Number 567


A Couple of Miles of Jollity


It's the end of July. I'm stepping on my tongue; it's scorching, dog days. It's a good time to wrap up the month with some relief, a cool and breezy story by the master, Walt Kelly, from Pogo #8, 1953.

See you-uns in August!

Number 566


Forbidden Tales of Oleck and Alcala


A while back I showed you a couple of 1970s DC mystery stories by writer Jack Oleck and artist Alfredo Alcala, and because I admire both of them for their craft at horror, here are two more from that duo. "Head Of the House" is from Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansion #9, and "The Monster" is from the subsequent issue, Forbidden Tales #10, both dated 1973.

"The Monster" is another from the same swamp that produced the 1940 Unknown story, "It!" by Theodore Sturgeon, which in turn influenced Air Fighters Comics' Heap, Swamp Thing, Man-Thing, Ring-A-Ding the Thing-Thing (that last one I made up), et al. The swamp monster is a genre unto itself. I like Oleck's snap ending to "Head Of the House" because of its ghoulishness. And what can I say about artwork by the late Alfredo Alcala except that it is always a joy, no matter the subject.

Number 565


Snowman


Not Frosty the Snowman. Just Snowman.

If Tally-Ho Comics #1 (and only) had not been known as the professional debut of Frank Frazetta, it might alternately be known as one of the most off-the-wall comic books published during the 1940s. The cover makes it look something like a kiddie comic, but the interior is anything but. In the lead story, Snowman's nemesis, Fang, is a very scary looking guy. Since there was never another issue we don't know what Snowman was, exactly...or what Fang was, either. John Giunta and Frazetta drew the story, but I don't know who wrote it. H.G. Ferguson, who was Simon and Kirby's letterer on their crime and love comics, did the "lettering designs," one of the only times I've ever seen a letterer so identified in a Golden Age comic book.

Tally-Ho is listed on the inside front cover as being published by Swapper's Quarterly, Chicago, IL, and the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide says Baily Publications, in parentheses. I don't know how they knew that, but if it's true then Golden Age comic book artist, Bernard Baily, likely had something to do with it.

Overstreet dates it as December 1944. To add to the mystery about Tally-Ho, the undated indicia lists no copyright claim. The Swapper's Quarterly publishing credit could have been that being produced during World War II maybe Swapper's Quarterly, of Chicago, IL, had a paper ration that they used to print Tally-Ho.

Number 564


Plastic Man Products


I believe that Jack Cole hit his stride with Plastic Man. No matter what else he did in his career, and he did some truly amazing things both in and out of comic books, when I think of Jack Cole I really think of his work on Plas. DC Special #15, November-December 1971, was the last issue of a great reprint title, and it went out on a very high note by reprinting several Jack Cole classics, including the oft-seen Plastic Man origin from Police Comics #1.

Since Cole was proprietary with Plas, he threw so much into it he couldn't keep up and other artists had to be brought in. They did a good job, considering who they had to follow, but Cole's work was on such a high level I just don't think anyone ever captured the zaniness of the character like him. In this story, "Plastic Man Products," reprinted from Plastic Man #17 in 1949, every panel is alive with inspired frenetic action and comic exaggeration. I think that it wasn't until a few years later, with Mad comics, that anyone ever again reached this level of comedic genius in comic books.

Check out the blog, Cole's Comics, for more of Jack Cole's work.

Number 563


Space Falcon and the Pirates of the Stratosphere


Here is the third story from the one-shot Captain Rocket, a Canadian comic book from 1951.

It's well-illustrated, but the silly costumes, as usual, crack me up. I especially like the open-shirted look of Tubby. Say, this isn't Tubby Tompkins of Little Lulu fame grown up, is it?

Futuristic fashions notwithstanding this has robots, and I love a story with robots.

The first two stories from this science fiction comic can be found in Pappy's #517 and Pappy's #533.

Number 562


More Dennis by Wiseman


Here are some more selections from Dennis the Menace comic books by Hank Ketcham assistant and superb all-around cartoonist, Al Wiseman.

