Strange Adventures, no. 67

Strange Adventures, no. 67

A science fiction anthology comic, Strange Adventures features a cover penciled and inked by renowned artists Gil Kane and Joe Giella. The cover telegraphs the issue's opening story, written by John Broome and drawn by the same artistic team, in which a martian arrives on Earth to influence human development, only to realize that humans can innovate on their own. After drawing this conclusion, and in a moment of metacommentary on the science fiction genre, the martian arrives at the editorial office of Strange Adventures to tell his story. Notably, this science fiction comic is the origin point of our Stephen Neil Cooper Synchronic Collection of Comic Books. The collector Stephen Cooper remembered reading this issue's second story, "Search for a Lost World!," written by science fiction writer Edmond Hamilton, penciled by Sid Greene, and inked by Joe Giella. In Cooper's own words, "I was reading a story about a guy who was getting larger and larger, and still larger, until he grew so incredibly colossal that the enormous planets of the solar system simply passed through him. What? My pea-sized brain struggled with this cosmic-sized vision" (34). Cooper's mind-opening encounter with this comic led him, many years later, to track down this issue of Strange Adventures, and then to track down every title on newsstands at that time in April 1956, "in order to fully recapture the comic book Zeitgeist of that momentous day in my life!" (35). Because of his effort, we can now all look back at this snapshot of comic book and cultural history. (Reference: Steve Cooper, "The Odyssey of a Synchronic Collector," Comic Book Marketplace 67 (March 1999): 32-51.)

Ellsworth, Whitney, 1908-1980 (Editor)

Schwartz, Julius, 1915-2004 (Editor)

Kane, Gil (Penciler)

Giella, Joe (Inker)

Schnapp, Ira (Colorist)

English

Still image

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