Number 892
Comics McCormick and the Super-Robot!
Comics McCormick was a feature in the four issues of Fat and Slat, written and drawn by Edgar "Ed" Wheelan for EC Comics during the time of publisher Maxwell C. Gaines. Gaines apparently liked Wheelan, whose work also appeared in some of the All-American Comics line during Gaines' time as publisher. Here's an example of Wheelan's work in Pappy's #630, from Fat and Slat #3. You can type Ed Wheelan into the search engine above or click on the Ed Wheelan label below for more.
Back to Wheelan's Comics McCormick, a sharp satire on comic books in the late 1940s when they enjoyed their greatest popularity. Comics McCormick represented what many adults were noticing, kids totally obsessed with comic books. Comics hides a comic book in his geography book, and more than likely that happened in real life. Like many comic book fans, Comics has an active fantasy life, and Wheelan has a lot of fun with the concept.
Wheelan, who had drawn the popular Minute Movies strip during the 1920s, never changed his style. He kept his bigfoot, old-fashioned style, which I find completely charming. You can see a two-part Minute Movies continuity here and here.
Pappy, maybe it's the fact I used to buy my comics as a kid second hand from a used porno mag shop, but Fat and Slat sure sounds more like an 'adult' title than a comic book one.
ReplyDeleteTo quote you: "Comics hides a[n issue of Fat and Slat] in his geography book...[and] has an active fantasy life, and Wheelan has a lot of fun with the concept."
It sure sounds like Comics might've been having a lot of 'fun' with the 'concepts' he found in Fat and Slat, too!
Whe you said Whelen had an old-fashioned style, do you it's old-fashioned by our standards, or old-fashioned by the standards of the 1940s? Either way, I also find the style charming.
ReplyDeleteMy own style is becoming increasingly inarticulate. That should read "do you MEAN it's old-fashioned". And that first word should be "When".
ReplyDeleteKirk, Wheelan's Minute Movies strip began in 1921, and he didn't change his style that much from 1921 to the late 1940s. So yes, I believe readers of the era would have found it more of their parents' generation than their own.
ReplyDeleteI first read about Minute Movies in Don and Maggie Thompson's fanzine, Comic Art, in the mid-'60s, and have been a Wheelan fan ever since.
It's no secret I also like H.G. Peter and other artists of the 1920s who went into the comic book field late in life.
The lead characters in Fat & Slat were taken from the Minute Movies strip (there called Fuller Phun and Archie Clubb).
ReplyDeleteChester Gould in the pre-Dick Tracy days briefly drew a Minute Movies imitation, Fillum Fables.
And over at Street & Smith, George Marcoux had his own variant of Comics McCormick: Supersnipe.
rnigma, thanks for the memory jolt. At some time in the past I knew that Fat and Slat were Minute Movies characters, but had forgotten.
ReplyDeleteI want a super robot!!!
ReplyDelete