The Dennis story from Dennis #39, November 1959, is in a style Wiseman and writer Fred Toole did so well, Dennis in a fantasy historical situation shown from his childish point of view; in this case, with "Dan'l Spoon." I'm uncomfortable with Dennis' line, "I thought only dead Indians was good Indians." This is from a Code-approved book? Unfortunately, it is also from 1959, when that type of humor was acceptable, even under the Comics Code.

As a bonus I'm also including two non-Dennis stories by Wiseman. The Punky story, from Dennis #24, is dedicated to my friend, Steve Banes, aka Karswell, who is also known as rocker, Punky, from the band, Sons of Black Mass. Here's a picture of that Punky, taken a few years ago. If you want to know more about Steve "Punky Karswell" Banes, read this interesting interview with him.

The final story is a Grampa story from Dennis #39...and dear to my heart. I'm not only a pappy, I'm a grandpappy, too.

Number 561


End of the line


"End Of the Line," is a prophetic title for this story from Adventures Into the Unknown #61, January-February 1955. It was the last issue of that title before the Comics Code took effect. It was also the last story of the issue, so planned or not, it became a swansong to an era free of censorship, if not of controversy.

For several preceding issues, and obviously before ACG signed up for the Code, there had been talk in editor Richard E. Hughes's letter column, "Let's Talk It Over," asking readers if they wanted to see more "shock" stories. "Shock" in this case meant EC-style, non-supernatural horror stories. Adventures Into the Unknown was proud that it had been the first of the supernatural titles, and editor Hughes must've worn out his rotater cuff patting himself on the back touting the comic's excellence. Still, readers were asking for another kind of story and Hughes felt he must poll his readers.

A few months later in his column, now under the Code, editor Hughes was telling his readers that "some publishers" dragged the whole industry into areas which caused a public uproar and the need for the Comics Code. But ACG had pioneered the supernatural comic, had published dozens of stories of monsters and mayhem that added to the outcry. Except for going all out for grue and gore like some publishers, Hughes really hadn't much room to talk.

**********

Secret Identity, The Fetish Art of Superman's Co-creator, Joe Shuster
By Craig Yoe, Introduction by Stan Lee
Abrams ComicArts, 161 pages, 2009
$24.95

Craig Yoe tells two stories in this book: One is of a sleazy publication called Nights of Horror used as the centerpiece for a sensational 1954 case of murderous, sadistic delinquents tabloids called the Thrill Killers. The other story is the tragedy of Joe Shuster, the one-time great American success story, Superman's original artist and co-creator, who had the rug jerked out from under him. The two stories converge because Joe Shuster was the artist for the sleazy publication, available in Times Square bookstores, which depicted whippings, torture and beatings.

Until recently it wasn't known that Shuster did the illustrations. Anyone familiar with his work apparently recognized his drawings when Yoe showed them a copy he'd found. It's why Yoe called the book Secret Identity. Shuster did the drawings in a sub rosa fashion for much needed money.

The storm that broke over Nights of Horror was fed by the furor over comic books in 1953 and 1954, when Seduction Of the Innocent, by Fredric Wertham, M.D., was published.* The boys who emulated Nights of Horror were also inveterate comic book readers, crime and especially horror comics. Dr. Wertham was called in to assess the boys, and his methodology was the same he used with his other "research." If Wertham talked to a kid who had gotten into trouble he asked him, "Do you read comic books?" and if the kid said "yes" then the comic books became the reason the boy was in trouble. It didn't have to do with the kid being a sociopath who happened to read comic books, he was a sociopath because he read comic books. In this case Wertham brought a set of Nights of Horror to the gang leader's cell and asked if this was the sort of thing he read. The boy thumbed through a couple of them and said, "That's it."

That boy Wertham showed Nights of Horror to sometimes dressed up in a vampire outfit when he went out to do his damage, and that was somehow tied to Atlas horror comics. Stan Lee, who was the editor at Atlas, doesn't mention the connection in his introduction to the book.

So the Thrill Killers case was tabloid fodder, making lurid headlines in 1954. The heat came down on the printer of Nights of Horror, but not Shuster, who remained anonymous. At the time of his death he probably thought this episode in his life would never be known.

