Lights Out everybody

Yesterday I blogged briefly about the Inner Sanctum comic which (unexpectedly) appeared in an issue of Super-Magician Comics in 1943. Although the feature never reappeared in that series, in 1944 Street & Smith were ready to try again.

In two issues of Super-Magician Comics (v3 #6 & v3 #9), the radio program Lights Out appeared as a comic book feature. It was a strange time to trying to adapt Lights Out as the series had gone off the air in 1943. Still, I suppose it brought a bit of money to the program writer/producer Arch Oboler. Unlike the previous Inner Sanctum story where I was not certain whether the plot was adapted from a radio script, this time both instances are definitely adapted from Oboler's stories - they're both stories which have survived as recordings!

The feature in v3 #6 opens just as the Inner Sanctum story did, by providing a history of the personality behind the show; last time, it was a biography of the host, Raymond Edward Johnson. This time, it's of Arch Oboler himself (who did, of course, also host the show during his tenure). As before, The Grand Comics Database has no idea who worked on this feature. Most of the first 3 pages are spent describing Oboler's career, including his script for the film Escape and they drop the name of the radio show's last sponsor, Ironized Yeast.

Partially into the third page, the adaptation begins: it is of "Meteor Man" which you can hear at archive.org right here. The story involves a scientist who discovers a meteorite with a living creature inside whose mental powers threaten to enslave humanity. I understand that the original 1937 script of "Meteor Man" was a little more gruesome than the later radio play, which is the only one which survives (evidently the monster killed more people in the original). The comics adaptation would seem to be nearest to the later version.

In issue v3 #9, the adaptation is of 1942's "Come to the Bank" which you can hear at archive.org here. This one is about a man who tries to place mind over matter and succeeds in walking inside a wall - but then can't get out. identifies this one as being drawn by Charles Boland, who signed the final panel.

It's pretty neat to discover Lights Out had its own comic book feature, even if it was limited to only two instalments. Although Arch Oboler's stories were written with actors & sound effects in mind, I think many of them would have been effective as comic book adaptations. Too bad it didn't appear more frequently!