The Real Reason The Allies Won WWII!!

History class was never like this:

I mean, this sounds kinda dire:

But...

...you have to love Kraut-hating Norwegian nymphs, especially those who take lust voyages!!

And Rommel never stood a chance:

But wait...there's more!!

The Nazis never stood a chance...

All of those issues are from 1964

The Wedding Of Future Centuries?!?

Never before have the united peoples of the galaxy been so grateful...

...for a strategically placed drifting cloud.

If you squint right, you can pretend that this is the wedding of Colossus (Of Chaos) and Kitty Pryde...

Cover of Planet Stories (Winter 1942) by Allen Anderson

The Only Thing Cooler Than War Wheels...?

If you've been around here long enough, you know of my deep and abiding love for War Wheels...

And you also know of my thrilling discovery that science fiction legend Hugo Gernsback also loved War Wheels, going so far as to propose using them to end WWI!

But you can never learn enough in this crazy world. Because it tuns out that a mere twelve years later, Gernsback help to to take War Wheels to the next level:

HOLY %^&*ING CRAP!! FLYING WAR WHEELS!!!

Yeah, you saw that right.

Air Wonder Stories #10 (1930), edited by Gernsback, had the "Flying Buzzsaw" as a cover feature.

OMG!!!!

Yeah, he didn't write the piece, but you can be damned sure he had some influence on the Flying War Wheels of 2014.

Yeah, I said 2014. See, the story has the narrator, in 1930, injured by an accident that sent a blade from a circular saw flying, and he "woke up" Dorothy-style in war-torn 2014:

Eerily accurate!!

Anyway, they go into great detail how marvelously effective "flying buzzsaws" would be in aerial warfare. Here, I'll let you read the tale yourself:

 Scoff if you wish...but just picture what our lives would have been like if we had had Top Gun done with flying War Wheels!!

WAR WHEELS!!! 

Bold Fashion Choices--That Belt....!!

I have thoughts on this:

A) Man, that ape is totally pulling off that red belt!

B) But...isn't that kind of a small "gorilla-slave"? I mean, come on, now...

C) OK, is the women in blue "The Tigress of T'Wanbi"? How about that woman in the background, wearing the leopard print bikini and posing provocatively for no reason whatsoever?

D) Man, those gorillas sure drool a lot.

E) That belt, man...that belt!!

F) Ki-Gor was, of course, a Tarzan knock-off. He was cover boy and lead story star in some 59 issues of Jungle Stories, from 1938 to 1954. Despite the lengthy run, it doesn't seem as if Ki-Gor ever made the leap to other media--no comics or movies or radio shows. Of course, why pay for the rights to Ki-Gor when Tarzan rights probably weren't that expensive...or better yet, just come up with your own Tarzan knock-off!!

G) A "Tigress"...in Africa?

H) Man, if Grodd had a belt like that, he would have beaten the Flash decades ago!!

From Jungle Stories Winter 1941. Sadly, the cover artist who created that belt is not known.

Damn You!! Damn You All To Hell!!

Man, I'm kinda stuck.

I'm trying to write some dystopian fiction, something post-apocalyptic.

But I can't seem to find a proper symbol, something that both demonstrates that this is the future of our world while simultaneously depicting how far we've fallen.

Something that shows the unthinkable has happened to our once-powerful culture...

...a one-time symbol of strength that is now in ruins, showing how far the world to come has fallen...

I need an instantly recognizable icon, so every reader can instantly grok where the story is set...

...yet that same icon is now decaying in an Ozymandian state of despair, so the reader can also instantly understand how for we've fallen.

I need some icon whose destruction would mirror our fears both militarily...

...and ecologically.

I need a landmark whose condition, at a single glance, depicts how far our society has fallen.

I'm looking for a symbol of hope and freedom that invading aliens would destroy not just once...

...but twice!!

Or, if not aliens, well, maybe dinosaurs?

Nah, it should probably be aliens.

I need an icon that's so versatile, shlocky film producers couldn't make up their minds how to destroy it.

I just can't seem to come up with an image shocking enough...

...devastating enough...

...to convey how terrible this future is.

Well, don't worry...I'm sure I'll think of something...

Won't Somebody Think Of The Children?!?!

Somehow I don't think this relationship is going to work out...(supply your own punch line!)

