Saturday, December 19, 2020

Space Film a Hollywood Fake? (Comic book story, 1956)

It used to be that American comic books, to qualify for the cheap bulk postal rate, had to include at least two pages of text in every issue. These text-only stories were mostly forgettable space-fillers; I imagine the average reader skipped over them.

One such story, “Venutian Visitors” (Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds, vol. 1, no. 1, Charlton Comics Group, August 1956), concerns a university professor who truthfully proclaims that he has visited Venus. When this announcement is met with guffaws from his audience, the professor responds: “It is quite evident you do not believe a word I say. I have a projector and screen in this hall. I could show you some pictures of life on other planets. But then you would say these pictures were fakes from Hollywood. Made in some movie studio.” It turns out there is no need to show the movies because the Pentagon immediately announces that the Venutians have landed and the professor is to be made “the first ambassador from Earth.”

This story is notable for broaching the idea that a Hollywood studio might be involved in faking space-related films, years before such an actual conspiracy theory emerged after the Apollo moon landings.


 https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=24285

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