Number 2516: What is news is the news itself

“Blonde Bomber,” from Harvey Comics’ All-New Comics, was a wartime newsreel reporter, Honey, who had a camera man, Slapso. They were out looking for stories to tell. The stories of Honey and Slapso are old fashioned, but Honey also seems modern. I am not sure how many women in that time (with the exception of Lois Lane and Brenda Starr) were out beating the bushes for news. So I see Honey as ahead of her time. (I remember when network news was solidly male. The times, they are thankfully a'changin'.)

This episode with the cool splash panel that has nothing to do with the story except draw us in, is from All-New #9 (1943). Female artists are sometimes credited for this feature, but the Grand Comics Database has no writer or artists listed. Time marches on! Maybe someday someone will tell us who drew it.

 

Number 2462: Black Cat: one tough kitty

No one ever seemed to question why the masked Black Cat showed up when there was a mystery simultaneous with her secret identity, Linda Turner, making a movie. My guess is it was her costume. She wore a cute little outfit as Black Cat (little being the operative word), which kept the eyes of observers on her low-cut top and her legs. She was also good at judo, so she had no superpowers, just fighting skills.

In this story, Rick Horne, who is her boyfriend, can’t put two and two together and realize Linda’s bright red curly short hair is also Black Cat’s hairstyle.

The Black Cat was created for Harvey’s Pocket Comics (which had a short run), then on to Speed Comics. She also showed up in All-New Comics, from which this tale of Japanese saboteurs is taken. Her character was aptly handled by some talented artists, and she kept in print throughout the 1940s. My first ogle...excuse me, I mean look...at Black Cat was in the three 25¢ Giant Size reprint comics from Harvey in 1962 and 1963, in stories drawn by Lee Elias. Al Gabriele, credited for the art by the Grand Comics Database, drew the story I am showing here.

From All-New Comics #9 (1944).

Number 1552: The man who milked spiders for gold

(You’re right if you think I showed another “SMACKO!” panel recently. It was in a Green Mask story I showed on February 21.)

Drawn by a teenaged Joe Kubert, this story uses the locale of Death Valley, California, which became a National Park in 1933. Death Valley, according to a little research on the Internet, was named by prospectors who crossed while traveling to the California gold fields in 1849, and yes, there was also gold in Death Valley, just as this story claims.

With a little more checking, I found the part of the story about using spiderwebs for crosshairs in bomb sights is true. You can read about it here. The story is entertaining as well as educational. And of course Joe’s artwork is always worth a look

From Harvey Comics’ All-New Comics #9 (1944):

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A story, with original artwork by Kubert, from another issue of All-New Comics:

Number 1357: Boyoboy! The Boy Heroes

We’re beginning another theme week, “Boyoboy! Week,” where we’ll see some of the kid gangs of the Golden Age. I’ve got posts featuring Boy Commandos, the Newsboy Legion, and the Little Wise Guys following up today’s posting of a Boy Heroes strip from Harvey Comics' All-New Comics. A group I won’t be showing is Young Allies, because that bunch included Toro and Bucky, two superhero sidekicks. Our kid gangs are strictly from the streets, and while they might be heroes, they aren’t super.

The Boy Heroes were created by Louis Cazeneuve. The group mainly operated in Europe during the war years, making eight appearances in All-New. To begin this adventure in Transylvania they seem confident, boasting as they motor along, “Boy, we sure took care of them dratted Nazis back in Rumania, eh, kids?”

“Sure, we did! Dey’re duck soup!”

But of course the boys soon end up in the soup, and being in Transylvania they are fighting, of all things, a werewolf. I assume the idea behind having young boys behind enemy lines fighting Nazis was to feed into the fantasy of the young readers back home that even those too young to enlist could accomplish heroics during the war. In real life American kids were urged to collect scrap and buy savings stamps to aid in the war effort, but in the comics they could do what they really wanted to do — kick butt!

I’ve shown this story before back in the early days of this blog, but I’ve re-scanned the pages. Art attributed to Louis Cazeneuve, from All-New Comics #10 (1944):

Number 1284: All-old Ed Wheelan in All-New Comics

Ed Wheelan is one of the old-time cartoonists who had a career before entering the comic book field in the Thirties and Forties. Wheelan had a successful daily comic strip, Minute Movies, for several years. He came into comic books with the same bigfoot style he had used years before, even though it was old-fashioned. It evoked another era. That is the charm for me.

These two stories are from Harvey Comics' All-New Comics #'s 3 and 4 (1943). At the time Wheelan was also providing funny filler stories for DC's Flash Comics, and later when Max Gaines was bought out by DC and then founded EC Comics, Wheelan had a home there, also.**

Wheelan was born in 1888, and died in 1966.

*Hairy Green Eyeball showed a two-part Minute Movies continuity. Part One, and Part Two.

**I have shown three of his excellent Comics McCormick features from EC's Fat and Slat Comics:
Pappy's #892, Pappy's #630 and Pappy's #547