The second promotional comic I wanted to share is Journey to the Sun. It is also from Boys’ and Girls’ March of Comics and the only other one I've found that is about space flight.  It was handed to customers of stores that sold Little Yankee Shoes.   Journey to the Sun is a story about a mission to get close enough to the sun with some instruments to make some important measurements. They use ion propulsion to get there and actually use a solar sail for braking as they approach the sun. Of course things go wrong and the astronauts are subjected to high heat (and drama.) In the end they use the known melting points of several metals to measure their distance from the sun so they can complete their mission. A much more scientific story than I expected. Journey to The Sun. (Promotional comic.)  Boys’ and Girls’ March of Comics, #219. Poughkeepsie, NY: Western Printing and Lithographing Co. (18 p.) 1961.

A promotional comic from 1960 called Space Explorer. It was part of the comic series Boys’ and Girls’ March of Comics, #202. These promotional comics were distributer to retailers who would brand them with their name and give them away to customers to attract them to shop at that store (like stores that sell Jumping-Jacks shoes.) Space Explorer is the story of a brave astronaut who survives trials and tribulations to make it to Phobos (of Mars) to discover via telescope new information about Martian canals. Spoiler alert: Mars has primitive plants but no intelligent life made the canals. Space Explorer. (Promotional comic.)  Boys’ and Girls’ March of Comics, #202. Poughkeepsie, NY: Western Printing and Lithographing Co. (18 p.) 1960.

A nice treat today as Caroline goes to the Moon! This was a popular French fictional series but I had not been able to find the one about the Moon trip until recently. The illustrations are beautiful and full color. Well worth examining each one for its details. Pierre Probst (1913-2007 ) introduced Caroline and her feisty animal friends to the French public in 1952, and added to the series for a decade. He created Caroline, based on his tomboyish daughter Simone. The illustrations are charming, full color, and with wonderful two-page spreads with great comic details. Caroline' is about seven years old, and has blonde hair with pigtails. She lives by herself among a band of friends - the dogs Bobby and Rusty, the cats Puff and Inky, the bear Bruno, a lion and a panther. Pierre Probst's greatest gift was for showing the human emotions on the faces of Caroline's animal friends, and his real daughter Simone can remember her father drawing from a mirror as he himself performed the grimaces and guffaws that he wanted to convey. Enjoy the adventure. (Sorry that some of the spreads get edges cut off.) Probst, Pierre. Caroline Sur La Lune (Caroline on the Moon). Paris: Grands Albums Hachette. (30 p.) 1965. I like Caroline's and her animal friends' faces as they undergo extra "G's" A really nice detailed illustration of approaching the Moon. I enjoy "fighting off" the meteors with tennis rackets.

The Spaceman at Home and at School was a pamphlet for elementary school teacher. It gave them ideas about how to teach about space flight in the classroom with vivid examples. It was not about the history of spaceflight but rather how to build on the "Space Race" excitement already in the classrooms of the time. Probably not too many copies of this one still around.  It is a charming spaceflight craft and costume handbook. I found a copy that come from a retired teacher's classroom. Along with it she had reproduced drawings from the book and a play about spaceflight. She also had mimeographs to hand out of the play and to send home with parents who might have to create a costume.  Miller, Ray. The Spaceman at Home and at School. Riverside, CA: Bruce Miller Publication. (24 p.) 1958.  My 2016 blog post about this book and record https://dreamsofspace.blogspot.com/2016/09/space-horizons-unlimited-1957.html One of the copied plans for parents.

Some nice space pictures (to color) for you today.  Coloring books may be one of the ultimate forms of ephemera. There were meant to be used, admired? and then thrown away. Yet many children owned them and there were at least 40 issued between 1950 and 1970 on space themes. If pictures are a universal communication then these children got a lot of input about what their future in space would look like. This particular one is full of futuristic dreams of what space flight might be from the viewpoint of the beginning of our men into space programs. Rockets and Space Coloring Book. New York: Treasure Books. (51 p.) 1960.  This first batch seems to be copied from older 50's space images This image on the right above seems a little odd. It can't be on the Moon since there is a helicopter.  What is the palm tree doing in the loading of the lunar ship? Does it leave from the tropics? Does it launch "single stage direct?" This image above also needs more explanation. Is this a Russian launch system? I don't remember it. "Ready for take-off" to aim at targets on Earth? That spaceship has a really big window