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SPACE CARDS (Part 1)
JETS, ROCKETS, SPACEMEN
BOWMAN 1951
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Looking Back at J-R-S!
By Kurt
Kuersteiner (© 2007 Monsterwax Monster
Trading Cards) for The Wrapper
Magazine from issue #232
Jets! Rockets! Spacemen! What kid doesn't find at least one of those three subjects fascinating? J. Warren Bowman (President of Bowman Gum Co.) certainly knew how to cater to kids, and Jets-Rockets-Spacemen (a.k.a. JRS) was one of his later and greater bubble gum gems-of-genius. Bowman commissioned the George Moll Advertising agency to produce the artwork for the series. He had used Moll before to create many of his earlier classic card series, including Horrors Of War, War Gum, Lone Ranger, Wild West, and Wild Man cards. The JRS story was written by Gordon Palmer, and the result was a space saga that spanned 180 different cards (or five series of 36 cards).
The dramatic cards hit the market in 1951 in both 1 and 5 cent packs. They were a sensation among kids. The story followed the adventures of the Rocketship 6X52 crew as they left the rocket center in Manhattan and traveled to the moon, Mercury, Mars, and many other planets. Unlike the tedious time-delayed transmissions that came from the real-life Apollo missions, reports from the 6X52 were always action packed. The crew was never bored by the monotony of space travel or visiting lifeless worlds. They sped from planet to planet without growing old and barely had time to sleep! Astro-pirates, Meteorite showers, and even giant space blobs menaced them between destinations. Landing the ship rarely made them any safer. Back in the 1950s, every planet and moon was teaming with life and most of it was hazardous to humans! Where are the aliens now, you ask? Perhaps extraterrestrial life was killed off by germs introduced by the 6X52 crew, 'coz in 1951, space creatures were abundant and it was the crew who were endangered.
The lack of air didn't seem to hinder Earth's moon from supporting ferocious Lunar Lions or harboring an army of Mantis Men, both of which maintained a healthy appetite for eating our heroes. A visit to Mercury was equally dangerous: Giant Mercurian Steam Frogs with hypnotic eyes awaited the Earthlings, as did blood thirsty Saber-toothed Tigers. Fortunately, the Mercury Marsh Men welcomed intruders and raced to their rescue! And so went the entire journey across our solar-system, hopping from one adventure to another, and winding up on a mysterious tenth planet (planet Ex) --unknown to astronomers until eventually discovered in the 1990s--but prophesied by Gordon Palmer and pictured for the first time in this delicious series of cards. (Ex turns out to be a water-world which, back in the 1950's, orbited somewhere near Saturn.)
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