''Twin Earths'' is an American
science fiction
Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...
comic strip
A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics terminology#Captio ...
written by
Oskar Lebeck
Oskar Lebeck (August 30, 1903 – December 20, 1966) was a stage designer and an illustrator, writer and editor (mostly of children's literature) who is best known for his role in establishing Dell Comics during the 1930s and 1940s period known a ...
and drawn by
Alden McWilliams
Alden Spurr McWilliams generally credited as Al McWilliams and A. McWilliams (February 2, 1916 – March 19, 1993), that ran in
Sunday
Sunday (Latin: ''dies solis'' meaning "day of the sun") is the day of the week between Saturday and Monday. Sunday is a Christian sabbath, day of rest in most Western countries and a part of the Workweek and weekend, weekend. In some Middle Ea ...
and
daily newspapers from 1952 until 1963.
Ron Goulart
Ronald Joseph Goulart (; January 13, 1933 – January 14, 2022) was an American popular culture historian and mystery, fantasy and science fiction author.
He worked on novels and novelizations (and other works) being published under various ps ...
, ''The Funnies : 100 years of American comic strips''. Holbrook, Mass. : Adams Pub.,1995. (pp. 194-5). The strip was distributed by
United Feature Syndicate
United Feature Syndicate, Inc. (UFS) is a large American editorial column and comic strip newspaper syndication service based in the United States and established in 1919. Originally part of E. W. Scripps Company, it was part of United Media ( ...
.
Publication history
The daily strip began on June 16, 1952, the Sunday on March 1, 1953.
The Sunday was drawn in a
half page
Comic strip formats vary widely from publication to publication, so that the same newspaper comic strip may appear in a half-dozen different formats with different numbers of panels, different sizes of panels and different arrangement of panels.
...
format, but it was available in smaller formats with dropped panels.
While semi-retired, Lebeck teamed with McWilliams (who had illustrated some of Lebeck's past books and had done work for him at
Dell Comics
Dell Comics was the comic book publishing arm of Dell Publishing, which got its start in pulp magazines. It published comics from 1929 to 1973. At its peak, it was the most prominent and successful American company in the medium.Evanier, Mark"Wh ...
) to launch ''Twin Earths''. It made use of the
duplicate earth concept and tapped into the growing interest during the period in
flying saucer
A flying saucer, or flying disc, is a purported type of disc-shaped unidentified flying object (UFO). The term was coined in 1947 by the United States (US) news media for the objects pilot Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting, Kenneth Arnold claimed fl ...
s. In 1957, Lebeck retired and McWilliams assumed scripting duties for the strip.
The ''Twin Earths'' Sunday strip ended December 28, 1958, while the daily strip continued until May 25, 1963.
[
]
Characters and story
The story told of another Earth (called ''Terra''), in the same orbit as our planet but on the opposite side of the sun, whose scientifically advanced civilization visits us in flying saucers
A flying saucer, or flying disc, is a purported type of disc-shaped unidentified flying object (UFO). The term was coined in 1947 by the United States (US) news media for the objects pilot Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting, Kenneth Arnold claimed fl ...
. Comics historian Stephen Donnelly noted:
Reprints
Most of the strips have been reprinted in magazine format. In 1987, Dragon Lady Press published one issue of ''Science Fiction Classics'' featuring ''Twin Earths''. Beginning in 1991, R. Susor Publications reprinted most of the daily and Sunday strips in three magazines, ''Twin Earths'' (eight issues), ''Twin Earths Sunday Pages'' (five issues), and ''Twin Earths Special Edition'' (one issue)
See also
* List of Twin Earths comic strips
References
Sources
''Twin Earths Special Edition'' #1, R. Susor Publications, 1993.
1952 comics debuts
1963 comics endings
American comic strips
Comics set on fictional planets
Works set on fictional planets
Science fiction comic strips
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