Wednesday, August 28, 2019

Jack Oleck Stories in Three Atlas Titles

Writer Jack Oleck came to Atlas right around the time the Comics Code was instituted, in 1955. His output there was steady but not prolific; his average on the fantasy titles wasn't much more than a story an issue.

Here are a couple of the titles that started up at the beginning of the Code era, and one that started later. Around the beginning of 1959 the writing was being turned over to pretty much Larry Lieber (with Stan Lee), leading into the monster era. Oleck had no stories in the newest titles, Strange Worlds or Tale to Astonish, and only this one in Tales of Suspense. World of Suspense ended with #8; World of Fantasy continued to #19 in 1959 with no more from Oleck.

Tales of Suspense 1

Jack Oleck scripts
in World of Fantasy


Jul/56 #2  One Night
Nov/      #4  The Only Clue
Jan/57  #5  Back to the Lost City
May/      #7  Someone in the Flames
Feb/58  #10  The Secret Men
Jun/      #12  The Next World
Oct/      #14  Lost in the City That Didn't Exist
The Mole Mystery
Dec/      #15  Mystery of the Mountain
Strange Doings in Cell 4-B

in World of Suspense

Aug/56 #3  The Man Who Couldn't Be Touched
Oct/      #4  Something Is in This House
Dec/      #5  Menace Below
Feb/57  #6  Come into My Parlor
Foster's Fear
Apr/     #7  The World's Strangest Crime
The Lost Island
Jul/      #8  Prisoner of the Ghost Ship

in Tales of Suspense

Jan/59 #1  The Day I Left My Body

Thursday, August 15, 2019

Some Mickey Klar Marks Comics Stories, from the Records

Pug & Curly, Calling All Kids 11
These are the comic book stories I could positively ID in the online listing of the Mickey Klar Marks papers in the University of Southern Mississippi's collection, having already posted her Zany Giraffe ones. The majority of her work in comics is text pieces, so USM notes which among her papers are comics scripts.

There are a good number not here, ones that are identified only by the feature (another Flip-Flap, more Pug & Curlys, and so on) and others whose titles were changed too completely to find, if they were indeed published. In the case of her Millie, Nellie, and Mitzi scripts for Timely, the relevant issues may well not be available to index yet.

On all listed here except for Little Audrey, the publisher is Parents' Magazine, so when something sold to Funny Book is published in Calling All Kids it's just been shifted among the publisher's titles.

The lines in bold are the descriptions of the scripts as given in USM's listing.

SOME COMICS STORIES WRITTEN BY
MICKEY KLAR MARKS


"Billy Boy," sold to "Funny Book," 20 March, 1946, 2 pp.
     "Musical Comics: Billy Boy" Calling All Kids 5, Sep-Oct/46
"Comin' Thru the Rye," sold to "Funny Book," 1946, 2 pp.
      "Musical Comics: Coming Through the Rye" Calling All Kids 7, Feb/47
"Flip Flap and the Crying Hyena," sold to "Funny Book," 1946, 4 pp.
     "Flip-Flap and the Crying Hyena" Calling All Kids 7, Feb/47
"Flip Flap Joins the Navy," sold to "Funny Book," 1946, 4 pp.
     "Flip-Flap Joins the Navy" Calling All Kids 18, Apr/48
"The Hobo Dog," sold to "True Comics," 1946, 3 pp.
     "Butch the Bum" True Comics 60, May/47
"Kid Sister," sold to "Sweet Sixteen," 1947, 4 pp.
     "Kid Sister" Sweet Sixteen 9, Sep/47
"Little Audrey and the Petticoats," sold to "St. John Pub.," 1949, 5pp.
     "Little Audrey and the Petticoats" Little Audrey 8, Jan/50
"Little Audrey -- The Big Help," sold to "St. John Pub.," 1949, 6 pp.
     "The Big Help" Little Audrey 9, Mar/50
"The Needle in the Haystack," sold to "Funny Book," 1947, 2 pp. (rebus)
     "The Needle in the Haystack" Calling All Kids 4, Jul-Aug/46
"Mystery of Croak Pond," sold to "Funny Book," 1945, 4 pp.
     "Croak Pond Mystery" Funny Book 8, Jun-Jul/45
"Pug & Curly," sold to "Calling All Kids,"
  "Crossing Stream," March 1947, 4 pp.
     "Pug and Curly" Calling All Kids 11, Aug/47
  "Sailboat," May 1947, 4 pp.
     "Pug and Curly in Trouble at Sea" Calling All Kids 12, Sep/47
"Sally's Slanguage," sold to "Polly Pigtails," 1945, 1 p.
     "Sudie's Slanguage" Polly Pigtails 7, Aug/46 (2 pp.)
"Sea Shell Maker," sold to "Funny Book," 1945, 4 pp.
     "The Sea-Shell Maker" Calling All Kids 5, Sep-Oct/46
"Twinkle: Amusement Park," sold to "Calling All Kids," 1947, 5 pp.
     "Twinkle Makes a Merry-Go-Round" Calling All Kids 12, Sep/47
"The Yankee Clipper," sold to "True Comics," 1947, 8 pp.
     "Joe Di Maggio--The Yankee Clipper" True Comics 71, May/48
Unnamed series for "Sweet Sixteen" and "Polly Pigtails"
  "Teen Age Columnist," 1947, 4 pp.
     "Kid Columnist" Polly Pigtails 25, Feb/48 (2pp.)

"Spot Sees Spots Before His Eyes," sold to "Novelty," 1945, 3 pp. has to be a Zany Giraffe story, although unidentified in the collection as such (in the published story the character is named Spots; Spot is the dog in Novelty's Speck, Spot and Sis series). I've updated my Zany post to reflect that.