Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: buck rogers, flash gordon, Hillman Periodicals

The Atomic-Powered Run of Hillman's Rocket Comics, up for Auction

One of Hillman's debut comic book titles, Rocket Comics featured Rocket Riley, a character influenced by Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon.

A space adventure saga influenced by both Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, Rocket Riley was the cover feature of Rocket Comics, part of the first wave of comic book titles launched by Hillman Periodicals. Both Rocket Comics and the publisher's science-fiction featuring Miracle Comics hit newsstands in the last week of 1939, sharing rack space with the similarly-themed comics like DC Comics' All-American Comics #11 featuring Ultra-Man and Dell's Popular Comics #48 featuring Martan the Marvel Man. Despite its obvious influences, Rocket Riley was a well-crafted feature with some interesting touches, and with its 1939 release date qualifies as a relatively early entry in the science fiction comics of the Golden Age.  There's a complete run of this three-issue series, including the crazy rare issue #3 up for auction in the 2024 August 1 – 2 Rarities of the Golden Age Comics Showcase Auction #40259 at Heritage Auctions.

While the creators of Rocket Riley are unknown, the writer may have been Emile C. Schurmacher, who had created Sky Wizard for Miracle Comics at that time.  Certainly, Schurmacher's method in creating Sky Wizard, as he related in Writer's Digest in 1940 has a familiar ring:

Pick yourself a hero, a Buck Rogers or a Superman. Put him in an exotic surrounding in this world or another. Get him into a mortal conflict with an arch villain. Work in a chase. Keep your love interest, if any at an absolute minimum. Do that and you've got an action comic sequence and your chance of selling it depends upon the uniqueness of locale and exploits of your hero.

That's a pretty close description of what was begun in Rocket Comics.  Rocket Riley, who is engaged to Professor Sterling's daughter Griselda, works as a rocket pilot for the Professor, who is developing atomic-powered rocket ships. Their project is under threat from  a villain named Von Strangle. During a tour of the rocket ship, Strangle and Yacco attempt to seize the vessel, but inadvertently launch it into space, where it's pulled into the orbit of a distant planet.

Best remembered today as the publisher of Airboy and other comics, Alex Hillman entered into the publishing business in the late 1920s, working for publishers including Heron Press, Inc. and a publisher of academic texts.  By the early 1930s he was working for publisher William Godwin, Inc., soon becoming president of that firm. He eventually formed a partnership called Hillman-Curl, which got into magazine-style pulps around the mid-1930s, and started his own Hillman Periodicals in 1938.  Hillman then essentially made three distinct attempts to enter the comic book publishing business from 1939 to 1941.

Hillman-Curl's late-1939 launch of Miracle Comics and Rocket Comics, under the editorship of  Anatole Field and Lionel White, was the first short-lived attempt.  Apparently free of the partnership with Sam Curl a short time later, Hillman Periodicals then launched Victory Comics and Air Fighters Comics under the editorship of former Funnies, Inc. editor John H. Compton.  This attempt seems to have quickly stalled out as well, but Hillman apparently didn't want to let Air Fighters Comics die after just one issue.  Air Fighters Comics returned with sort of a soft relaunch a year later under the editorship of Ed Cronin and with a completely different line-up, including the introduction of Airboy.

Rocket Comics is a short-lived but memorable early entry into Golden Age comic book science fiction. A complete run of this three-issue series, including the crazy rare issue #3, is up for auction in the 2024 August 1 – 2 Rarities of the Golden Age Comics Showcase Auction #40259 at Heritage Auctions.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!