[MarkWarner]

The reading group discussion on last week's book veered "somewhat" off topic and ended up affirming Oscar Wilde's Canterville Ghost quote:

"We really have everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language"

I'd love to know what Wilde would have made of this week's book. It is a spur of the moment choice, a new version of Drift Marlo #1 which fixed a page order problem. This looks rather intriguing and we are due a Sci-fi book.

It is however a c2c read, as the book has just the one major story with "File of the Periled 'Peace-Maker" taking up 32 pages. Here is the link: https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=69502.

Happy reading!!

[SuperScrounge]

File of the Periled 'Peace-Maker' - Kind of dull. The story was slow-moving and easily predictable. I suppose as a kid I might have liked it. The art was okay.

[The Australian Panther]

This is a story in which the art is only there to illustrate the word balloons. It has no dynamism or energy and adds nothing to the story. there are two types of comic artists, illustrators and those who saw the visual narrative page as a medium in its own right - notably Eisner, Ditko, Kirby, Chester Gould for example. The story here is good, but as scrounge has pointed out the effect is to make it dull. It is also surprisingly contemporary - being about missile shields. That said, the drawing is actually quite good. 
Researching Tom Cooke is a textbook case of the regard golden age comic artists are held in.
Lambiak mentions his comic work, but fails to mention his longer career with Seseme street.
https://www.lambiek.net/artists/c/cooke_tom.htm  [ note French edition, 'Daniel Marleau']
Other sites only mention his later career.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/10/02/tom-cooke-newburyport-illustrator-sesame-street-books-changed-course-artist-after-stroke/R77LsIau1bwQiTHQ5R3QfK/story.html
Bails gives you both
http://www.bailsprojects.com/bio.aspx?Name=COOKE%2c+TOM

Thanks for getting me to look closer at thus, Going through the Dell books, I only gave it a cursory glance.
Memory says I did the same thing when I saw it on the stands back i n the day. Oh yeah, Great scan!
Anybody got the french edition somewhere? looks quite good.

[Morgus]

Is there a RATIONAL for the name, Drift Marlo? Wow. Anyway, Dell and Charlton always had these very bleak, blank backgrounds in their war comics, so I wound up as a kid associating their backgrounds in their other comics with things like The Korean War. So, yeah, the idea of a missile shield was on my mind too. (Any idea if Japan could REALLY shoot down a North Korean missile, if they wanted to you guys?) There was, as panther has noted, way too much chatter. I zoned out and played a game my granny used to do with MURDER SHE WROTE. She'd try to guess the villain by the haircut. (Most of the time, she was right...) This time, I was able to pick out the bad guy by the way he was drawn. (And I don't think that was hard.) Nice pictures of rockets, by the way. There was even Old School Cos play at the officers party. The cover reminded me of something close to H P Lovecraft and I wished the artist had a chance to do some work on a comic adaptation of one of his stores. That was probably because Dell did the DIE MONSTER DIE (Color Out of Space) adaptation for AIP and for once those blank almost desert backdrops did come in handy. I wish Bob Hope's comics at DC had gotten a hold of that Atlas rocket plan for the whole family to live in. I can almost hear Don Fagan singing about "what a beautiful world it will be", and "what a glorious time to be free".

[MarkWarner]

On opening the book I saw the acknowledgement for the assistance given by the "1st Strategic Aerospace Division". Intrigued I looked them up. What a strange organisation!

It is currently inactive, but who would bet against it becoming active for the 6th time? It operated: 1) 1943

[crashryan]

Okay, Mark, I get the message--keep up to date on Reading Group assignments!

I shudder to think that I read Drift Marlo in the Menomonee Falls Gazette some forty years ago (gulp!). I remember liking the strip. So I was disappointed by this comic. The story, especially the first third, moves very slowly. There simply isn't enough plot to justify giving it 32 pages. The clumsy running gag about the costume ball annoys rather than amuses.

Tom Cooke's art is capable if unexciting. I enjoyed much more Cooke's cartooning on the Sesame Street books. He was a major part of our kids' childhood.

There was a plastic model of the Atlas-based space station described on the back cover. I could never figure out how they planned to fit all that stuff into the hull of an Atlas missile. It didn't seem big enough.

[paw broon]

This one wasn't much good.  A bit too extended for the story. The stuff about the ball, and the costume was tiring. Terrible name.  Who thought "Drift Marlo" up? Drift? It was my attention that started to drift.  Still, I used to know a lad we called "Tatty Bogle"
The rockets were nice but didn't make up for the story being overlong and boring.
You'll all think me badly educated in the art of artist recognition but there are a couple of panels/figures that remind me of Sekowsky. 
I have to confess that as I was getting to the last quarter of the comic, I started to click a bit more quickly through the remaining pages. I already was sure that Fowler was responsible.

[narfstar]

I too am getting behind and coming in at the end. I found the same thing that this was much too predictable and long. This could have easily been told in ten pages or less

[Captain Audio]

I read this one long ago so just skimmed through it again.
The premise is great, the execution just so-so at best.

The plot reminds me of the older B&W "Avengers" episodes that dealt with space travel. It also harks back to the late 60's spy series but with a welcome touch of "Men Into Space".

There are a few unsold space oriented TV series pilots to be found on youtube, I suspect Drift Marlo was envisioned as a possible series at some point. That would explain the over long story that resembles a story board to guide filming.

[mopee167]

Tom Cooke's art is capable if unexciting. I enjoyed much more Cooke's cartooning on the Sesame Street books. He was a major part of our kids' childhood.

Umm, different Tom Cooke. Thomas J. Cooke (1923-1986) is the Drift Marlo artist.
Thomas I. Cooke (1936-2014) drew the Sesame street book.

[lyons]

Good detail and story flow in Dell's unsuccessful attempt at launching original material - Drift lasted 2 well-written issues.  The artwork is good for a Dell comic -  Tom Cooke's draftsmanship of spacecraft and rockets is superb, and the story effectively illustrates the 1962 Cold War hysteria of nuclear annihilation.  A good read.