Number 387


Let's have a cheer for ol' P.U.


The college football season has been upon us for a few weeks, and like a lot of fans I'm following my team's progress. Of course the guys on my college football team aren't like these football players from Crazy #3, 1953. They wouldn't accept money or favors for being spoiled, pampered, coddled football stars. Oh, noooooo, I'm sure that isn't happening on my team.

The story is drawn by Joe Maneely. Following up is a 3-pager by, I believe, Howie Post. Yesterday I guessed the artists of two Fiction House stories, and today I'm guessing again. Whatever, the artwork on both stories depends a lot on penwork, one of the trademarks of both Maneely and Post.

After the stories check out another comic artist mystery.

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This past weekend I found a 78 RPM record album with a cover signed "Sinnott". The copyright date on the album is 1948.

 According to a biography, Joe Sinnott was attending school at the time and assisting Tom Gill on Western stories. He began soloing at Atlas in 1950. I'm leaning toward this artwork as being "our" Joe Sinnott based on the signature. The capital "s", the tilt of the lettering and curvature of the signature is the giveaway for me. The top example of his signature is from a 1956 comic book story, and the bottom is enlarged from the album cover.

Number 386

Werewolf Hunter/Ghost Gallery


Today we've got two stories from Fiction House's Ghost Comics #3, and based on the artwork they're reprints from the 1940s.

I get in trouble when I try to identify artists, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that "Werewolf Hunter" is drawn by Lily Renée and "Ghost Gallery" by Jack Kamen. Anyone out there agree/disagree?

Number 385

"You're big...and ugly...and crude...but I love you!"


...and speaking of love, I really love the breathless Mickey Spillane-styled prose in these Johnny Dynamite stories. You just don't read this stuff anymore, like the caption of the panel above, or the panel on page two: "He moaned as the flesh was laid open to the bone and fell in a stupor as his teeth crumpled under the impact."

How about, "What was left of his face slobbered and drooled as I pumped a bullet into his guts."

Has a certain poetic quality to it, don't you think? There's probably a pretty good reason you don't read stuff like that anymore.

The story is from Dynamite #4, November, 1953; patterned by writer William Waugh after Spillane's popular Mike Hammer series of paperback best-sellers, and drawn by Pete Morisi. Waugh's violent and turgid descriptions and dialogue are more interesting than Morisi's workmanlike drawing. I posted the first story from this issue in Pappy's #264.

Number 384

Zakka's Debt


Here's a tale of the high seas, mutiny, mayhem and a gentle giant's friendship with a young boy. I probably should've posted this last Friday on Talk Like A Pirate Day.

It's from Buster Brown Comic Book #33, published sometime in the mid-1950s, and drawn by Reed Crandall.


Last time I posted a Reed Crandall story from Buster Brown #30, George Freeman wrote a comment to tell us it was inked by Ray Willner. As George pointed out, Willner's inking was more angular than Crandall's. Willner has a signed story in #33, one of his Indian elephant boy Gunga stories. I think he did not only the pencilling and inking on Gunga, but the inking over Crandall's pencils as well.

If there's anything about this comic that bugs me it's that the Zakka character on the cover--drawn by Willner?--doesn't match at all the character on the inside. The guy on the cover looks like he's older, shorter and leaner, and a lot less capable of hoisting a mast than Crandall's giant. When you see a glaring discrepancy like this you wonder where the editor was.