The Magic Tunnel- Time Traveling Subway Adventure for Kids

Jerry Robinson (1922-2011) was a long time artst on the Batman series, and created "The Joker",and came up the name "Robin" for Batman's sidekick. 

He was largely uncredited most of his career, and any comic book fan knows of this work.   In 1978, he founded Cartoonists & Writers Syndicate/CartoonArts International.

  He also illustrated  some books, as shown here.

This is one of my favorites as a 10 year old. The story was written in 1940, but this Scholastic edition was published in 1964. I think I read it in 1966 or 1967. It's a great time travel story for juveniles, and has a bunch of Jerry Robinson illos. 

Love the Corvette in this drawing.

Jerry Robinson in 2008

Old Video Game- FULL METAL PLANET

Video/ Computer games today certainly look nicer than their fore bearers of 25 years ago, but I find that they often lack something the simpler games provided...FUN.

"Full Metal Planet" was a 1990 computer version of the French science fiction board game "Full Métal Planète" from two years prior. 

 In this game of science fiction strip mining, players land on a planet and try and grab as much ore as possible and take off before the game is over. Each player has tanks, boats, barges, mining equipment and a base ship at his disposal and will have to contend with the weather and the other miners. 

This game was a lot of fun, despite a cumbersome copy protection check everytime the program was run.
The game was written for DOS, although it might have been ported from some other system. This fine bit of gameware will not run under Windows, not even with DosBox. I miss it.

Tell-a-Tale Book~~~ Captain Kangaroo's Picnic

 from 1959, Mel Crawford artwork

Mayan Illustrations from 1935 National Geographic

In 1935, The National Geographic Journal was a far cry from the sensational fare offered today. There wasn't even a cover picture, and color was only used sparingly, in the manner of "color plates" of books.

Here are eight inserts my somone named Herget that accompanied an article about the Mayans.  Click to enlarge & read captions.

Whitman's "The Space Eagle"

The Space Eagle- Operation Doomsday was one of a series of books for children of around 10 and up put out by Whitman in the 60s. Other titles included "Bonanza", two "Man From U.N.C.L.E." books, "F Troop", 

"The Green Hornet" and more (Watch this blog for future Whitman material)

 The two "Space Eagle" books were written by Jack Pearl*, supposedly based on characters created by Raymond J. Meurer. Dedications in both books by Meurer, who was a business partner , in the broadcasting industry, of Lone Ranger co-creator George Trendle. Meurer was also a lawyer involved with the Lone Ranger licensing, so he would have connections with the Whitman/Western Publishing people. It's a shot in the dark, but he probably pitched this idea to them, and they hired Pearl to do the actual writing. Almost all of the other Whitman books in this series are licensed characters.

This book was, like all the others in the series, about 200 pages in length with colorful covers.

first book came out in 1967

second published in 1970

Interior art by Arnie Kohn. 

* Jacques Bain Pearl
born Richmond Hill, NY: 12 September 1923
died Nassau County, New York: 23 October 1992

Space Man #3

One of the first Dell titles after the split with Western Publishing, the first issue was actually Four Color #1253, cover dated January 1962. This is issue #3, from July 1962. There was almost a year hiatus until issue 4 came along. The series ended with issue 8 in mid 1964. The first 2 issues were reprinted in the 70s.
Art is by Jack Sparling, script most likely by Ken Fitch.Covers were by Vic Prezio.