Number 1112


Delinquent in Space


I've had the scans for these two stories prepared since January, 2011. I'm just now getting around to posting them because in over a year I haven't really been able to think of anything to say about them, except they're crazy. The scripts are by editor Richard E. Hughes writing as Shane O'Shea.

Under the O'Shea pen-name Hughes wrote the classic Herbie stories. There's one sequence in part 2 of "Delinquent in Space" which I could swear I've also seen in a Herbie comic: Gene the delinquent masquerades as a bearded Soviet in order to get access to the spaceship. Or am I just hallucinating after licking one of Herbie's hard-to-find-cinnamon lollipops?

The original story, appearing in Adventures Into the Unknown #114 (1960), was apparently popular enough to call for a sequel in AITU #122. Artist Ogden Whitney, whose solid art style didn't vary no matter the subject, gives it his professional polish, just like he did for Herbie.