Craig Yoe talked to people associated with Joe Shuster, and to people who had something to do with the case of the Brooklyn Thrill Killers. I'm surprised he found them; it's been almost six decades and the case is long forgotten by the public. Nowadays the illustrations that caused such a firestorm can be printed in a well-produced book, published and distributed by a class publisher like Abrams. What seemed horrific at one time: pornography, forbidden rites, BDSM, fetishes, high heels, whips and chains, even voyeurism, seems tamer to us now. Turn on the TV on any night of the week and the crime and detective shows will produce something much, much worse to look at.

I bought Yoe's book because I was curious, like many others who buy it, I suspect. I'm a fan of the history of comic art and comic books. Shuster's illustrations are given the bulk of the book, and are fascinating when looked at in their context as both notorious and an offshoot of the history of comics. What I noticed is that they aren't any worse than that which had been published a couple of decades earlier in the Spicy line of pulp magazines. In the examples printed in Secret Identity of whippings, for example, not one shows a whip actually hitting flesh.There are indications, light lines across a back, but Shuster kept it coy and showed as much as he probably thought he could get away with without showing absolutely everything. There is a picture of a bound girl being prodded with a knife, yet many horror and crime comics of that period showed people being stabbed by knives. Nights of Horror was probably less graphic than some of that era's 10¢ comic books. Shuster's illustrations are not as titillating as we would see today, or even by the standards of fetish artists like Eneg (Gene Bilbrew) or Eric Stanton.

Secret Identity is a fascinating look at a hitherto unknown bit of comic books history, and credit goes out to Craig Yoe for bringing it to our attention.

*Wertham and his book, Seduction Of the Innocent created my interest in crime and horror comics. When I read the book in 1959 at age 12 I hadn't seen any "real" horror comics and I made it my business to find as many of them as I could. I wanted to see what made them so bad. I'm sure there are other fans like me who used that book as their starting point. Wertham's book is an example of the law of unintended consequences. He set out to do one thing and yet, over time, did something else.

As Secret Identity shows, over a half century later we see this sort of thing as campy or quaint. Horror comics of the '50s may have gruesome images which are themselves fetishistic, with skeletons, walking corpses, chesty females (sometimes in bondage), monsters and killers, and while we may love their funky look (as I do) the original shock of these comics is mitigated by the violence of modern movies, television, video games, and yes, even comic books.

Number 560


Battlin' Captain Battle!


Captain Battle has a pretty good gimmick, his Luceflyers, which strap to his back and despite being the size of beer cans fly him all the way across the Pacific to China. I don't know what happened to the technology of the Luceflyers, but we could use it nowadays.

When in China Captain Battle fights Japanese, then gets mistaken for a Japanese spy by the Chinese. They put him up against a wall for instant execution. It's a good thing it all turns out well. Captain Battle even gets to meet Generalissimo Mao Tung (sic). Do they mean Mao Tse Tung, Chairman Mao, who gave Western governments fits for decades? We'd use any ally during wartime, which makes for strange bedfellows.

"Savior of Chunking," an action-packed 16-pager, is from Captain Battle #5, the last issue, dated Summer 1943, which reprints Captain Battle #1 from 1941. According to the Grand Comics Database the story is drawn by Lloyd Jacquet's Funnies Inc. shop, with George Mandel as principal artist. I showed you a Captain Battle story from this same issue in Pappy's #346.

Number 559


The Hitchhiker Killer!


"Death Thumbs a Ride" is from Exposed #1, 1948, one of the crime comics that people got on soapboxes to denounce. In the late 1940s there were a few well-publicized incidents when parents and teachers, church groups and schoolkids, got together to throw stacks of comic books like Exposed onto bonfires. Never mind that the Nazis also used to burn books they didn't like, and the memories of war were still fresh.

I looked up James Hall the Hitchhiker Killer and found no references to him. I assume Exposed isn't a "true" comic like Crime Does Not Pay. The story of the ride-thumbing killer is a cautionary tale. Don't pick up hitchhikers!

In those days we didn't know the term serial killer. We called them spree killers or thrill killers, homicidal maniacs or even mad dog killers. I understand the use of the word serial to denote a person who goes from one victim to another, but it doesn't have the zing of thrill killer...or mad dog.

Artist unknown.

