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PLANET COMICS
FROM FICTION HOUSE
Planet Comics was a science fiction comic-book title produced by Fiction House and issued from Jan. 1940 (issue 1) to 1953 (issue 73). Like many of Fiction House's early comics titles, Planet Comics was a spinoff of a pulp magazine, in this case Planet Stories, which featured space operatic tales of muscular, heroic space adventurers who were quick with their ray pistols and always running into gorgeous females who needed rescue from bug-eyed space aliens or fiendish interstellar bad guys.
As a comic book, Planet Comics was the foremost purveyor of good girl art in the comics, and is considered highly collectible by modern fans of comics' Golden Age. Each page of each story featured at least one large image of a very lovely female, attired in very little in the way of costume, and in particular displaying long, bare legs.
However, as with many other Fiction House comics, a number of the series developed by Planet Comics upped the ante by providing female heroines who handily defeated the space aliens and interplanetary bad guys, while needing no or little assistance from males. Cynics might have noted that this proto-feminist strategy in effect simply multiplied the number of lovely girls shown per panel, and insured that each and every panel featured at least one smashing spacegirl. Fiction House also employed a number of female artists to work on such tales, particularly Lily Renée, Marcia Snyder, Ruth Atkinson and Fran Hopper, whose art for "Mysta of the Moon" was often stunning.
Many well-known artists worked on Planet Comics stories over its 13-year history, including Murphy Anderson, Matt Baker, Nick Cardy, Joe Doolin, Graham Ingels, George Evans, John Cullen Murphy, George Tuska and Maurice Whitman.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_Comics
Outside of the Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon reprints, the main comics title in the 1940s to publish continuous science fiction was Fiction House's Planet Comics, a spin-off of the company's Planet Science Fiction pulp magazine. Pulps were hardly known for sophistication and Planet Comics followed that tradition by relying on lurid covers and stories that followed the "guy, gal, and monster" formula. Pin-up style women were menaced by grotesque aliens in almost every issue. Two of Planet's writers were women, Lilly Renee and Frances Hooper, a rarity for those times. Strangely enough, judging from the comic's letter page, Planet Comics also attracted an enthusiastic female readership.
MORE: http://www.stevestiles.com/sfcom.htm
http://terrororstralis.com/sheena/other-FH/FH-covers4-other-FH.htm
Graham Ingels was one of the masters of horror comics, and one of the staples of EC's titles in this genre. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Ingels did several odd jobs before becoming an independent artist. From 1942, he worked on Fiction House comic books, doing illustratinos for Planet Stories, Jungle Stories and Wings, and comic for Planet Comics and Jumbo Comics. After his military service in the US Navy, he cooperated with Heroic Comics in 1946. A year later, he became an editor at Ned Pine (Standard), where he wrote and drew for Thrilling Comics and Startling Comics ('Lance Lewis', 'Space Detective').
MORE: http://lambiek.net/artists/i/ingles.htm
After studying art at the Scranton Art School, [George] Evans entered the Army. After the war, and with the pulp magazine field withering on the vine, Evans sought work in the comics field, landing a staff artist position at Fiction House, publisher of pulps and a comic line that included Wings Comics, Jungle Comics, Fight Comics, and -most popular of all with collectors-Planet Comics (the first issue is valued at $9,000 in the 1999 Overstreet Price Guide). Evans drew several minor features in Air Heroes, as well as writing text for filler articles. In 1949 the Fiction House job abruptly evaporated -the in-house staff had a reputation of being a zany, fun-loving bunch and evidently management felt they were too fun loving. The staff was laid off and the company then relied solely on free-lance talent.
MORE: http://www.keefestudios.com/studio/evans/bio.htm
[Planet Comic's illustrator John Cullen] Murphy always wanted to be a baseball player, but when his neighbor, illustrator Norman Rockwell, asked him to model for a "Saturday Evening Post" cover, he decided to become an illustrator instead. Under Rockwell's tutelage, Murphy earned a scholarship to the Phoenix Art Institute in New York. His first professional assignment was drawing sports cartoons that were used to promote boxing matches at Madison Square Garden.
MORE: http://www.blogofdeath.com/archives/001068.html
http://www.dtacollectibles.com/catalog/subcategory/12
http://www.coverbrowser.com/covers/planet-comics
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