"Our story continues..."
Story by Al Stenzel / Art by LOU FINE
BOYS' LIFE / January 1972
Story by Al Stenzel / Art by GRAY MORROW
And that brings the series to an end! I'm both thrilled and amazed to have been able to read this series, after 43 years, and am proud to be able to make it easier for other fans to enjoy as well.
According to Wikipedia, Lou Fine worked on the strip until he passed away, so I'm guessing Gray Morrow was brought back to wrap things up. Al Stenzel was still around, he didn't pass away untl 1979. But I suppose he just decided to end it here. It was nice to see it brought to a conclusion, even if it was rather abrupt. Kurt & Primo had clearly become good friends, but there was hardly a hint that there might be romance between Kurt & Rua!
2 final "extras", from Apr'72 & Jul'72.
Copyright (C) BOYS' LIFE Magazine
Restorations by Henry Kujawa
For more fun & info:
Sleestak's blog post about SPACE CONQUERORS!
Smurfswacker's blog post about SPACE CONQUERORS!
Planettom's blog post about SPACE CONQUERORS!
Read the Bob LeRose page at Wikipedia
Read about the history of Johnstone & Cushing at the Hogan's Alley site
Read the Lou Fine page at Wikipedia
Pete Doree's Bronze Age Of Blogs page on GRAY MORROW
Steve Thompson's Shades Of Gray GRAY MORROW blog
Nicely done! It was fun reading through these in 2010 when I discovered them in Google Books, and it was fun reading through them again with your postings.
ReplyDeleteHere's the September 1979 BOYS' LIFE tribute to Al Stenzel.
http://books.google.com/books?id=6idvftaCqIcC&pg=PA51#v=onepage&q&f=false
Great compilation. I read Boy's Life from around 1957-1964 and so those earlier entries in this strip resonate the most for me. But it was great seeing the whole thing, for the first time. It would be inconceivable for such a strip to appear now, in almost any medium, paper or electronic. The Boy's Life editors clearly let Stenzel run with it. The only thing that bothers me is the inconsistent time-line (ion star drive before sub-light colony ship before hyperspatial vehicle), but who said these stories were told in chronological order? The other thing is how they were almost entirely male-oriented. Well, that's a Boy's Life for you -- dreaming of becoming a man in a male-centric world. Anyway, I totally respect the energy and effort that went into assembling all this for our free peepers. "Space Conquerors" is one for the silver age of comics, and compares favorably with the UK's Dan Dare strip -- in fact, it's intriguing how much they are alike, in some ways. Oh, and a final word: A lot of what I first learned about cosmology and astronomy and even physics was discussed -- with some seriousness -- in this strip. The little breakaway lectures were right out of Classics Illustrated or even the Disney documentaries. But it never slowed down the narrative, rather only seemed to enrich it. Thanks again!
ReplyDeleteI remember seeing Space Conquerors as a kid (mid-1960s) and immediately recognizing the spaceship as 'borrowed' from United Planets Cruiser C57-D (as seen in FORBIDDEN PLANET). Space Conquerors was the only saving grace of Boys Life for me. I was not a Scout, and I have no idea what possessed my parents to gift me with a subscription. I am looking forward to reading all 20 years worth of half-page strips, though!
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting all the SPACE CONQUERORS strips. Boys' Life had another SF strip from Jan. 1990 to July 1991 - NORBY THE MIXED-UP ROBOT by Janet & Isaac Asimov (adapted from the young readers' book of the same name). The artwork for the strip was by Ernie Colon. NORBY THE MIXED UP ROBOT ran for 18 chapters, concluding in July of 1991. It was followed by an adaptation of NORBY'S OTHER SECRET, which ran 32 chapters from Jan. 1993 through Dec. 1995. I can't figure out how you saved those images from the Wayback Machine (or from Google Books) -- if I could, I'd download the pages myself.
ReplyDeleteI just now remembered that Boys' Life did an adaptation of Heinlein's Between Planets from April 1978 to August 1979.
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