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Monday, October 04, 2021

Number 2562: Cat-Man needs 9 pages, not 9 lives

                                                                             

I have shown artwork before by comic book artist, Charles A. Quinlan. Then, as now, there isn’t much of a biography available except that Quinlan was born in 1901, so he was a bit older than many of his fellow artists. He worked in comic books from the early '40s until the '50s, and died a young man in 1953. (A young man by my measure, if not yours.)

I don’t know who wrote this Cat-Man story, but it has what I consider a major “this should never be done” flaw in the story. Cat-Man is featured on the cover, on the splash page, and then is dressed in his Army attire until the last page before being shown in action in his cat suit. So that leaves several pages for the readers who bought the comic book because of Cat-Man to look at the hero, not disguised as Cat-Man, but in an Army uniform.

Since everyone responsible is, to the best of my knowledge, now deceased, my criticism will never be seen by the long-ago editor or publisher, or the artist, but at least I got it off my chest.

From Cat-Man Comics #13 (1942):










 

2 comments:

Daniel [oeconomist.com] said...

Incompetence abounds amongst these characters. Merrywether calls over an officer and a girl, Herr Doktor Sinister doesn't note Katie crying “Daddy! Daddy!” or misses its implication, and Captain Wright doesn't consider that perhaps Sinister might be correct in thinking that Merrywether were the Cat-Man.

In 2:7, a portrait of Hitler appears to be titled “DER FOOEY”.

Pappy said...

Daniel, for your "incompetence abounds" observations, with which I agree, I will mentally score the story D-minus. The "Der Fooey" portrait saved it from an F.

P.S. Charles Quinlan's teenage son was in high school at the time, and helped his father with scripts. That may be part of the problem.