Number 1101
What ho, it's Tally-Ho!
Tally-Ho Comics might be one of the oddest comic books ever published. The cover makes it look like a kiddie comic, and parents might have been fooled into buying it for their kid. The unsuspecting kid would be turning the pages past "Snowman" and find himself reading a gory horror story featuring a–YIKES!–bloody dismembered hand.
The comic is dated December 1944, and is one of a series of oddball releases during the latter part of World War II. Paper was rationed, but comic books were selling well–entire print runs, whatever they could get to newsstands or to military bases–so my guess with Tally-Ho is that a package was created with material at hand (credited by Overstreet to "[Bernard] Baily Publishing Company"). They found someone with a paper ration (in this case, the Swappers Quarterly from Chicago) and either made them part of the package deal or paid them for their paper ration. That's an educated guess on my part based on what little evidence I have.The comic is known as Frank Frazetta's first published comic book work, inking John Giunta. An artist I don't recognize did "Man In Black,"*, the aforementioned horror story. I'm showing both stories today. "Snowman" is another recycled story I've shown before, but these are new scans.
Wednesday: Another John Giunta story.
*Not to be confused with Bob Powell's Man In Black.
5 comments:
It's too bad we don't know who that artist is (on the horror story.) I like his art and especially the exaggerated cartoon-ish expressions and positions. Like a cleaner Jack Davis.
I like how much a prototype that story was for the things that were going to come in the 50s.
That first story, though, is a weird mix of funny animal/horror/super-hero!
[>] Brian
Yeesh, talk about mood whiplash. Even the Snowman story is bizarre (Kiddie humor or Superhero?).
It's funny how a lot of the most memorable horror comics stories pop up in the most unexpected places; Jay Disbrow's "Ultimate Destiny" in a crime comic, "Monster of Dread End Street" in the usually tame horror comics from Dell, etc. "Man in Black" isn't on par with those, but it sure must have stuck out for any kids who picked this up.
Gumba, I thought for a long time "Man in Black" was by Bob ("Fuje") Fujitani, but as I was getting ready to post it I compared it to some other jobs he did and became convinced it's not by him.
Both you and "100Aliases" point out that Snowman is an odd mix of funny animal/humor and superhero. I think it was somebody's idea of doing something different, but this was probably wayyyy too different.
We discussed this very same comic over at GAC about a year and a half ago and here is what JVJ had to say on the book at that time-
"He-Man is by Charles Voight
Capt. Cookie is by Henry C. Kiefer
The Man in Black IS by Bob Fujitani
It's a strange fact, but there are at least THREE printings of this book that I've seen. I think it originated with the Baily shop and he had to really scrounge to find war-time paper allowances. Only part of the print run is by Swappers Quarterly (no apostrophe) as shown on this indicia. There is an entire previous indicia that is blacked out, as you can see on the inside front cover here. That one is, I believe, by Baily Publications and exists in two different formats.
All in all, a very strange and wonderful book. But, NOT, IMHO, Frazetta's first work in comics. He assisted Giunta on several previous stories - again, IMHO. This is his first CREDITED work."
Hope this adds some insight on the book.
Best
Joe Moore
Joe, yes, your information by way of JVJ (aka Jim Vadeboncoeur Jr) is most helpful. I have seen only the editions of the book with the indicia showing the Swappers Quarterly credit. I've owned two copies over the years, and seen others, but haven't seen any with a blacked out indicia.
If there were three printings of the book then it must've sold very well.
Thanks for clearing up some other items, like the credit for Fujitani.
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