Captain's Library: FIREBALL XL5 "Moon Masters" Part 1

Last time we showed you a British Fireball XL5 comic strip...

...now we present the American version, with a decidedly-different "look" for the characters (though the Fireball itself and the other vehicles and devices look as they do on the show!

Discover if Earth survives...tomorrow!

As you can see, artist Ray Bailey "corrected" the characters' anatomy to more realistic human proportions as opposed to the on-screen puppets' over-sized heads with exaggerated features.

The heads had to be bigger than "normal" to accomodate the primitive electronics that controlled synchronizing the mouths to previously-recorded dialogue tracks.

As technology progressed, the heads became smaller until, by the time of Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, the puppets had "normal" human proportions.

This was the lead story in Gold Key's Steve Zodiac and FireBall XL5 (1964) one-shot.

Previously, Gold Key had done four issues of Mike Mercury and Supercar with more cartoony art that accurately captured the "look" of the puppet characters.

We'll be presenting one of them later in the month.