Saturday, November 13, 2010

Science Fiction/Double Feature Presents: "The Asteroid Witch" (Ziff-Davis;1950)










Ziff Davis began as a publishing house in 1927, and although they've dabbled with media properties like pulp magazines, comics, radio & television, the company is currently one of the leading publishers of technology-based digital content products such as its flagship property, PCMag.com.

In 1950, Ziff-Davis Comics Group released the first issue of Amazing Adventures, which picked up the genre thunder from a similarly titled pulp-style sci-fi mag and ran for six wonderful issues. Top artists worked on these stories and I've got the whole series waiting in the queue for you folks to enjoy, so welcome to the inaugural Saturday featurette that I've dubbed "Science Fiction/Double Feature".

Some weeks I will post two tales of outer space action, and sometimes only a single story, with a couple of special extras from the series attached. Today's choices are all from the very first issue, Amazing Adventures #1 (1950). "The Asteroid Witch" is a perfectly rendered tale by silver age legend, Murphy Anderson. The front cover is very "pulp-ish" in appearance, and that's a good thing, but the artist is sadly unknown; and from the inside front cover, I've taken a special "Amazing Facts From Nature" piece to amuse you.

Enjoy!

5 comments:

BastaComix said...

Awesome!
Thanks Chuck, greatly appreciated.
Can't wait for the next featurette.

Mr. Karswell said...

This is a cool story Chuck, and really nice art... love the painted cover of this issue too. I think I like Murphy's version of the witch in the story better than the unknown cover artist version though, compare the duplicated (though flipped) panel on page 5. And the panel right underneath that one of the witch in profile almost reminds me of Frank Robbins. Hell, I've got to kiss her now too!

Chuck Wells said...

I'm glad both of you liked this story. Believe me, all of the stories in the six issues of "Amazing Adventures" are pretty good!

There will be upcoming stories & fillers featuring artwork by Ogden Whitney, Wally Wood, Alex Schomburg, Paul Parker, Dan Barry, Al Carreno, Ray Bailey, Don Perlin, Bernie Krigstein and Vic Martin; plus there's at least one cover by the great Norman Saunders on tap.

Good, good stuff to waste a Saturday on, trust me!

Daniel [oeconomist.com] said...

FWIW, that claim on speed of the botfly is quite wrong, but has proved hard to kill over the years. Someone who didn't understand the physics — no fly's body could withstand the stresses associated with travelling through air at that speed — took a bad measurement, as rushed it to print.

Love the story, if only for Anderson's art.

Kinsman of the Dragon said...

Hi,
Cover artist for this issue and most Ziff Davis comics was pulp cover artist Robert Gibson Jones who did most covers for Amazing Stories and Fantastic Adventures, both Ziff Davis pulps at the time.