Number 1057


Invoking the law of the robots!


Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day, when I present my annual Turkey Award for the most oddball or outrageous story I've read all year. For a while "The Mars Mystery," from Rocket Kelly #2, 1945, was my top choice. At the last minute another story took over the top spot. Sorry, Rocket, but your jets sputtered there right at the end of the race.

Rocket Kelly was a rocket pilot/adventurer/interplanetary policeman from the mid-1940s, when rocket jockeys looked more like airplane jockeys, the stuff kids were used to seeing during the war years. Rocket has two companions, a mechanic and a girlfriend, a rocket that looks bigger on the inside than it does on the outside (holy TARDIS!), and a clumsy art style that renders the stories bizarre or absurd rather than exciting. The artist's name is signed Ted Small, but it's a Fox Features comic, so it's a pen-name.

I like that the conquering robots have goofy heads just like their creator, Professor Mogul, and I like that they have a law. It isn't one of Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, but a law that says if challenged to the "test of ice" they've gotta do it. I also like that Rocket's dad looks like Robert E. Lee. When the artist went for reference it was apparently to a book of Civil War generals.

No, Rocket Kelly didn't earn the big award, but he's a runner-up. Come back tomorrow for the annual award.










This is a holiday weekend and I'm joining the millions who are traveling. I'll be across the country with family. I may not get many chances to check in on this blog, so if you write a comment and it is delayed in being posted you will know why. I want to wish everyone a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Number 689

Fox's rocket guys and gals...

Here's the third installment of Pappy's Science Fiction Week, rocketship stories from Fox Feature Syndicate comics of the 1940s.

"Perisphere Payne" is early, from the last issue of Science Comics #8, 1940. The Perisphere was a landmark from the 1939 World's Fair, so the comic wanted to tie him in. Perisphere flies solo, unlike Rocket Kelly and Rick Evans, who are flying threesomes. In those two strips they are crowded into the coupé front seat of the rocket. I can imagine the poor chicks in the middle complaining, "You guys, if you don't watch your damn elbows..."

Not to mention there are no ladies rooms on the rocketships.

Rocket Kelly #1, copyright by Fox, was published by Larkin, Roosevelt and Larkin, Publishers, in 1944. It's probable the company had a paper ration in those war years, and Fox paid them to use it. In 1945, after rationing was lifted, Rocket Kelly lasted another five issues under the Fox imprint. The story itself is an odd mix of science fiction and theology, with Satan (called "Diablo") coming to earth. In the real world of 1944 lots of people thought the devil was loose with wars going on simultaneously in Europe and the Pacific.

Rick Evans is from Zoot Comics #8, from 1947, and gets my vote for worst-looking rocket crew helmets ever. Artist is listed as Stan Ford, as Ted Small is credited with Rocket Kelly and Arnold Hardy for Perisphere Payne. As with all Fox comics, I'm not vouching for the accuracy of those credits.