Cover by Robert Engle

I, For One, Welcome Our New Overlords!!

If we're to believe this cover...

...the patriarchy is going to get its ass kicked in a few years!

I blame the misuse of Pym Particles...

Cover by Robert Swanson.

The Wonder Woman Movie, In Three Acts!!

I haven't seen it yet, of course, but I imagine that the film will go a little something like this...

 Love that third cover's costume. Can we get Wonder Woman to wear that for a week or two?

Most people forget that Harlequin had a science fiction line. They published the first three of John  Russell Fearn's long-running Golden Amazon series.

The second title above, The Deathless Amazon, was an alternate title for The Golden Amazon Returns. The first two covers are by Paul Anna Soik, the third by Norm Eastman.

Kryptonite Is Older Than You Think It Is!

From 1930...

Obviously Red Kryptonite, right?!?

From 1936...

Now they're after Gold Kryptonite!!

And from 1929:

$300 bucks for the best short short story about this cover? OK, here goes.

As Brainiac kidnapped the Daily Star, his ship fired its Green Kryptonite lasers full blast! THE END

Where's my 3 Benjamins, Hugo Gernsback?

Covers, in order, by Frank R. Paul, Frank R. Paul, and...Frank R. Paul...hey, wait a minute. What's going on here? TGhis is some kinda plot, right? Frank R. Paul must be a pseudonym for a time traveler stuck in the past, putting his knowledge of the future and artistic skills together to make a meager living until he can repair his time craft...

Man Nth!!

Just a reminder that many comic books writers of the day supplemented their incomes writing for the pulps:

Or perhaps it was vice versa...

No, I've never read Man Nth (try saying that 5 times fast). But we're all familiar with Gardner F. Fox's "super-science" credentials, aren't we? Hopefully, the story reveals Man Nth got his abilities from inhaling hard water vapors...

The cover is by Harry Lemon Parkhurst.

Hi-Tech Jobs Of The Future!

One of the most sought after jobs in the future...

...is outer space mannequin delivery!!

Cover to Amazing Stories (November 1956) is by Edward Valigursky

Still, It's Better Than Cars. Or Cars II. Or Cars III. Or...

Inspiration for Wall-E?

BTW, far be it from me to criticize a picture everyone else loves for more than I, but Wall-E completely blows it thematically. After 90 minutes of railing against consumerism, it turns out that Wall-E is saved only because he practiced that same consumerism. If he doesn't collect and value that junk, he doesn't get his memory/personality restored at the end. So all that garbage that destroyed the Earth that the movie condemns is really the deus ex machina that gives the movie a happy ending, and consumerism is suddenly good.

I'm just sayin.'

The cover of Fantastic Stories of Imagination (March 1964) is by Paula McLane

Manic Monday--The Real Reason We Stopped Going To The Moon!

Because after this happens a few times...

...recruiting new astronauts gets pretty difficult!

Cover from Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction #5 (1975), by "Puigdomenech."

Best Pulp Cover You've Never Seen--Planet Stories Winter 1947

Some mornings are like this...

Most mornings, actually...

Cover by Allen Anderson

Best Pulp Cover You've never Seen--Amazing Stories (June 1965)

Because some mornings you just need to see an angry robot swingin' hammers around.

Cover by Gray Morrow

Best Pulp Cover You've Never Seen: Fantastic Story Magazine, Summer 1954

Art by Walter Popp.

I am obliged to note that this issue contain a story entitled "Martians Twitter" by Wilbur S. Peacock. I haven't read it, but I choose to believe that it is an eerily prophetic tale, depicting Martians making fun of our 2016 election in 140 character bursts...

When Is A Gorilla Not A Gorilla?!?

So, wait..."a gorilla who is not a gorilla." So, is he a gorilla?!?!?!!?

This is a reprint from Fantastic Adventures (February 1943), and is the SECOND story featuring the Whispering Gorilla. In it's original publication, it was called Return Of The Whispering Gorilla. You'd have hope that, by that point, they would have figured out if he was a gorilla or not...

Anyway, the cover art is by Robert Gibson Jones.

The Next X-Event?

Cover of "Evil matriarchy guides an unwitting world to its doom" by George Ratcliff, 1953.

Best Pulp Cover You've Never Seen--Imagininative Tales #1 (1954)

Cover by Harold W. McCauley