‘Into Space With Ace Brave - Space Master’, a pop - up book produced in the mid fifties and drawn by Ron Turner.
Inspired by the similar Dan Dare pop-up book which came out in 1953, Ron’s version was produced after he had finished working for ‘Tit - Bits’ comics and was looking for other work.
The first pop up shows the command deck of the space ship ’Asteroid’. The ship is on it’s way to Mars to rendezvous with the deep-space ship, ’Aspirant’.
To while away the journey, Ace Brave recalls some of his adventures.
Peril! - Ace along with fellow spacemen, Rex Manley and ‘Rocky’ Cragg land on Venus and do battle with a Terrathon.
Crash Landing! - While taking off from Mars, the rocket fuel pumps packed up half a mile above the ground. Ace managed to land the ship using the nose rockets.
Space Patrol - Interceptor rockets blast off from Moon Control to ward off Space Pirates that are threatening Ace’s ship.
At the end of the book, Ace and his crew board ‘The Aspirant’. Twenty four hours later they blast off into deep space. One day, Ace says, he’ll be back to tell you all - what lies beyond!
Ron never did do a follow up - During an interview conducted by John Lawrence in The Comic Journal he did recall doing another pop-up book but believed that may have been a western.
wow - i want one! thats gorgeous!
ReplyDeleteThis is a reaaly nice pop-up book. Terrific artwork geared for the young-uns. That's the one thing or branch of collectibles I haven't yet tried to get. Maybe I'm missing something, hmmmmm
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