The Golden Derby - August 1967!

Fifty years ago this month was an exceedingly interesting on from the little Derby publisher Charlton Comics. Space Adventures Presents U.F.O. is a special one-shot issue which gave up a totally strange three part story about Paul Mann, a guy who finds aliens all over. Some of Charlton's best talents worked on this fascinating comic which features a really eye-popping cover by Rocke Mastroserio. The big news of the month though was the debut of Hercules by Joe Gill and the Sam Glanzman. With the advent of this new series we see Charlton beginning its move away from the Action Heroes and onto something different. The back up Thane of Bagarth by Jim Aparo and Steve Skeates. But many of the Action Heroes are still here. Judomaster continues as Rip Jagger goes back to the states to help his old boxing mentor while Sarge Steel battles a femme fatale in the back up and shows up in final issue of Secret Agent. Blue Beetle battles some of his most exotic enemies when the Madmen attack.  Captain Atom takes to the depths of space to confront the menace of alien insects of Ronthor. As usual Charlton offered up a gang of genre books like Ghostly Tales, Career Girl Romances, Hot Rods and Racing Cars and even a final extra issue of Gunmaster, but the publisher is definitely entering a new phase.  That's seen with the publication of a new series dubbed Strange Suspense Stories and revived the old humor title Timmy the Timid Ghost.  There's a one-shot on baseball of all things. They published nearly thirty titles this month, a total they'd not reach again. There were so many nifty covers this month, that I've violated my five cover limit on this series this one time. Enjoy!

More to come next month.

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