The World Around Us #17
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeThe World Around Us #17 — 'The Illustrated Story of Festivals' (January 1960) — represents Gilberton at the height of its influence as the dominant force in American educational comics. At a moment when the series' monthly circulation exceeded 250,000 copies, it tackled cross-cultural holiday traditions from the Dutch celebration of St. Nicholas Day to Mexican Posadas to Roman-rooted Saturnalia, making it one of the earliest sustained attempts in the comics medium to present global folk customs to a young American readership without exoticizing or condescending to them. The issue also stands as a prime example of how Gilberton mobilized elite Silver Age talent — George Evans, Bruno Premiani, and H.J. Kihl among them — in service of non-fiction storytelling at a time when that mode was almost entirely absent from mainstream newsstand comics. As part of a spin-off line that sat comfortably on coffee tables and school bookshelves, it helped legitimize the medium for parents and educators who otherwise dismissed superhero fare.
"A Visit from St. Nicholas" in The World Around Us #17 (1960) offers a beautifully illustrated retelling of the Channukah story, rendered with care by Norman Nodel, whose art brings the ancient tale of Judah the Maccabee’s revolt and the miraculous oil to life. The cover, by George Evans, captures the festive spirit of the season, making this a timeless, educational read from a 25-cent comic in 1960.
On May 27, the people of Afghanistan honor their hard-won freedom with vibrant Buzkashi races, spirited national dances, and dazzling fireworks—celebrations that echo the courage and resilience of their past.
Judah the Maccabee and Appolonious stand at the heart of a turning point in history, where faith and defiance ignite a spark that echoes through time. When the Temple is reclaimed and a single flask of oil is found, its unexpected flame becomes a symbol of hope that burns far beyond its intended night.
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The World Around Us launched in 1958 as one of several non-literary spin-off series that Albert Lewis Kanter's Gilberton Company developed alongside the flagship Classics Illustrated line. Overseen by editor Roberta Strauss Feuerlicht, associate editor Alfred Sundel, and executive editor Meyer A. Kaplan, the series recruited many of the same commercial artists who worked across Gilberton's titles, resulting in issues that featured painted covers and fully illustrated interior stories produced to the same full-color standard as the main Classics line. Issue #17 was produced during the series' prime publishing window, appearing as a January cover-dated issue in the same year the broader Gilberton line reached its circulation peak.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Issue title: 'The Illustrated Story of Festivals' — the seventeenth entry in the World Around Us run (1958–1961).
- Publisher: Gilberton World-Wide Publications Inc.; cover date January 1960.
- Executive Editor: Meyer A. Kaplan; Editor: Roberta Strauss Feuerlicht; Art Director: Leonard Cole.
- Painted cover art by George Evans; Evans also drew the lead interior story, 'A Visit From St. Nicholas,' depicting the Dutch Sinterklaas tradition and its international variants.
- Interior story 'A Child is Born: The Presepe' illustrated by Bruno Premiani, depicting a Brazilian nativity scene tradition in Bahia.
- Interior story 'Christmas Long Ago: Myrtle and Mistletoe' (art by H.J. Kihl) traced the history of the Roman Saturnalia and the Norse myth of Balder as roots of Christmas custom.
- 'Christmas in America' illustrated by Alex Blum, recounting Columbus's Christmas Eve shipwreck of the Santa Maria.
- The series was a non-fiction spin-off of Classics Illustrated and ran for 36 issues from 1958 to 1961; it appears to have had only one printing per issue, with no known domestic reprints of #17 identified in the Grand Comics Database.
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