Ray's X-Blog

Download the PDF file of RX XR #147 through this direct link:  https://efanzines.com/RXXR/RXXR-147.pdf Access a list of back issues here:  https://efanzines.com/RXXR/index.htm

It was no longer worth the money.  The original Blogspot URL works just as well.  Activity at this blog was been crickets and tumbleweeds.  Every year the renewal price has been going up while hits have been dropping.  I haven't received any comments in a long time.  My ezine Ray X X-Rayer does receive a LOC or two so I know a few people are out there with that outlet.  I've grown tired with the duplicative effort of publishing the same material on my blog and in my zine.  I'm considering using this blog only to announce the latest issue of RX XR with a link to efanzines.com . If you want to read my stuff as a zine go to  http://www.efanzines.com/RXXR/index.htm  .

By coincidence the two movies I watched the other evening each featured the title character trapped in ice. The Thing From Another World (1951.) A remote arctic research station detects the crash of an unusual object. Upon investigation they discover an alien being encased in ice. Somehow the men are able to carve out a coffin-sized ice block to bring the creature back to their base. Uh-oh. Quibble time. How did they dig underneath the alien Popsicle to create the block, especially with a bad storm on the way limiting their time? How did they raise the block to fly it back home? Did someone crawl under, carving away without the ice falling and crushing him? At the base the frozen ET is stored in a cold room. OK, the monster has to get free or watching an ice-encased alien just sitting there gets boring really quick. How a delayed reaction by a damaged heating device on the alien, melting him free? No, they have to use the "I didn't know th...

Archetypal Clickbait Comic Cover No, Superman didn't die unlike the more recent event. By the time I read this comic in the 1960s I was getting tired of Kal-El. He was too powerful.  For example he's on a date with Lois Lane one night and the moon starts falling towards the earth. So Superman just flies up and fixes the problem. Even as Superboy Kal-El was one step below God. Challenged to perform impossible tasks Superboy stands on his head. People say, "So what?" He tells them to check with the local observatory. Astronomers are shocked that the earth has moved out of its orbit. With his impossible task completed Superboy just puts the world back into proper orbit. Of course with the moon's gravitational pull still in effect one would think his moving trick wouldn't be that easy. No earthquakes or tidal waves. It got the the point that I wished Superman would die. That's why I started reading Spider-Man. He didn...

George Apple and his family get away from the rat race by moving to a small town in Iowa. Everything is normal until one day George sees a UFO and reports it to the local newspaper. Soon he and his family became the target of ridicule. But George is determined to prove he's not another flying saucer nut. He digs deep and discovers the strange object is part of a secret government project. He learns the time and location of the next test of the futuristic vehicle. George invites along a skeptic who soon learns what George saw was no hallucination. George turns to the skeptic and says: "You're a down-to-earth man..." (Insert gagging sound.) Thus wrapped up the episode "The Witness" from the "Apple's Way" TV series (1974-1975.) Another example of how a mainstream series would introduce the flying saucer topic but then cop out with an earthly explanation. Fiction: OK. Science fiction: Nyet! (Note: George A...