Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Reading Room FLICK FALCON IN THE FOURTH DIMENSION "To Mars and Back"

You know the scientist-hero of this strip is bonkers...
...when, after seeing a test item come back through his teleporter inside-out, he leaps into the device!
This premiere tale from Fox's Fantastic Comics #1 (1939) ends right there.
No "To Be Continued" caption or anything else.
The next page begins another strip, Sub Saunders.
But fear not, Flick Falcon will return for 20 more issues of Fantastic Comics!
BTW, "Orville Wells" was a pen-name, probably inspired by Orson Welles, who had, only a few months before, panicked America with the legendary War of the Worlds radio show.
The artist (and probably writer) was Don Rico, who would become one of the premier creatives working in 1940s-50s comics before turning to writing novels.
(You can read one of his wildest comic tales HERE!)
Unlike contemporary Fletcher Hanks, whose Stardust and Space Smith strips also premiered in this issue, Rico's never received the attention and acclaim his equally-offbeat work deserves.
(That's not to put-down Hanks in any way.
His wild creations are equally as deserving of critical study by aficionados of sci-fi/fantasy.)
BTW, this never-reprinted tale was Rico's very first published comics work.

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Thanx for posting!