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TOM CORBETT SPACE CADET COMICS!The Tom Corbett, Space Cadet comic was originally published by Dell in its Four Color series. Thus the first three issues are numbers 378, 400 and 421. The series continues as its own title, numbered 4 through 11, the last Dell issue. There was also a very rare “March of Comics” giveaway title, number 102 in that series, and three fairly rare issues from Prize Comics, numbers 1 through 3. As a kid, I had all of these comics except the March of Comics issue, which I have still never seen to this date, and both then and now I consider the overwhelmingly best issue, with regard to both art and storyline, to be the second Dell issue, whose cover is seen below.

Alden McWilliams was the best artist to work on the series, and his art is seen in the first two Dell issues, but reaches its peak with the second issue, Four Color 400. McWilliams gets a superb likeness of Tom Corbett (Frankie Thomas), Astro (Al Markim), Roger Manning (Jan Merlin), Alfie Higgins (John Fiedler) and Commander Arkwright (Carter Blake). While his space hardware does not match that shown in the TV broadcasts, it is fairly convincing by the loose standards of the early 1950s. [Decades later, McWilliams drew Star Trek comics for Gold Key.]

Cadet Tom Corbett

Cadet Roger Manning

Cadet Astro

Cadet Alfie Higgins

For some reason McWilliams makes no attempt to get a likeness of either Edward Bryce (Captain Strong) or the lovely Margaret Garland (Dr. Dale). In the case of Dale the problem is that, like most comics artists of the 1940s and 1950s, McWilliams could draw only one attractive female. In his newspaper strip Twin Earths, all adult females look alike except for details of hair style and color, and Dale looks just like the girls of Twin Earths. As for Captain Strong, it's more puzzling. The McWilliams version looks more like Michael Harvey (who played the role only six times, in the first two weeks of the broadcasts), but he doesn't really look like either Harvey or Bryce. Maybe he's an attempt by McWilliams to average between the appearances of both actors.

Dr. Joan Dale

Captain Steve Strong

Cadet T. J. Thistle

Commander Arkwright

Cadet T. J. Thistle (Jack Grimes) is seen only in the Prize issues from 1955 with very inferior art by Mort Meskin. Meskin makes no attempt to get a likeness of any of the characters... or maybe he makes an attempt, but fails. The best on-line writeup on these comics is that found on Cadet Ed Pippin's Solar Guard website, here.

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