Number 2519: Haunted by TV

The characters in “The Ghost on Television” fit the usual horror comics profile. Wife has murdered husband; she and a crooked lawyer have not only taken over the husband’s television network, they have cheated the husband’s daughter out of her share of the fortune. A pair of murderous rotters, who will have revenge “channeled” to them.

Having wasted...er...watched incalculable hours of the idiot box in my lifetime I recall there were ghosts a’plenty on my family television. In the early days the ghosts I remember came from poor reception, and required adjusting the rabbit ears antenna until the ghosts on the screen went away. That isn’t good enough for horror comics, which often used the dead as returning to life, in this case in a ghostly form, to get back at those who put him in his grave.

Art attributed by the Grand Comics Database to Frank Giusto. From The Beyond #16 (1952):

Number 2463: Three witches

Halloween is in a few days, so we start off Halloween week with three stories of witches. What could be more appropriate?

First up is “They Burned a Witch,” from The Beyond #16 (1952). Grand Comics Database credits Dick Beck with pencils, but the inker is not known.

Our second witchy tale is by Robert Q. Sale for Strange Tales #29 (1954), called “Witchcraft.” Not long ago I showed a prison story from a crime comic drawn in Sale’s dynamic style. The writing credits go to Paul S. Newman

Third, we have a tale of a witch with a history lesson. Two panels on the bottom of page three succinctly tell of superstition, when people who first colonized the New World were on the lookout for witches. Speaking of their neighbor, Charity, the “witch,” she is suspected because she cooks food in a cauldron, and she has a black cat! If that doesn’t just scream witch I don’t know what does.

The “Witch of Death” is from Avon’s Witchcraft #5, drawn by Rafael Astarita.

Number 2423: “Ain’t had so much fun since we massacred everybody on the Lordsburg stage!”

Rattlesnake Jake and Longhair Owens are killer cowboys who go for gold. They don’t want the hard work of taking gold from the ground; killing someone else for gold is much easier for the two.

The tale, from Ace’s Western Adventures #1 (1948) is full of shooting and killing. Where the two bad men meet their match is in Lewiston, Montana, where the townsfolk don’t cotton to two rotters shooting up their Fourth of July festivities. Shame on those saddle-tramps for disturbing a town’s patriotic celebration.

“The Slaughter on the Fourth of July” is a supposedly true crime story from the late 19th century American West. It is drawn by Ed Moline, as identified by art spotter Jim Vadeboncoeur Jr. Moline, trained as an architectural draftsman, drew pulp illustrations during the Depression years of the 1930s, then comics. In the 1950s he went back to his original trade as a draftsman.

Number 2388: Sheriff Sal, one helluva gal

The town fathers of Red Dog give Sally Starr the job of sheriff because the town is too peaceful. No man wants the job, they claim. Sally overlooks the implied insult to her sex and snaps up the opportunity. Despite the misgivings of some she does a good job as sheriff. That drives her boyfriend, Flash Gannon (he of the green cowboy hat and bright yellow shirt*), crazy. He wants her to quit and marry him. You get a sense of his feelings for Sheriff Sal by how he pins her badge on in the last panel of page one, shown above, and where he rests his right hand while doing it.

Western Adventures, from Ace, lasted just six issues in 1949, then the book was cancelled, and continued as Western Love Trails for three more issues before being finally retired. Sally and Flash went through all six of Western Adventures, and appeared in the first issue (#7) of Western Love Trails.

I believe the traditional Western comic was done for boys and young men, and includes some female Western fans. Sally’s story is an example for them that women can do the jobs that are traditionally male. The final story in the love comic shows Sally finally giving in to Flash, thereby letting the young women (and men) who read it know that in order to keep her love, Sally has to return to a “typical” female role.

This story, drawn by King Ward, appeared in Western Adventures #1 (1948).

*Two days ago I showed an example of how Quality Comics went for glaring colors in its early forties period...that tradition lives on with some of the colors in this story.

Number 2225: Magno and Davey: Personal magnetism

Reading up on superheroes Magno and Davey I find that Magno is one of those characters whose powers are not explained. How did he get the power to magnetize? Carrying magnets in his pocket when he was boy? I don’t know. I also do not know who Magno is when he is not Magno, a secret identity; that information is also lacking. What I know is he went solo for a time until his youthful companion, Davey, joined him. Don Markstein’s Toonopedia makes a point of Davey using his given first name, which some tag-along boys used with their adult partners.

In this adventure of the duo, they are fighting a perennial villain, the Clown. The Clown also has no origin, and has an elastic criminal career. He is, among other things, a saboteur working for the Nazis, which is what we find him doing in today’s story.

Magno and Davey lasted from 1940 to 1947. The characters were created by Paul Chadwick (not the man responsible for Concrete, as Toonopedia would have us know), and Jim Mooney, who had a long career in comic books. No credits are given by the GCD for writing or drawing this story which appeared in Four Favorites #8 (1942):