Thursday, March 24, 2011

Starstream: Adventures in Science Fiction Issue One

'Starstream: Adventures in Science Fiction' Issue One (1976)




'Starstream' was a color comic book priced at 79 cents and published by Whitman / Western Publishing Company; four issues (all devoid of the Gold Key insignia) appeared in 1976 before the title vanished into obscurity. 

Issue one featured a painted cover by Richard Powers, so Western was perhaps trying to produce a book with better production values than the norm from DC and Marvel.

The books featured adaptations of stories by well-known SF authors. In the main these are decent enough stories, if not particularly adventurous in writing and style. Even though all four issues of 'Starstream'  lacked a Comics Code Authority stamp, like the Gold Key comics line they were clearly marketed for a young adult / juvenile audience.

Excerpted here from one of the issues (they had no date or month indicator on the cover, and a minimal indica) is a story adapted from  'The Music of Minox', a story by Howard Goldsmith from the anthology 'More Science Fiction Tales' (1974) by Roger Elwood.



 

2 comments:

danieletomasi said...

Thanks to you now I know about a comic-book I had never heard of before and I've seen an old work of JoseLuisGarziaLopez, one of my favourite artists. Double discovery! I think that a different kind of cover, less "narrative paperback" and more "comicbook", could have help to stay on the shelves for a longer time.

Anonymous said...

This was the first time I read "Who Goes There", a great story and a great comic.