Number 1763: “Another successful mission for the Perimeter Patrol!”

Henry Sharp, credited with drawing “The City of Light” for Ziff-Davis’ Amazing Adventures #6 (1952), went into television, and in the 1960s became the story editor for the hit show, The Wild, Wild West.* He was the only writer to have episodes in all four seasons of the series. There is an online, abridged article from Cinefantastique, where Sharp tells the story of his contribution to the hit show: “Story Editor Henry Sharp” by Craig Reid.

Henry was also a fine comic book artist, as evidenced by his work on this story, and a pair of stories for Strange Adventures I showed last year. See the link below.

*The Wild, Wild West owed a lot to the success of the James Bond movies, but I always thought of The Wild, Wild West as being a comic book on film. Like comics, it took fantastic concepts, action-filled science fiction plots, and incredible villains, just as comic books did. I thought it closer in tone to comic books than the spoof Batman TV series.

Henry Sharp drew these two stories for Julius Schwartz, which I showed last December.

Number 782


Science Fiction Week: Amazing Adventures #3


This August I'm doing themes for four weeks. I'm kicking off my theme month with a Science Fiction Week.

First up, Amazing Adventures #3, from 1951, a Ziff-Davis publication that is pulp all the way through. Four different stories, all of them with familiar pulp themes: people shrinking, body transference, a disembodied brain gone amok, and space opera. The futuristic stories have the usual guys in capes and skintight costumes, and chicks in bikinis! Really, what more does a fan want? Oh yeah...and a painted cover by Norm Saunders, which packages it nicely.

The only other art credit the Grand Comics Database lists is "Parker" for the first story. That would probably be Paul Parker.

Tomorrow, Science Fiction Week continues with John Buscema, drawing a 1959 tale that swipes a famous story.