Thursday, September 4, 2014

Reading Room WORLD AROUND US "Great Houdini"

For kids in the 1950s-60s, the go-to for fast and accurate info (if you didn't have an encyclopedia in those pre-Internet days) were the World Around Us comic series...
...and that's where we'll find the longest and most accurate graphic retelling of the life of Houdini!
(And the artwork was great source material for covers of reports about the subject matter.)
World Around Us #25 (1960) was subtitled "Illustrated Story of Magic" and featured a number of tales about magicians though the ages.
BTW, the World Around Us series, despite featuring artwork by a who's who of Golden and Silver Age greats including Jack Kirby, Reed Crandall, Gerald McCann, Gray Morrow, Dick Ayers, Sam Glanzman, George Evans, and Angelo Torres, has never been reprinted!
The Houdini tale was illustrated by Norman Nodel, who is best-known for his artwork for the "Doctor No" movie adaptation that appeared in Classics Illustrated in England, but in DC's Showcase Comics in America!
You can read the American version and see the changes made between the British and US editions HERE.

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Thanx for posting!