Number 558


Respect your Elder


Will Elder was more than one half of the Kurtzman/Elder partnership. Elder was also pretty great on his own, without Kurtzman, as this 1954 story from EC's Panic #2 shows.

This is another of those times where I say the artist could not have been paid enough for all the work he put into a story. Every panel is packed with "chicken fat," the extras that Elder specialized in. He was much admired, and Lord knows several artists working on Mad imitations tried to capture the essence of what made him great, but no one succeeded.

I'm dedicating this posting to my friend, Eddie Hunter, who named his blog Chicken Fat in honor of Elder, and slips in the occasional posting about Mad, Kurtzman, Elder, Jack Davis, etc., alongside his funny essays, genealogy or articles about his hometown, Marietta, Georgia. Eddie is an Elder/Mad comics fan through and through.

I found the original art pages at Heritage Auctions. The comic book scans are from Panic #2. The Clark Gable/Mogambo bit at the end is part of a running gag throughout this issue. The ugly face on page 6 is by Basil Wolverton, maybe the only time Elder shared the page with anyone but John Severin, whose pencil art he inked on many stories before their solo careers took off.

Number 557


Bulldog Drumhead


Bulldog Drumhead was a take-off on--surprise--then-popular literary detective Bulldog Drummond. Does anyone even remember that character?

Ron Santi did the fine artwork for this strip from All-American's Funny Stuff #6, Fall, 1945. He also did the artwork on another well-drawn strip I showed you in Pappy's #212. I have no information on Santi, who seems as forgotten as Bulldog Drummond.

Number 556


A Captain named Comet


Captain Comet was introduced to readers of DC's Strange Adventures in number 9, June 1951, which means that he beat out both the Manhunter From Mars and the revived Flash as a '50s superhero. There's a good article on the details in Don Markstein's Toonopedia. The origin is in two parts, so I've included the second part from Strange Adventures #10.

The stories were written by John Broome under the name Edgar Ray Merritt, for Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ray Cummings and A. Merritt, all fantasists of the generation before Strange Adventures. The artwork is by Carmine Infantino, and unlike his 1940's style, this is his modern style, which took him through the rest of his career as an artist. In those early days of Strange Adventures the author's names, like Edmond Hamilton, Gardner Fox, et al., were used, but never the artist's, unless he signed his name.

The artists weren't the only uncredited folks in that era at DC. Whitney Ellsworth was listed as editor, but Julius Schwartz was really the editor. Captain Comet didn't last all that long, which is probably why he never got his own book. Years later Schwartz was still at it, putting continuing characters like Adam Strange and Atomic Knights in his anthology titles. They didn't get their own books at the time but the stories still read very well, and are at least as good as characters like the Atom or Green Lantern who did have their individual books. I think Captain Comet should have had a shot at it during the '60s superhero revival.

Catch the coloring goofs on page 7 of the second part.

Number 555


"That bullet bounced off my bean and bonked a bozo behind me!"


Whatever fed Basil Wolverton's fantasies must've been very potent, because his images are unforgettable. Whether he was drawing humor or horror he was equally facile. That's why today I'm showing you examples of both.

Powerhouse Pepper was an ongoing character whose stories originally appeared in 1940s' Marvel Comics, but black and white reprints popped up for years in pages of Humorama Publications cartoon books. This one is from an issue of Wheely Nuts, an obscure cartoon book from the early '70s, and maybe one of the last of the Humorama line. I can't find my copy of Wheely Nuts, but luckily I'd made a photocopy somewhere alone the way.

I also made a copy for my friend Clark, whose mind is dirty like mine. He said, "With a title like 'A Hot Squat Shot' I was expecting something a little bit different."

Here's a really paranoid story by Daniel Keyes ("Flowers for Algernon"), and drawn by Wolverton originally for Atlas' Journey Into Unknown Worlds #15 in 1953. It's one of those "nobody believes me!" stories where the people who "don't believe" the main character are in on the conspiracy.

Giant crabs. Who'd thunk it? Only Wolverton could pull this one off and he does it in such a creepy and claustrophic way. Hey, I've been there, had that...paranoia, that is...not crabs.

