our civilization.

So I decided to make a list of genres, then--over the course of the "Short Story Genre Survey" I am starting today--cover one story from each of these genres.

Here's the Genre List:

Sports

Adventure  

Mystery

Horror 

Science Fiction 

Fantasy

Western  

War

Sports is crossed off because we are knocking the sports story out of the park today.

"Ol' Knucklehead," by Paul R. McCully, was published in the Summer 1946 issue of Baseball Stories. According to the FictionMag index, this is his only published work.

But it's a good one. In fact, the baseball stories (and sports stories in general) from this era were always a lot of fun. Written without cynicism, they tell straightforward tales that usually depend on inning-by-inning accounts of key games to generate tension. I love 'em.

The story involves a fictional National League team called the Barons that brings up a new catcher from the minors. The new guy is an extremely confident hotshot who soon gets on everyone's nerves. But he's a good hitter and he has an uncanny ability to signal for just the right pitch.

But he screws up, once with an embarrassing fielding error and, in another game, with an even more embarrassing running error. This gets him benched and earns him the nickname "Knucklehead."

It's only when the Barons play the Cubs in the last game of the series that "Knucklehead" might have a chance to redeem himself when he improvises a brilliant plan during a key at-bat. It's a plan that is perfectly within the rules, but I can't find an example of it being done deliberately. Kudos to the writer for coming up with something both original and plausible.

As I said, it's a fun story--hitting all the right vibes that make the sports stories from the first half of the 20th-Century so gosh darn entertaining.

It's also fun to think about another aspect of the story. Or at least it's fun if you are a total nerd: Why was the protagonist put on a fictional team rather than a real one?

As far as I can determine (and I'm not an expert, so take this with a grain of salt), it was (and is) okay for writers to use real-life teams in fiction as long as it's for story purposes and not marketing. John Tunis' classic 1943 baseball novel The Keystone Kids, for instance, put its main characters on the roster of the Brooklyn Dodgers. There's no evidence that Tunis had to obtain permission to do this. He just did.

But the pulp magazines often used fictional team names. Part of the reason, I think, was to stay neutral and not alienate any fans. If you put your hero on the Yankees, you might drive Red Sox fans away from buying your magazine in the future. A fictional team avoids this problem and also allows the writer to ignore real-life schedules, pennant results and so on.

Also, I thought I caught the writer of "Ol' Knucklehead" in a slight error, but when I looked it up, I discovered there was no error AND there was actually a factoid from baseball history I actually DIDN'T KNOW!!! I hang my head in shame, of course. The "error" is that the Barons and the Cubs end the season with 1/2 game difference in the standings. This means they didn't play the same number of games, which in turn means someone had a game cancelled (likely a rain delay) that was not made up. With the pennant at stake, I thought, wouldn't the league have made a point of getting that game played?

The answer is NO: Unless the game needed to be played because of a tie for first place, the League would allow the 1/2 game lead to stand. Travel restrictions and other logistical matters made playing the game impractical. In 1908, for instance, the Detroit Tigers had a never-made-up rainout and finished 90-63. This put them one game over the Cleveland Naps, who finished at 90-64. Gee whiz--why didn't I know this? I pride myself on my impeccable knowledge of baseball history, but didn't know this! WHY, UNIVERSE? WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO ME?

Anyway, you can find this story online HERE. If you like baseball, I can pretty much promise you'll enjoy reading it.

Next week, we will look at a story from another genre.

Man Wolf Goes to Space! Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Tim DeForest) — Wed, 06 May 2026 13:00:00 +0000

cover art by Gil Kane

In 1974 and 1975, the last eight issues of Creatures on the Loose focused on Man Wolf. This, of course, is John Jameson, the astronaut son of J. Jonah Jameson who has a moonstone grafted to his skin that turns him into Man Wolf. He's not just a werewolf. He's an ASTRONAUT WEREWOLF. That's inherently cool.

Creatures on the Loose was cancelled in the middle of a Man Wolf story arc that sends our astronaut werewolf back into space. This left readers hanging and the tale wasn't concluded for ANOTHER THREE YEARS, when it finally resurfaced in two issues of Marvel Premiere. Gee whiz, it wasn't always easy being a comic book reader back in those ancient times.

Anyway, what we are going to do this week is look at Creatures on the Loose #36 (July 1975), written by David Kraft and drawn by George Perez. In the following weeks, we'll move on to the next (and last) issue of Creatures, then on to the two issues of Marvel Premiere that finish up this story.

Anyway, poor John has been AWOL for sometime and the government has been looking for him. But after a run-in with the villain Hatemonger and an encounter with SHIELD, he gets a second chance at putting his life back together.

NASA has lost contact with the crew aboard a space station (Marvel science has always been a few years ahead of real life.) John is the best-qualified pilot to fly a rescue vehicle to the station and find out what the heck is going on.

John agrees, but things don't go well. He pilots his ship to the space station and, still unable to contact anyone, space walks over to a hatch to enter the station. But he's a bit too slow. The sun rises from behind the moon and bathes him in moonlight. He turns into Man Wolf and rips his own space suit off. Not even an astronaut werewolf can survive more than a few minutes in a vacuum.

Someone in an alien-looking spacesuit comes out of the station and drags the dying Man Wolf into the station. But Man Wolf is not someone who will show (or understand) gratitude. In a magnificent two-page spread that shows just how awesome George Perez' art can be, he attacks his rescuer.

There are actually three men on board, all visitors from a dimension call "Other Realm." Garth of Mournhelm, Lambert and Gorjoon are all human (or at least humanoid) and also recognize the stone that causes John to turn into Man Wolf. They call it a godstone, hinting that it might have a more complex history than has previously been revealed.

Anyway, a cool fight ensues, with Garth knocking out Man Wolf by zapping him with a power cable.

I'm describing the fight very quickly, but it runs several pages, covers several decks of the space station and is superbly choreographed.

The issue ends here, setting up a space opera plot with several plot elements as yet unexplained (who are the Other Realm guys; why do they recognize the stone and call it a godstone; where's the regular crew of the space station). Creatures on the Loose only has one issue left, but its setting itself up to go out on a high note.

Cover Cavalcade

noreply@blogger.com (Tim DeForest) — Mon, 04 May 2026 13:00:00 +0000

MAY IS POST-APOCALYPTIC FUTURE MONTH!!!!

This George Wilson cover is from 1968.