Number 2593: A key not to own, here in the Twilight Zone

Like my peers in the late '50s and early '60s, I watched television, everything everybody else watched. We watched Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Thriller, One Step Beyond, Outer Limits, and of course The Twilight Zone. Even if one had never watched the latter, today we know that the show’s title has taken on a meaning as part of our speech, “twilight zone” means to me an event that has a level of strangeness, not easily understood. Other definitions may vary, but people know it means something mysterious when they hear the phrase.

There was nothing new about such stories with O'Henry-style endings, but the musical theme and host Rod Serling’s dramatic openings to the the stories have stayed in the culture for decades now...60 years at least.

When I saw a Twilight Zone comic book I snapped it up. I showed this story from the Gold Key Twilight Zone #4 (1963) in 2007. It’s drawn by Alex Toth, and its ending fits into those stories enjoyed by the fans of the Twilight Zone and the genre.

Number 2488: Rex the Wonder Dog ain’t just a-woofin'

Rex the Wonder Dog is a super-smart dog we love to imagine. Dogs may astonish us sometimes, but they are not as smart as fiction makes out. Rex the Wonder Dog, for instance, can smell out evil. I understand that a dog’s smeller is one of nature’s marvels, but I’ll be dog-boned if evil is smellable. According to the Grand Comics Database (using editor Julius Schwartz’s records), the story was written by Robert Kanigher, and he endowed Rex with that ability. I haven't read beyond that story, which I read mostly because Alex Toth and Sy Barry did the artwork for this evil-sniffing anthropomorphic canine.

Oh, wait! I look again and see the story is titled “Trail of the Flower of Evil.” So there you go. The flower smells like evil. Puzzle solved!

The Adventures of Rex the Wonder Dog #1, which is our source for the story, came out in 1952, and lasted 46 issues until 1959. 

Number 1971: Sierra Smith: Alex Toth tells the story

Alex Toth did the artwork on the Sierra Smith backup feature for Dale Evans Comics for the first 11 issues of that title.

Like many artists who entered the comics field in the era he idolized comic strip artists Milton Caniff, Alex Raymond and Hal Foster. It is too bad he didn’t have a long-running comic strip of his own, but for some reason he was never syndicated.

Toth could be cranky and opinionated, but no one ever accused him of not being able to draw. He was also not shy about telling other artists what he thought of their work. On the subject of painted comic books his wikipedia entry quotes him: “. . .in a 2001 interview he criticized the trend of fully painted comics, saying ‘It could be comics if those who know how to paint also knew how to tell a story! Who knew what pacing was, and didn't just jam a lot of pretty pictures together into a page, pages, and call it a story, continuity! It ain't!’ Toth lamented what he saw as a lack of awareness on the part of younger artists of their predecessors, as well as a feeling that the innocent fun of comics’ past was being lost in the pursuit of pointless nihilism and mature content.” I sometimes did not agree with Toth, feeling sometimes he was being obdurate just for its own sake, but on that opinion I agree. I think this story is yet another example of Toth “telling it.”

From Dale Evans Comics #3 (1949). Story by Joe Millard.

Here is another Sierra Smith story. Just click on the thumbnail.

Number 1950: Talking flag

In answer to a reader’s request for more from DC’s short-lived, early-fifties anthology comic, Danger Trail, here is a story by Alex Toth. Not only did Toth draw it, he did the lettering. Characteristic of Toth’s lettering is the use of underlining for emphasis, rather than the usual bold-faced italic used by other letterers.

This story also depends on a literary device I don’t much care for, told from the point of view of an inanimate object, in this case a battle flag. It is a tricky way to tell a story, and in this case unnecessary except to give the main character someone (or some thing) to talk to.

Grand Comics Database gives credit to Robert Kanigher for the script. “Battle Flag of the Foreign Legion” is from Danger Trail #3 (1950):

Number 1852: Writer of other worlds, Ed Hamilton

Alex Toth and Sy Barry drew “Artist of Other Worlds!” for Strange Adventures #13 (1951). Typical of comic books at that time the artists got no credit, but in an unusual turn, the writers did...at least in the early issues of the science fiction comics edited by Julius Schwartz. Edmond Hamilton is bylined as the author.

Hamilton had a long history of writing science fiction for pulp magazines. His first published story was published in Weird Tales in 1926,* and he remained popular with readers for his entire 50-year career. He went into comics when the pulp markets were drying up in the 1940s. (See the short article below the story, with quotes from Hamilton about his history with DC Comics.)

Hamilton, who had written Captain Future stories in the early forties, was invited into comic books after pulp editors Mort Weisinger, Jack Schiff and Julius Schwartz moved from the pulps to the comic books. Comics seemed a natural for science fiction writers (Otto “Eando” Binder is another example), especially someone who had a reputation for writing stories about heroes who did extraordinary things. That was Hamilton’s history, and it made him a natural for comic books.

 *“Monster-God of Mamurth,“ which can be found here.

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“Fifty Years of Heroes” is an autobiographical piece written by Edmond Hamilton in 1976, and published  in Byron Preiss’s anthology series, Weird Heroes Volume 6. It went to press just after Hamilton’s death in early 1977. In the article Hamilton gives an entertaining view of his long career writing science fiction (including when he was known to fans as World-Saver Hamilton), and a brief history of his 20 years writing comic books. To quote the article:

    “In 1946 I heard again from Mort Weisinger. He had returned from his war service to take up his job again at National Comics Publications, as DC Comics were known at the time. He and Jack Schiff had left Standard Magazines in 1941 to work in the comics field, and later on Julie Schwartz had joined them at DC.

    “Mort wanted me to write comic scripts for DC magazines, to start with Batman. I had some doubts at first, as the format was quite different from fiction stories. In those days after the war, the pulp magazine market was very poor . . . I had to write a few very poor scripts before I began to catch on to the ways of comic writing.

    “For the first year or two, all my scripts for DC were Batman stories. Mort and Jack Schiff were the nicest guys in the world to work for, but they took their work seriously, and if I made a stupid error or scuffed over anything, they told me so at once, and loudly.

    “After a year or two I started to do Superman stories, also. I think I did better on Superman than Batman, simply because it was more science-fictional.

    “Julius Schwartz first edited the science fiction magazines at DC — Strange Adventures, Mystery in Space. . . I did a good many sf stories for those, and when I started doing them I thought, “This will be a breeze . . . writing for an old pal like Julie will be no trouble.” I was wrong! Friendship cut no ties when Julie read a story, and he was as strict with me as with anyone else. I guess that’s why he became one of the greatest editors in the business.

    “I wrote for DC Comics from 1946 to 1966. During that time, I was still writing science fiction and produced a good many sf books and magazine stories. When I resigned from comic work in 1966, it was only because Leigh [Hamilton’s wife, author and screenwriter Leigh Brackett] and I were about to go on some long-deferred world travels — to Egypt, India, and so on — and I would not be able to fill any schedules. But I always enjoyed working for the hero comics, particularly for such a great bunch of guys.”