The Atomic-Powered Debut of Hillman’s Rocket Comics, up for Auction

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

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 Rocket Comics #1 (Hillman Publications, 1940) CBCS FN- 5.5 Off-white to white pages up for auction in the 2023 June 22 – 25 Comics & Comic Art Signature® Auction #7340 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.

A short lived but memorable early entry into Golden Age comic book science fiction, there’s a Rocket Comics #1 (Hillman Publications, 1940) CBCS FN- 5.5 Off-white to white pages up for auction in the 2023 June 22 – 25 Comics & Comic Art Signature® Auction #7340 at Heritage Auctions.

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