In 1940 it was probably easier, and more logical to the reader, that in the future when people are zipping around the universe in rocket ships, that mail would be delivered the old fashioned way. In stamped envelopes, and delivered physically to other planets. Mars Mason is the Interplanetary Mailman, whose job it is to get mail to other planets, even when monsters attack.
I give artist Munson Paddock (here signing his name as Martin Nye) credit for some truly bizarre aliens. And I also give credit for their names, Sour Snouts.
The swirling creatures, the pulsating colors created by whomever the colorist for Fox Features was in those days, give the story something of a psychedelic effect.
In 1940 Munson Paddock was a real old-timer. He was born in 1886, and his art was being published shortly after the dawn of the twentieth century. I don’t want to get into too much conjecture, but I think of artists of his generation who went into comic books as artists who were not making a living in the art field. I think they found being a comic book artist in the earliest days of that industry better than going on relief, or starving in a garret. I consider Paddock one of the more interesting oddball artists of the period.
Paddock is also credited by the Grand Comics Database as being the writer of the story. From Speed Comics #11 (1940):
2 comments:
The Sour Snouts are probably the weirdest aliens ever seen in a comic magazine. Some are just floating heads, some have skeletal bodies with no arms, others have bodies with multiple arms. Or perhaps they are shape shifters constantly shifting shape and color? Who knows? I also enjoyed that they don't speak in some strange alien way but instead as any ordinary American might even fracturing grammar when one says "Mars Mason done it!"
Well it's good to know that even in the future neither rain, nor snow nor Sour Snouts will prevent the mail from getting through.
Rick, thanks for the astute observations. You done good!
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