Number 651


Krigstein at DC


I'm not sure how many stories Bernard Krigstein drew for DC Comics. During the late 1940s and early 1950s he freelanced quite a bit for a variety of publishers. These two stories from 1953, in Strange Adventures#32 and #33, show he adapted well to the DC house style. I'm not sure why he didn't do more for editor Julius Schwartz.

Both of the stories are written by Sid Gerson. As with a lot of the contents of Strange Adventures, they toss around major science fiction concepts like beanbags. In "The Atomic Invasion" a couple of scientists invent a process by which they can transmute themselves through matter, just in time to meet the threat of gas people from the star Zollic. "The Snows of Mars" has Martians sending us "magnetic snow," which is a curse, only to end the story with a blessing...from the snow comes the cure for all diseases known to mankind! Wow! All that in only six pages!

Neither of these stories show Krigstein at his artistic and creative pinnacle, but they are both good examples of artwork within the Schwartz system.