If you missed the last one…
This post is brought to you by Jack Mackenzie’s Space Opera novel The Gear Crew. Join Franklin and Sri, the new gears on board the Alizarin Crimson, a ship full of questionable spacers. When the ship discovers a mysterious derelict they must face off against a race of gigantic insectoids and a puzzle from the past.
We’ve looked at plenty of tin robots before, some from the Golden Age. This really was the best time to get a good robot in a comic. Every superhero, ever space ace, even most funny animal characters bumped into some kind of mechanical man. The tropes tend to follow certain lines. For superheroes, it is usually the giant robot invasion. For those, go here. For space heroes, the robots are often companions or villains. Even today, Star Wars offers characters like General Grievous and a host of droid favorites. In funny animal comics, the main character usually gets a robot to do chores and ends up regretting it. These are domestic situations that are meant to make us laugh, not consider “Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion”. Philip K. Dick was only a kid when most of these early comics appeared.
The 1940s
“The Coming of Frankie Stein” (Blue Bolt #1, June 1940)
“The Groom Strikes” (Daring Mystery Comics, January 1942) was written and drawn by Frank Pretsch.
“The Black Terror” (Exciting Comics #25, February1943) was written by Richard Hughes.
“Automatic Author” (The Spirit, February 21, 1943) was written by Manly Wade Wellman. (Early ChatGPT!)
“The Mechanical Man!” (Captain Midnight #9, June 1943)
“The Mars Mystery” (Rocket Kelly #2, Winter 1945) was written by Ted Small (house name).
“Potsy” (Giggle Comics #38, February 1947) was written and drawn by Don R. Christensen as Don Arr.
The 1950s
“The Bow and Arrow Hunters” (Four Color #262, January 1950)
“A Relative Surprise” (Super Duck #31, April 1950) was written and drawn by Al Fagaly.
“Hurts & Flowers” (Super Duck #32, June 1950)
“Buzzy the Crow” (Buzzy #42, March-April 1952)
“World of the Metal Men” (Action Comics #156, May 1951) was written by Edmond Hamilton.
“Marmaduke Mouse and King Louie” (Marmaduke Mouse #25, July 1951)
“The Secret of the Giant Forest” (Sensation Comics #105, September-October 1951) was written by Robert Kanigher as Charles Moulton.
“Romeo the Robot” (World’s Finest #60, September-October 1952) was written and drawn by Jack Farr.
“Punch and Judy” (Punch and Judy Comics v3 #9, December 1951)
“Judgment Day!” (Weird Fantasy #18, March-April 1953) was written by Al Feldstein.
“Prince Pinky and Pudd” (Marmaduke Mouse #39, July 1953)
“The Automaton” (Weird Fantasy #20, July-August 1953) was written by Al Feldstein.
“A Pound of Flesh” (Mysterious Adventures #16, October 1953)
“The Teacher From Mars” (Weird Science-Fantasy #24, June 1954) was adapted by Al Feldstein from the story by Eando Binder (Thrilling Wonder Stories, February 1941).
“Harvest” (Weird Science-Fantasy #25, September 1954) was written by Al Feldstein.
“A Work of Art” (Haunt of Fear #28, November-December 1954) was written by Carl Wessler.
Conclusion
One of the other tropes we see here (again) is the inventor story. Whether it is Edison Bell, Young Inventor or some old professor, the early Pulp style story of the wacky inventor who gets in trouble with his robot is a standard. Hugo Gernsback’s Amazing Stories thrived on this kind of throwback to the even earlier Dime Novels with Frank Reade Jr. and the Steam Man of the Prairies. Gadget stories lost their hold on SF with the coming of more serious themes but Henry Kuttner was still having fun with this one with his Hogben stories for Thrilling Wonder Stories. The inventor would get drunk, invent a robot, then wake up and find he had no idea what it does. There was just a trace of this left in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, with young Anakin building C3P0. (Of course, when he became Darth Vader, he forgot this. Just like Hogben!)
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