Big Red is a lumberjack boss, and he goes up against “Sledge,” an evil lumberjack boss who wants Big Red’s neck of the woods. And who wouldn’t? It looks terrific! Consider the splash panel, where Red struts blithely down a groomed path, where nary a fallen leaf or dead tree impedes him. He looks so happy that he is unaware of Sledge’s gang lurking behind those perfect trees.
Red can fight.* The sound effects of his blows to the villainous crew remind me of the Batman television show of the 1960s. On one page we “hear” SOCK! BIFF! BANG! On another SLUG! BONG! and the incongruous ZOWIE! Fletcher Hanks had a fascinating and quirky way about his stories, and it is why over the years his reputation has grown.
From Fight Comics #7 (1940):
*In Fight Comics #9 Red went to San Francisco to look for a former fiancée, and wound up in a boxing match. The teaser at the end said we will see more of his boxing career beginning in the next issue, but the bell rang and the fight was over for Red. He was never seen again.
I laughed aloud at 5:1, in which Tom is using a bowie knife to cut the ropes that bind “Big Red” McLane. A bowie knife has quite a long blade, and Tom's blade appears to be plunged into Red's arm and torso. Also, 5:3 suggests that “Big Red” has an inadequate appreciation of gun safety.
ReplyDeleteThis kind of story could have been delivered by 90% of the other writers at the time, it was pretty much a standard adventure story. It didn't really have the insane god-like justice that Hanks was known for, but it certainly has his weird art, stiff figures, and really strange eye for camera positioning (some long shots are just mystifying!)
ReplyDeleteDaniel, Tom has to take a very clumsy stance in order to hold off the gang while simultaneously cutting the rope. There is a lot of rope, and it is very thick...it would take a long time to saw away the ropes while holding a gun in one hand and cutting at such an odd angle. It is a cutting position begging for a sliced artery. Big Red is lucky he got away with all parts intact.
ReplyDeleteBrian, I have suspected that Hanks may have gone to the Harold Gray School of Comic Art, because his figures are usually stiff and there is a lot of talking, much like Gray's Little Orphan Annie. I also think Hanks owed something to Basil Wolverton's early dramatic work with the blocky and stiff figures. But while Wolverton could also draw and write funny, Hanks' humor was in the strip's goofiness.
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