Nationwide Hysteria! For Halloween

Today, October 30, 2012, marks the 74th anniversary of the airing of Orson Welles' brilliant radio adaptation of H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds on Mercury Theatre on the Air. A Halloween prank, as Welles referred to it, the radio production (written by Howard Koch, who would go on to co-write Casablanca, 1942) was dramatized and designed to sound like a series of actual radio broadcasts, and it succeeded all too well. One of the most famous (or infamous) radio shows in history, Welles' "War of the Worlds' caused panic throughout the U.S. as some audience members thought Earth was actually being invaded by hostile Martians. The story was well told in the February 1975 edition (issue # 5) of Gold Key's UFO Flying Saucers comic book, posted below (click on each image for a larger view),  drawn by Frank Bole. (The awesome cover, illustrating another story from that issue, is by Luis Dominguez.) This post is part of the Countdown to Halloween 2012 blog-a-thon.