The newspapers of America have been a source of many exciting stories in the development of our nation, but there have been many unnoticed, unacclaimed and usually disregarded stories as exciting as any front page news copy. These stories could be found near the rear of the weekday paper and located in the middle of the Sunday paper in the "Funnies". The early 30's followed the exploits of Buck Rogers, the 40's would proclaim the adventures of Flash Gordon on a newly discovered planet and on Sunday September 9th 1951 a new chapter would be added to this line of special stories. These secial stories were the meat and potatoes of our youth, looked down on as Just crazy space stories but eagerly sought out in the comic pages of the newspapers. The newcomer to the Science Fiction scene opened with three young men traveling on a "sliding" sidewalk. The marvels of the future West Point of Space (SPACE ACADEMY) are passing before them. The young men of this future epic are just beginning their adventure at the Academy and are the famed members of the Polaris unit, Tom Corbett, Roger Manning, and Astro.

	The first Tom Corbett Sunday strip September 9th, 1951

The early TC Sunday strips would usually end with a comic punch line and this, the first Sunday adventure, would set the stage for many other such "punch lines". While the boys are drinking in the marvels of the Academy another marvel brings them down to earth .... a STUDY MACHINE for class work!!!!

The Artist- Ray Bailey

This new series of adventures was translated from the Tom Corbett TV series to the comic section by the veteran strip artist Ray Bailey. Mr Bailey had a popular aviation series in the 1940's, BRUCE GENTRY, and developed VESTA WEST for a Chicago paper, assisted with the GUMPS Strip and worked as Milton Caniff's assistant on STEVE CANYON. His distinctive artwork can be seen in a number of the 1950's DELL comics including the Dell Steve Canyon comics and a number of the Dell TV Show adaptations of TV Boots & Saddles, The Gray Ghost, Ripcord and others.

The comic book series which bore the strongest resemblance to the TOM CORBETT strip were the UNDERSEA AGENTS published by Tower Comics. Lt Davy Jones of the UNDERSEA AGENTS is a dead ringer for TOM CORBETT SPACE CADET. The scenery and equipment seen in the UNDERSEA AGENTS comic book have a strong resemblance to the "outer space" look of TOM CORBETT. The underwater environment of UA could replace some of the space settings of TC. Both settings lend themselves to "out of this world" feeling along with "unknown" quality of unexplored space- either underwater or outer space. Other comic book work by Mr Bailey included the 1960 issues of King Publishers Mandrake and Charlton Pub. Jungle Comics published in the early to mid 1960's.

His work on the TOM CORBETT strip was a mixed style of cartoon and realistic styles The spaceships, land crafts and equipment were drawn with clean, crisp, functional lines while having a used look with wear marks and general maintenance repairs visible on the equipment. This was in direct contrast to some of the illustrations of the Polaris crew.

Tom, Roger, and Astro would appear in a cartoon, overdrawn look which didn't match the background . Many of the full face panels of Tom would exhibit a Noel Sickles influence while the aerial views were well balanced for perspective and depth. Rather than a background for a comic strip, the landscapes of Earth mountains, distant vistas Venus, Mars and Titan had an almost fine art quality to them. Lt Davy Jones: note Noel Sickles influence.

Mr. Bailey's art did vary in quality from some excellent spaceship panels to average panels with little or no background. His space stations were uninspired round balls in the blackness of space with many panels as large areas of darkness with nondescriptive action scenes. The dark art technique was probably used to save time at the expense of the strips action.

A 1952 Sunday Supplement article in the Baltimore Sun reveals some of Mr. Bailey's thoughts about the Tom Corbett strip. He had dropped another adventure strip in favor of Tom Corbett, which he felt would be one of the most interesting projects he had ever done. Mr. Bailey had grown up in a newspaper environment with his dad, Ray W. Bailey, a reporter for a New York paper.

Mr. Bailey and his wife, Dorothy Behrens a well known fashion illustration, proved to be a working team. Mrs. Bailey did most of the lettering for Tom Corbett while the Bailey's three children Richard, Carol and Bonnie served as critics, Carol was one of the "Whiz Kids"on early TV. Mr. Bailey's major tension release from work was building model railroad cars and running them on his train sets he designed and kept in the basement.

Strip Structure

The Tom Corbett strip ran until September 12th 1953, covering 12 different adventures ranging from a short run of 5 1/2 weeks to the longest run of 16 weeks. Several of the characters would be used as crossovers in other stories but only the mainstays of the Academy (Tom, Roger ,Astro) would appear in all of the adventures.

The first two weeks of the daily strip served as in introduction to the main characters. This abbreviated introduction did not show the friction between unit members of the Polaris and only hinted at the friendship Roger and Astro later developed. Roger is the senior cadet during the first week of the strip but by the second week he is replaced by Tom who remains the command cadet throughout their adventures.

The action in the Sunday pages differed from the daily strip for the first six months. The storyline of the daily strip and the Sunday page were synchronized the March 30th 1952 page. During this time the Sunday page would dramatize a science fact the cadets were learning at the Academy. A special panel at the end of the strip called SPACE DUST

These "single" Sunday adventures documented the practical jokes the cadets played on one another as well as the "Punch line" worked into the strip. The October 7th 1951 page, which deals with weightlessness, is a good example. While on a routine flight in space, Astro turns the artificial gravity off on the Polaris while Roger is sleeping, causing him to float away from his bunk into open space. The joke backfires on Astro when the gravity is turned back on and Roger falls on top of Astro. Capt Strong delivers the "punch line" by saying Astro didn't understand the gravity of his joke." If you survive the pun, the SPACE DUST section brought the serious point across by explaining weightlessness in an elevator as it drops.

The Sunday page devoted the first three panels of the strip to a re-cap of the prior 6 days of action. The pattern for the daily strip involved a synopsis of Monday thru Wednesday's adventure on Thursday and a cliff hanger situation on Friday or Saturday.

Summary

The strip is pure 1950's Space Opera with many plot cliche and situations. The strip did make a fairly accurate prediction in the 6/25/53 daily strip when Roger tries to remember the date that man landed on the moon in 1968!!!

	Daily Strip 6/25/53

An abundance of smoking pipes appeared in Capt Strong procession, many times the pipes appeared to have a life of their own appearing in the character's mouth without their knowledge!!

The artwork ranged from average to excellent with many of Mr. Bailey's influences from prior work appearing in the strip. The obvious Steve Canyon / Terry & the Pirates look-a-likes with flight jackets (2/12/53) from Steve Canyon's Dell appearances to Alex Raymond like costumes (3/22/53) .

	Daily Strip 2/12/53

A matt board was utilized to give the strip a textured lined effect similar to some of the Roy Crane art of the late 1940's. Ray Bailey did an excellent job in bringing that special space opera feel to the Tom Corbett strip. The series is an excellent example of the Space Opera genre and advances the Tom Corbett Saga. Unfortunately Mr. Bailey passed away in 1976 and efforts to contact his family have not been successful.

If you have any information about Ray Bailey please pass it along to the Academy for a future update.

The following titles were made from the action suggested in the story lines.

A quick reference to the 12 story lines, a week by week description of the action and a summary after each adventure with observations and points of interest pertaining to the adventure will be in Part II with crossover reference remarks for each adventure. So stay tuned for the further adventures of T..O..M ... ...C..O..R..B..R..E..T..T >>>>>>>>..S P A C E .. C A D E T !!!!! in the newspaper.

Comments & suggestions may be sent to the Solar Guard Academy