I scanned this sharp black and white version of "They Crawl By Night" from Dark Horse's Basil Wolverton's Gateway to Horror, published in 1988. Karswell has "They Crawl By Night," scanned from the original Atlas comic book, today at The Horrors Of It All. Crawl on over and tell 'im Pappy sent you.

Number 554


Flying Saucer from Mars!



Sixty-two years ago today, July 8, 1947, is the day the Roswell Daily Record of Roswell, New Mexico, announced a flying saucer had been found. The story was later rescinded, but the headline from that day remains famous.

So what better day, 62 years later, to show you a flying saucer story? This is "Menace from Mars," from Adventures Into the Unknown #13, 1950. According to the Grand Comics Database it's drawn by Charles Sultan.

Watch the skies!

Number 553


Where Lorna goes trouble follows...


Man, Lorna the Jungle Girl's bf, Greg, is really a jerk! He's always putting her down and the problem is she lets him. You'd think with her skills, i.e., killing animals, reptiles, dangerous-type critters, he'd be grateful. But no, he just walks through the jungle like he's taking a walk to the corner 7-Eleven. No danger of being attacked by crocodiles or lions because he's got Überbabe to take care of his sorry male chauvinist ass. What I'd like to see sometime is for Lorna to jump into the hammock, put her shapely legs up and say, "Greg, I'm gonna take a nap. Why don't you go out and do the jungle thing today." I'll bet he'd be crawling on all fours to get her back taking care of him. I mean, he doesn't appreciate what he's got. If I had a long-legged, bazoomy blond Amazon like Lorna looking out for me I'd be happy. Very, very happy.

From Lorna the Jungle Girl #7, 1954. Story by Don Rico, art by Werner Roth.

Number 552


Dress me in a flag and salute me!


Yesterday was the 4th of July, so I thought I'd show a patriotic comic strip today. It's courtesy of my MLJ buddy, Nix, who is generous with his scans.

The Shield first appeared in Pep Comics #1, January 1940, but this later appearance, in Shield-Wizard Comics #1, is a more detailed story of his origin. References are made to the Black Tom explosion, which killed the Shield's dad. Ninety-three years after it happened it's an event nearly forgotten. In 1916 German agents blew up a munitions dump on Black Tom Island outside New York. Although not then at war with the U.S., the Germans blew it up to prevent it being the ammo supply to American allies. Officially sabotage, not a terrorist attack, it was the biggest explosion in the U.S. until the attacks on 9/11.

The Shield story also has the distinction of featuring none other than the Queen of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover.

The Shield was written by Harry Shorten, who later on became a publisher. It was drawn by Irv Novick, who went on to a long career in comics, working into the 1970s. The Shield preceded Captain America's first appearance by a couple of months.

Number 551


Zombie killer!


Skeleton Hand was a very successful pre-Code title for ACG. According to the excellent article on ACG by Michael Vance in Alter Ego #61 (highly recommended!) all of the "supernaturals" sold well for that company. They used a lot of artists, some of them old-timers from the beginnings of comic books, which included artist Jon L. Blummer, who drew the eerie zombie-crime story, "Death For Hire."

Blummer drew for several companies, including very early DC. He had a style that reminds me a bit of Rudy Palais. According to biographical information I've read, Blummer had only a couple of years left to live when he drew this story, which appeared in Skeleton Hand #1 in 1952. He died in 1955.

Number 550


Li'l Abner meets the monster and the suicide bomber!


Li'l Abner was such a part of my life for so long it's hard to believe the strip officially shut down in 1977. I read it every day from the time I learned to read until it ended. It ran for more than enough time to establish it as a major cultural phenomenon. Among other things it introduced the Sadie Hawkins Day storylines, which played out year after year. Daisy Mae chased Abner futilely until she finally caught him in the early 1950s.

Like most great comic strips, creator Al Capp introduced themes that were re-done at intervals, and kept his readers coming back. Sadie Hawkins Day was also played out in real life on some college campuses.This particular Sadie Hawkins Day epic is scanned from Toby Press' Li'l Abner #74, from 1950. Toby Press was owned at least in part by Capp.

In light of events of the past few years, the part about a guy with dynamite strapped to him seems more creepy than funny.