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Four original hand-inked daily comic strips by Zach Mosley for the aviation comic strip The Adventures of Smilin' Jack, each in three panels, measuring 21.75 x 7.25 and 20.5 x 7, dated January 4, 23, 25, and February 2, 1962, each signed by Mosley and bearing an affixed Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate copyright caption. The January 23 and 25 strips are framed together to an overall size of 26 x 20.75. The strips form a continuous narrative following "Lefty" through an early orbital spaceflight — from pre-flight testing through launch, weightlessness, and splashdown — blending technical detail with humor. Mosley mirrors contemporary NASA procedures closely: centrifuge and cold-water immersion testing, blunt-end-forward orbital attitude, reentry heat, and even Mercury-era food tubes containing liquid soup, meat paste, and juice. A dramatic capsule breach at splashdown pointedly echoes Gus Grissom's near-fatal Liberty Bell 7 incident of 1961. In overall fine condition, with light edge toning.
These strips appeared as NASA's Mercury-Atlas 6 mission was in final preparation—John Glenn launched February 20, 1962, just eighteen days after the final strip. Distributed nationally, the sequence reached millions at the height of public anticipation for America's first orbital flight. Mosley, who had incorporated aviation themes into Smilin' Jack since its 1933 debut—after earlier work on Buck Rogers and Skyroads—produced the strip for its entire forty-year run, ending April 1, 1973.
