Number 2016: Hairy shadows

DC’s supernatural comics had a habit of turning what looked supernatural into something more down-to-earth, but this is different. The hairy shadows may not be supernatural, but they're not of this earth. Manly Wade Wellman is credited by Grand Comics Database as writer, with Murphy Anderson (pencils) and Joe Giella (inks) as artists.

From Phantom Stranger #4 (1953):

Number 2015: Mummy's boy

This is not the first Green Hornet story I’ve shown — nor the first featuring a mummy nemesis (see link below) — but it is from Harvey Comics’ first issue of Green Hornet Comics (#7, 1942). Looking back, I have shown several mummy stories on this blog...perhaps this motherless blogger has mummy issues!

Grand Comics Database doesn’t guess who the artist was, but based on art identification by Jim Vadeboncoeur Jr they give credit for penciling and inking Green Hornet’s face to Arthur Cazeneuve.

Another Green Hornet mummy story, from Green Hornet #29. Just click on the thumbnail.

Number 2014: Tarzan and Boy take a road trip

As a character in the Dell Comics version of Tarzan, Boy was a holdover from the Tarzan movies. Tarzan and Jane’s offspring, according to Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Son of Tarzan (1917) was Jack Clayton (also known as Korak the Killer). Quoting Wikipedia:

“In the Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan films, Korak was replaced by an adopted son called Boy (played by Johnny Sheffield). Tarzan and Jane never married in these films (they do in the books), and the substitution was made to avoid censorship. In the Dell comic books of the fifties, which combine material from the books and the films, Tarzan's son was also called Boy. When the Tarzan comics returned to a more faithful portrayal of Burroughs' characters in the early 1960s, Boy disappeared and Tarzan's son was called Korak, who went on to be featured in his own comic book.”

In “Tarzan Fulfills a Promise” from Tarzan’s Jungle Annual #1 (1952), Boy takes off with Tarzan for the City of Gold, Cathne. I notice they don’t tell Jane they are leaving, or where they are going. The poor woman must have been frantic!

Script by Gaylord Dubois, art by Jesse Marsh.

Number 2013: Spirit of the drawing board

Very often the Spirit made his entrance late in his own weekly comic feature. In this Spirit Section, dated Sunday, July 27, 1941, he doesn’t show up until page 4. The story is about some children and a kidnapping by a mobster...and a newspaper cartoonist who does a crime comic strip.

Unlike Pink Perkins, the writer/artist of “Gumshoe Gus,” Eisner had to have a team to produce his Sunday-only Spirit story. This story feeds into the fantasy that successful comic strips were produced by a single individual. But any crew Pink might have had to assist him would have been superfluous to the plot, and after all, Will Eisner was the only one who signed his name to the Spirit.

Pappy's Sunday Supplement #7 — The Face #2

The Face was a masked patriot. He pulled an ugly green mask over his face and went to war against America’s enemies. And anyone else who needed a pounding from a two-fisted radio reporter, Tony Trent, the face behind the Face.

I have complained before that the Face’s mask seems more silly than frightening. I have had it pointed out to me that Batman’s costume is designed for the same thing: to strike terror into the hearts of the bad guys. Well, there is the real world...and then there are comic books...and what works in one sometimes doesn’t work in another. Nuff said. The Face lasted through the war, then tossed the mask and became Tony Trent, where he finished out his run in Big Shot Comics, ending in 1949.

The Face #2 (1943), was mostly written, according to the GCD, by Gardner Fox, and it was drawn by Mart Bailey. Bailey, like his fellow Big Shot artist, Ogden Whitney (Skyman), had a very clean illustrative style with crisp inking. I have shown a couple of stories from The Face #2 in the early days of this blog, but these are much better scans. (P.S. Tony Trent may be a reporter, but he is not carrying a dictionary, or he would know that “skulldrudgery” is not a word (page 61, panel 2), but “skulduggery” is. Again, nuff said.) UPDATE: Look in the comments, where reader Ryan tells me I am wrong about "skulldrudgery."