Weird Worlds 1980

You may have noticed a lack of posts the last 2 months. I'd lost that bloggin' feeling. That combined with Christmas and other extenuating circumstances resulted in no content. But with the New Year, I'm back.

I was at an estate sale this morning and came across this issue of Weird Worlds.

By 1979, having just started the 7th grade, I was already a fan of Scholastic's "Dynamite" magazine when I saw a new magazine advertised in their flyer: "Weird Worlds". The first issue featured a Battlestar Galactica cover.

I didn't watch Battlestar Galactica (not sure why, there must have been something else more appealing opposite of it), but I was intrigued by a magazine that would feature it and ordered that issue. Reading through it's content of weird facts, tributes to horror movies and short sci fi stories grabbed me instantly and I was hooked. It was the "Dynamite" of the nerd set.

Produced by the same team that brought us "Dynamite" including Margaret Ronin, Suzanne Lord and Chip Lovitt, it was edited by husband and wife team Jane and "Jovial" Bob Stine, who later dropped the "Jovial" and started going by R. L. You might remember him from a series of children's novels he wrote...

I bought several more issues, but at some point, the Scholastic flyers stopped coming and I didn't see it again. As it turned out, I didn't miss much. Based on the covers online, it only lasted 8 issues.

I had the issue I bought today, but it had been destroyed from repeated reading over the years. I enjoyed reading through it. And now you can too.

The poster is still attached. I didn't have the heart to tear it out. It says, "Welcome to Mars". You'll have to use your imagination.

I remember finding that movie still for "I Walked with a Zombie" pretty disturbing. Something about the goat (or deer or whatever it is) strung up from the tree.

Sounds like somebody didn't like "Night of the Living Dead".

I remember enjoying this story, and being a little disturbed by it.

"Saturn 3" was a British-produced science fiction film that starred Kirk Douglas, Farrah Fawcett and Harvey Keitel (works for me). It was a box office flop.

I remember watching that squirrel on the TV show "Those Amazing Animals".

I remember seeing that picture of Mars for the first time. It just about blew my mind.

I was a sucker for these "True" UFO encounter stories. Margaret Ronan wrote this one. She also wrote the "True Tales of Terror" series in "Dynamite" magazine that captivated me. Like those stories, the truth of this tale is questionable. I could find no reference to a "Jennings Frederich" on the internet, but oddly enough, I did find an author named M. Frederic Jennings who wrote "FOI (Flying Objects Identified)" in 2013.

The cover of this magazine along with the following story are illustrated by Joe Kubert (or at least his "School of Art". There's no denying he's a legend in the comic's world, but I was never a big fan of his work, although the story below features some of the better art I've seen by him.