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Monday, June 25, 2018

Number 2198: The Eye Sees...and speaks!

The only talking eyeball (as far as I know) in comics was a minor hit in the short-lived Centaur Comics stable. Created by Frank Thomas (“The Owl,” “Billy and Bonny Bee”), the strip was turned over to Mark Schneider, who made his comic book debut with Centaur.

Schneider’s artwork on “The Eye Sees” is crude. Luckily Schneider got better. He joined the staff at Fawcett. He was in the Army during World War II, then came home and continued his art career. Eventually he got into painting covers of men’s magazines. I have a couple I scanned out of the book, Men’s Adventure Magazines, published by Taschen. It looks like he used the same model for all his females, but that isn’t unusual for artists.


David Saunders has an excellent capsule biography of Schneider on his Pulp Artists website.

The story is from Detective Eye #1 (1940).











4 comments:

Daniel [oeconomist.com] said...

So, d'ya think that readers were actively disappointed that the Eye didn't seem to do much more than to wander in and out of this story? or were they just so nonplussed by the character that they'd didn't try to make sense of his adventures?

I wonder what it would have done to my mind had the Eye figured in the comic books of my childhood.

JMR777 said...

When The Eye isn't fighting crime he is selling potato chips - see for yourself

http://www.wisesnacks.com/


If The Eye were published today the conspitacy theorists would go nuts trying to connect the disembodied eyeball with secret societies, eye of Horus, Illuminati, take your pick. Some people just can't grasp the simple concept its just a comic book story. Maybe tin foil hats reduce the bloodflow to the brain?

Pappy said...

JMR, the Eye is symbolic to me of the basic lack of privacy in today's world. I think about it when I go to the grocery store, for instance...knowing I am being watched by cameras.

I see the logo for the company you linked to, and I am sure it represents a wise owl, but in it I see again that all-seeing eye of the camera (not to mention being tracked in our daily lives by our phones and signing on to the Internet). So...do you know where I can buy a good tinfoil hat to keep those "eyes" from seeing me? I have worn out every one I have made for myself.

Pappy said...

Daniel, despite my note to JMR777 and what the Eye represents to me, I can also transport myself back in time and think what it was intended to mean to people of 1940. It was probably another way of representing a god who watches all, good to the righteous, ready to smite the wicked, and in this case using an intermediary to do the smiting.