SPACE ADVENTURES #9, Winter 1954

SPACE ADVENTURES was consistently a well written and well drawn title, in fact I would rank it as one of Charlton's finest not just in the space/sci fi mold, but overall in their their entire output, this one really stood out.
This issue is no exception, and behind what is one the more pedestrian covers in the series, lies some truly great stories.

Dick Giordano offers up the cover,a story with his pencils and inks, and inks on another with Art Capello pencils. Tony Tallarico shows off his stuff with a gross-out page, and an entry in the silly talking dog trope. For those that only know his work from his Hanna Barbera stuff or his turn as the much maligned inker on Blue Beetle, these pages may pleasantly surprise you.
The real gem here is the story "The Good Old Days" by Frank Frollo and Vince Alascia. The surprise ending must have been a real shocker back in 1954, and even today it packs a whallop. Certainly something Dr. Wertham must have had a field day with!

Charlton Summer! HANNA BARBERA SUMMER PICNIC, 1971

HANNA BARBERA SUMMER PICNIC, released in July of 1971 is actually HANNA BARBERA PARADE #3. This becomes confusing when sorting out the timelines of the title. In fact although it is issue #3, it was released months before issues 1 and 2 (September and November). This is also the case of Charlton's other two giant sized H-B Summer issues, The Flintstones, and Yogi Bear, which we will discuss in later posts.

Charlton had only recently acquired the H-B license and was keen to promote it in a big way. While this issue contains a good portion of Ray Dirgo art, who is most closely associated with Charlton's H-B characters, there also appears to be a few leftover Gold Key stories in the mix (with artists whose style I recognize, but cannot place a name to at the moment), as well as at least one story (Magilla Gorilla) by Phil Mendez.
Charlton was branching out with coloring books at this time and many of their regular titles reflected this by including some of the coloring and activity pages. This was an economical ploy by not only promoting the coloring book division, but also saved on commissioning new art, and especially the fact that no color separations and extra inks were needed. The coloring and activity pages included here, with the exception of the Dirgo pieces, are most likely by Tony Tallarico.