In the early '50s, Mr. Oksner further showed his versatility by contributing to Julie Schwartz's fledgling science fiction titles, Strange Adventures and Mystery in Space. Now, as any Schwartz fan will tell you, Julie was ahead of his time in creating strong female characters, such as Alanna, Shayera Hol, Jean Loring, etc. But the first step along that road came much earlier, in a tale John Broome wrote for Julie back in 1952, called "It's a Woman's World" - a bold feminist statement for its time which appeared in Mystery in Space #8.

I can just picture the editorial conference -

"OK, Julie, how about a big splash page with all of these women astronauts in fishnet stockings?"

"Sounds great - get Oksner on the phone!"







In the mid-50s, Bob began his long association drawing the Jerry Lewis feature, back when it was still The Adventures of Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis. Here's a little sample from #24:





My absolute favorite Bob Oksner work is The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, which began in 1960. Based on the TV series with actors Dwayne Hickman (Dobie), Bob Denver (Maynard) and Tuesday Weld (Thalia), it had a too-short run of 26 issues. The stories always had 2 attractions for me - Dobie's drop-dead gorgeous girlfriends, and the unique ways he found to exasperate his old man. Here's just a little dose of it from issue #2 (I only wish I had time to devote an entire thread to this series):









To be continued...