OTTO BINDER & CARL PFEUFER orig art OUR SPACE AGE futuristic theme, UFO connex

$

35

 Original Newspaper Cartoon

OUR SPACE AGE

by

OTTO BINDER and CARL PFEUFER

Rare!

A newspaper panel that ran "under the radar" -- never a huge success, but running between 1960 and 1969, during the space Race to the Moon! -- was "Our Space Age." It was a combination of science fact, about the space program, rockets, and astronauts; and science-fiction, igniting several well-publicized debates about UFOs. 

The creators had great pedigrees in Golden Age comics. Otto Binder, the writer, was the brother of Jack Binder, and wrote Sunder Mort Weisinger before either got into books, but then joined Fawcett and worked on CAPTAIN MARVEL and the Marvel Family, many teamed with C C Beck. Moving to Timely, he worked on CAPTAIN AMERICA, THE HUMAN TORCH, and SUB-MARINER. For Quality Comics, he worked on BLACKHAWK and DOLL MAN; for MLJ, he worked on SHIELD and THE HANGMAN. He also worked for Gold Key Comics. For EC in 1955 he teamed with Al Williamson to draw "Lost in Space." But his major contributions, or majority of work through the years, was for DC. He wrote the story that launched Jimmy Olsen's solo title, and with Al Plastino, created the Legion of Superheroes. He created many characters in the Superman "family," like Supergirl, Lucy Lane, and Krypto the Super-Dog. Through the years he was active in publishing, and writing articles for, science, science-fiction, and pseudo-science magazines. He retained an interest in UFOs and believed human beings were descended from an alien race.

Pfeufer was a staff artist for the Brooklyn Eagle when he and writer Don Moore created newspaper strips DON DIXON AND THE LOST EMPIRE and TAD OF THE TANBARK, easily seen as inspired by Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon and Jungle Jim. But they were respectable imitations, very well drawn. The Sundays were re-sized and appeared in Golden Age comic books as well. At Timely Comics, Pfeufer drew SUB-MARINER after Bill Everett left for the military; and at Fawcett he drew many characters, including a long stint on TOM MIX. Through the years he also drew for Dell, Harvey, DC, and Marvel. He also painted covers for LIBERTY Magazine and BANTAM BOOKS.

The two legendary Golden Age talents teamed up on OUR SPACE AGE in 1960 after Sputnik and right before President Kennedy's pledge to put an American on the Moon before the end of the decade. The newspaper feature was syndicated by Bell-McClure.

This panel probably is from 1966, but undated. Pen and ink, 11 x 7.5 inches, excellent condition.

A rare association piece -- American space exploration, and two legends of Golden Age comics and science-fiction!