Gold Key TV Tie In Comics.

Gold Key comics was started in 1962 as in-house publisher by its parent company Western Publishing. During its run from 1962 to 1984, Gold Key had printed out comics from a wide verity of TV and movie tie end titles. Among the genes would include science fiction, horror, espionage, adventure, and family fare. However, they made a good portion of their sales of comics from popular TV shows from the period. Some titles published were Star Trek, The Man from UNCLE, The Twilight Zone, Adam-12, and My Favorite Martian along with other TV series. One of the most striking things about Gold Key was they continued to publish a TV-related comic long after the series had ended thus creating more fans of whichever series.

I enjoyed reading Gold Key comics back when I was a kid growing up in the 70s. I loved the various titles and the cover artwork as well. The publisher had some great artwork that made every issue look exciting. In this article I will discuss some of the TV tie-in comics I read when I was a kid. However, I did read other Gold Key titles that were non-TV-related and I enjoyed them just the same. I have written articles for Vocal on other Gold Key titles, and they can be viewed on my Vocal profile page.

Star Trek

One of the first Gold Key tie-in comics I read was Star Trek based upon the original series. It was most likely my first introduction to the Star Trek universe. The Gold Key comic series ran from 1967 to 1978 until the series lost its license to Marvel Comics after the release of the first Star Trek movie. Gold Key published 61 issues of the series, the issues were new adventures starring the same characters as the TV show. However, some issues were sequels to epsoides ST:TOS itself. Star Trek issue #56 had the Guardian of Time alien that was introduced in the classic episode City of the Edge of Forever. The story entitled "No Time Like the Past" has Kirk, Spock, and McCoy going back in time to Ancient Rome to catch a time traveler who attempts to change history. One of the most interesting facts about the Star Trek comic is the Italian-American artist Alberto Giolitti, who had never seen an epsoides of Star Trek. Giolitti has used publicity photos from the series to draw the characters. He drew lime green uniforms for the crew except for Mr. Spock and did not have an accurate image of other cast members either, so he used his own ideas.

The Twilight Zone

The first Twilight Zone comic was originally published under Dell comics, which was Western's partner at the time, during 1961. The following year with the start of Gold Key, what was really the fourth issue became issue #1 under Gold Key. While under Gold Key, the series ran from 1962 to 1979 with 91 issues printed. Later on, the Twilight Zone comic would be printed under other publishers as new reboots of the series were made for TV. The comic was told in an anthology-style just like the TV show with an opening narration from Rod Serling himself. The gene of the stories ranged from sci-fi, fantasy, supernatural horror, and mystery/suspense, just like the original TV series. Each issue of the comic contained at least three separate stories.

Art Gallery of comic covers.

This video from YouTube contains excellent cover art on Twilight Zone comics from the 60s and 70s.

Review of issue #4

The following YouTube video discusses Twilight Zone issue #4 the first Gold Key printing.

Boris Karloff's Thriller aka Boris Karloff's Tales of Mystery

During the early 60s, popular horror actor Boris Karloff hosted a TV series called Thriller. The series ran from 1960 to 1962 and was broadcast on the NBC television network. It was essentially a horror/suspense anthology series feathering stories written by popular authors such as Robert Bloch who wrote the novel "Psycho" Gold Key published the first Thriller comic in October 1962 and the name was changed to Tales of Mystery after the TV series was canceled. However, the comic remained in print until the late 70s toward the demise of Gold Key. The comic was also an anthology-type series but feathered other genres such as science fiction in addition to horror stories. The comic was presented in the same style as the Twilight Zone comic with an image of Karloff giving opening narration.

Collectors review.

In this video a comic collector takes a look at the comic in digest form, Gold Key published some comic titles into digest format and presented a computation of Gold Key comics that was started in 1962 as in house publisher by its parent company Western Publishing. During its run from 1962 to 1984, Gold Key had printed out comics from a wide varitey of TV and movie tie end titles. Among the genes would include science fiction, horror, espionage, adventure, and family fare. However, they made a good portion of their sales of comics from popular TV shows from the period. Some titles published were Star Trek, The Man from UNCLE, The Twilight Zone, Adam-12, and My Favorite Martian along with other TV series. One of the most striking things about Gold Key was they continued to publish a TV-related comic long after the series had ended thus creating more fans of whichever series.

This video from YouTube contains excellent cover art on Twilight Zone comics from the 60s and 70s.

Review of issue #4

The following YouTube video discusses Twilight Zone issue #4 the first Gold Key printing.

Where to find these comics.

In order to find these vintage comics, a search of the internet will show a wide variety of sources. As any collector would know, Amazon, eBay, and other merchants are out there on the net. However, if you are on a budget and can't afford too much. There are websites where you can download for free. You can find some issues in various formats onthe internet archive website. You can also download for free at Get Comics, just simply do a website search for the desired title. published stories. The presenter discusses how he became interested in comics when his dad brought home comics like Tales of Mystery when he was growing up. He flips through the pages of the book showing the panel artwork and tell which are his favorite stories.

What I enjoyed about reading these comics.

As I stated before, I always enjoyed reading these TV tie-in comics from Gold Key. Wheatear or not it was a TV tie-in, I admired the artwork from the covers and the inside panels as well. They were always well-drawn and depicted the real world. The stories were always excellent too, there was never a dull moment when you read a Gold Key comic. The comics I discussed in this article where comic titles I frequently read during my childhood. Reading the tie-in comics was my first introduction to the TV series even before I watched a single episode. However, I didn't know that Tales of Mystery was based on a TV show until many years latter. Overall they were fantastic to read by the standards of the day.

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