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Wednesday, December 05, 2012

Number 1275: Time Travelers in Camelot

 This is the third of four “silly science” postings this week.

“Time Travelers” was a feature in ACG's Operation: Peril for the first twelve issues. The comic, which co-featured Danny Danger and Typhoon Tyler, then became a war comic. “Time Travelers” was a fun strip, even if its version of history was a bit screwy. For instance, in this episode from Operation: Peril #3 (1951), they go to the sixth century to find King Arthur's sword, Excalibur, so a college donor will make a $10 million donation. I know a little bit about history, and there's always been a disagreement about whether there was such a king as Arthur, and when he lived. Not to mention someone called Merlin.

But this is science fiction and comic book SF at that, so we don't want to think too much about it. Like when hero Tom Redfield says they're going to the sixth century to find King Arthur, he doesn't say exactly when in the sixth century. Like every other century, unless you've got an exact date, 100 years is a big span of time in which to look. Lucky Tom and girlfriend Peggy found King Arthur right off!

I have shown other stories from this entertaining series in the past (you'll excuse the expression). The first two Time Travelers' stories are from Operation: Peril  issues #1 and #2, in Pappy's #836 and Pappy's #840. The adventure from issue #4 is found in Pappy's #1001. In Pappy's #399 I featured the story from issue #11.

Grand Comics Database gives Ken Bald artist credit. Thanks to reader Scott Pell, who says the GCD is in error, that the art is actually that of Lin Streeter. After a second look I'm in agreement with Scott.













1 comment:

Unknown said...

This "Time Travelers" story is not the work of Ken Bald, but of Lin Streeter, whose work should be familiar to readers of Classics Illustrated Jr, not to mention the ACG and Ace horror comics. Streeter bore a superficial resemblance to Ken Bald, but Bald's work is much more static and unimaginative. There are countless mis-attributions to Ken Bald in the Grand Comics Database, a reference that needs to be taken witha grain of salt.