The Alien Pencil

History: An unnamed artist was sitting in the park, drawing in his sketch pad. Looking up, he saw a flying saucer, and something dropped to his feet: an odd looking pencil. Picking up the strange pencil, the artist tried it out by drawing a bowl of fruit, and a real bowl of fruit appeared at his feet. He then drew a picture of Mount Rushmore with his face on it, and heard radio reports of a new face appearing on Mount Rushmore. After several other tests, the artist used the pencil to his own advantage by first drawing a picture of a fortune in currency, which became reality; the artist then drew a picture of himslf as king of the world, and became absolute ruler of the Earth. The flying saucer returned, and a tentacle reached out, reclaiming the pencil. A voice told the artist he was given unlimited power, but because he wasted it, he deserved it no more. Everything returned to normal, the artist remembering none of what occurred.

Length: 6 in.
Demonstrated Powers: The Alien Pencil seemed to have an unlimited ability to alter reality to whatever picture its user drew, its limitations presumably being the imagination of its user.

Comment: Speculation - It is possible that the Alien Pencil was an alien version of the “Cosmic Cube”, a device created by the subversive group A.I.M. which could alter reality to the thoughts of its wielder.

Comment: It is unknown if there is any connection between the Alien Pencil and the reality-altering alien paints used by The Painter of a Thousand Perils (the Human Torch villain from Strange Tales # 108).

A short but fine tale. The slow drift to meglomania was well done. And the switcharound at the end was great. Representation-into-reality has seldom if ever been done as well as this!

Slight correction: AIM only created the containment device for the reality-altering energy. The energy itself came from the same extra-dimensional source as Molecule Man's power and the Beyonder, him/her/itself.

A nice story with a moral to it. Absolute power did corrupt this man to a degree, or was at least wasted on him. His forgetting it all in the end was a nice touch.

A follow up question, ” Who was the man in the park supposed to be Dick Ayers, Don Heck, or who ?”

Dear Roscoe: there are two possibilities.

1) The “alien pencil” was really the Impossible Man, in disguise. And, playing a practical joke on the artist.

2) It was an artifact loaned to the artist by the Elder of the Universe known as the Contemplator (and, perhaps, borrowed from its true owner, the Collector), to see what an average Earthman would do with so much power.

Just thought of a third possibility. The “flying saucer” that left the pencil was one of those Living Spaceships (from one of two stories on the subject). With the pencil, itself, being some kind of symbiotic offshoot/component.*

*Very, very, very roughly equivalent to the symbiosis between B'nee and C'cil of the Shi'ar Imperial Guard.

Hi,
I seem to remember a story about a portrait painter who painted any number of objects that
came to life or into existance. He painted himself with a hat on and the hat came into existance.
Please note that painter used some special oil paints. I will not give out the end to that story but it had a twist to it as well.

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