How to identify a comic book story?

[dale coba]

I doubt very much that anyone knows this story.

1982-ish, I'm 12, reading a story, a few pages long, printed some time in the five years up to then.

It's in color; it's almost certainly Marvel or D.C.;
it seems most likely it was a republishing of a story drawn in the late 1960s.
- and then, WOW, Tomato-in-the-mirror robot reveal!

Unexpected, what a rush, secret embarrassment only to myself.

But, alas, the comic book and the girl were not to be mine; and the moment so blew my mind, that the title of the story and the book never registered.

A woman visits a therapist(?) for the first time, and the answer to her questions is simply that she's a robot malfunctioning a little. She reacts without panic, puzzled. He fixes her, she resets back to deep sleeper robot.

... and as she leaves, the doctor and I are each very pleased to know that she's walking out into a world absolutely full of non-self-aware, pretty, automated and useful ladies.

Any ideas how to locate this story?

- Dale Coba

[WilloWisp]

1982-ish, I'm 12, reading a story, a few pages long, printed some time in the five years up to then.

It's in color; it's almost certainly Marvel or D.C.;
it seems most likely it was a republishing of a story drawn in the late 1960s.

So our data points are:

* Story originally published circa 1960
* Republished sometime between 1977 and 1982
* Republished by Marvel or DC

There were a bajillion Twilight-Zone alikes in the '50s and '60s, so that won't really narrow it down much. Both Marvel and DC did a lot of arbitrary backup-strip padding in regular series throughout the '70s and '80s, both reaching deep into their vaults to grab random, standalone series to fill out the issue, so there's not much to go on there, either.

Do you have any idea what other things may have appeared in the same issue or series? Was it a regular series which just included the sleeper story as a backup strip, or was it completely anthology-style short stories?

Here's hoping we can find it.

[dale coba]

Absolutely was not a regular story, a one-off with simple characters who lack any [sign of] any existence beyond that story. More likely, I think, circa 1980-1985, leaning on 1984.

The book itself was much less likely to have been a one-time title/issue. The young collector was big on Batman, X-Men, Moon Knight, What If?, Spiderman, Avengers, West Coast Avengers...

I think it was the anthology format, with this being at least #2 of probably 3 or more.

I wouldn't think we can do more, unless an FC member shares their proved, preferred way to attack this type of comic question.

- Dale Coba

[WilloWisp]

Whenever I'm stumped by something like this, I always post it to the TipOfMyTongue subreddit:

http://www.reddit.com/r/tipofmytongue

It being a comic thing, there's bound to be comic geeks who will jump on it. Just make sure to be as concise and direct as possible, and try to follow the (pretty obvious) traditional posting format.

[dale coba]

I'm not looking to engage outsiders on a robot topic, and also I'm not social enough for reddit, in general.

- Dale Coba

[ShinDangaioh]

Sounds like an issue of House of Mysteries from DC comics. There have been quite a few robot stories in House of Mysteries. House of Mysteries did have a reprint series in the 80's

I can't help you beyond that.

[dale coba]

It took a while, but I flipped through every House of Mysteries from 1954-84.
No luck. A little bleaker, perhaps, than the story I seek.
HoM reprint series from the 1980's? The other HoM I saw had post-80s drawing styles, can't be right.

Also checked all I could torrent, like Weird Mysteries, Weird Horror, Weird Thrillers, Weird Fantasy, Weird Science.
I fear I next have to skip through Batman and Superman from the 70s-80s. And Moon Knight.

- Dale Coba

[dale coba]

Nope, the book couldn't be any later than 1985 (and maybe as early as 1980).

Moon Knight looks to have kept to his own stories, so what was Batman called/numbered back then?

Marvel's What If? might have side stories? [looks like No]

- Dale Coba

[DollSpace]

The best I could find was a link on Google to a Wikipedia list of fictional androids, and it includes comics, so maybe you can find something here?

Click Me!

I wish you success!

[dale coba]

Thanks, but no joy. She was a one-off character, 4? brief pages - unlikely to make it onto lists.

Nothing on the TV Tropes "Tomato in the Mirror" list.

- Dale Coba

[ZORG]

I had a scan of Elvira's House of Mystery comic. Uploaded it to the wiki in case it hasn't been before. There was also a story in that issue featuring a female robot. I'll upload that as well.

[dale coba]

I flipped through all the issues of these titles available from TPB - with no joy.

• House of Mystery
  Tales Of Suspense
  Tales To Astonish
  The Outer Limits Comics
  Weird Horrors
  Weird Mysteries
  Weird Mystery Tales
  Weird Science
  Weird Thrillers
  The Twilight Zone

If anyone knows of other similar series, please let me know.

- Dale Coba

[WilloWisp]

Found this list:

http://www.ethereal.net/~magusxxx/antho ... omics.html

[--NightBattery--]

How much it differed from this?

[WilloWisp]

That would be the cover illustration for the September, 1954 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine, which you can read online here. It looks like the story it advertises is A Start in Life by Arthur Sellings.

This is definitely not what Dale is looking for, but it is a great illustration. I haven't read the story yet, so I can't say whether it's good or bad.

[dale coba]

I followed Willow's link, and googled a sentence. Here's the plain text of that issue.

http://archive.org/stream/galaxymagazin ... 9_djvu.txt

- Dale Coba

[dale coba]

Found this list:

http://www.ethereal.net/~magusxxx/antho ... omics.html

Thanks, nice list.

I sought through two more titles:

Tales of the Unexpected
House of Secrets.

Not there. Maybe more titles, later.

- Dale Coba

[ShinDangaioh]

House of Secrets
Secrets of the Haunted House
Witching Hour

Were also out and about at the time of House of Mysteries. All by DC comics.

Secrets and Mysteries are usually ran parallel to each other, since the Houses are ran by the brothers Cain and Abel. Cain handels Mysteries and Abel handels Secrets

And thanks to recalling a silly character, I have other titles

Mystery in Space
Starnge Adventures
Time Warp

Boy DC had a lot of these titles

[dale coba]

Thanks, it helps to know these were from the time period.
I will investigate.

- Dale Coba

[dale coba]

I

• House of Mystery
  Tales Of Suspense
  Tales To Astonish
  The Outer Limits Comics
  Weird Horrors
  Weird Mysteries
  Weird Mystery Tales
  Weird Science
  Weird Thrillers
  The Twilight Zone
  Tales of the Unexpected
  House of Secrets

and the list grows:

• The Witching Hour
  Haunt of Horror
  Secrets of Haunted House
  The Vault of Horror
  Crime SuspenStories
  Shock SuspenStories
  The Haunt of Fear
  Tales from the Crypt
  Astonishing Tales
  Marvel Tales (1964-1994)
  Man-Thing

A few of the oldest comics had numerous issues which wouldn't unzip, but I'll vouch that the story I seek was not within the rest.

- Dale Coba