Thursday, February 28, 2013

Stories from the Bible, 1952

I'm beginning here a project I've been thinking about since last year, when I found the BOYS' LIFE "Wayback Machine" website, which has every page of every issue posted online. At the time, I was thirlled to be able to finally read the entire run of Al Stenzel's SPACE CONQUERORS! after more than 40 years.

I managed to figure out how to download from their site (which wasn't easy!). The next step was cleaning up the images and then re-posting them here. This not only improves the look of the images, but just as important, makes it much easier to read them!

Back when I had a one-year subscription to BOYS' LIFE, my favorite part of the magazine was, naturally, the color comics section.  And, so typical of my own personal tastes, what grabbed me the most was the future, and the past.  As for the latter, I guess growing up Catholic, going to a Catholic church for 30 years, and going to a private Catholic school for 4 years gave me an interest in Bible stories.  While I've never done much reading of the book itself, I've long been a sucker for Biblical movies-- and comics.

I just spent the last several days thumbing thru several years' worth of the magazine, to make sure I could start this project from the BEGINNING...  enjoy!

Story by Al Stenzel  /  Art by CREIG FLESSEL
BOYS' LIFE  /  September 1952
BOYS' LIFE  /  October 1952
After a rousing start, there were no installments in the November or December issues. But the series would return in January.

One thing that's immediately obvious... this series does NOT follow in any chronological sequence.  I could probably "fix" that... but this is going to take long enough without doing that!

(Continued in 1953)

Copyright (C) BOY'S LIFE Magazine
Restorations by Henry Kujawa

For more:
Read the Creig Flessel page at Wikipedia
Read the Bob LeRose page at Wikipedia 
Read about the history of Johnstone & Cushing at the Hogan's Alley site
Read "A Pound Of Flessel" at Ger Apeldoorn's The Fabulous Fifties blog
   Thanks to Luke Blanchard for pointing this out to me!

Go to Professor H Revisits The Bible to read all the stories in order!

3 comments:

  1. How did you download these images from their Wayback Machine archive? I can't figure out any way to download; it only lets me view online. I'd like to download images from other adventure comic serials in Boys' Life, like the Tales from Philmont Scout Camp where the guy travels through the Cave of Time. Or the retelling of Moby Dick. But having found the right issue and page, I can't find any download option. Did you do it all just through screen shots?

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  2. You asked a VERY good, pertinent question. Yes, it was VERY diffucult to get ahold of the images so I could clean them up before re-posting them here.

    I tell you what, e-mail me directly (it's listed in my profile) and I'll tell you in detail what I did.

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