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 2373: The Blonde Bomber is introduced

I like stories about women that are drawn by women. Honey Blake, the Blonde Bomber, is a young reporter, along with her cameraman, Jimmy Slapso, from the generation before television. Her time was during the newsreel era, when to see the news one went to a movie theater and got glimpses of the outside world that we now take for granted. Honey and Slapso got involved in their stories.

The Blonde Bomber had a good run in Harvey Comics, including Green Hornet, but also appeared in a few issues of All-New Comics and Speed Comics. According to online sources Blonde Bomber was created by Barbara Hall, who is credited with the artwork on this origin story from Green Hornet Comics #7 (1942).

Number 2284: Fighting Females Week: Blonde Bomber throws the Nazi bull

You may notice that I have finally enabled the lightbox feature of Blogger. I thought about a comment I got from a reader, Henrique Brum, a couple of postings ago. I had an objection to the feature at one time, but after looking at it again I decided to go with what Henrique suggested. Pappy

The second entry for our Fighting Females Week is Blonde Bomber.

The story is about German prisoners of war being held in the United States. The subject has fascinated me ever since my father, Big Pappy, told me about guarding German POWs in Georgia in 1942. The 1944 story was probably “ripped from the headlines,” as the old cliché goes. Both Blonde Bomber and her cameraman, Slapso, work in the newsreels. In the real world, at least 425,000 German POWs spent time in the U.S., and in the story, Nazi Marshal Von Taurus is a POW who is leading an insurrection and committing sabotage. Such things happened in the camps. While most German soldiers would claim they were not Nazis, Nazi officers still had power over their fellow prisoners. (Like Hogan’s Heroes in reverse?)

Grand Comics Database gives credit for the artwork to Bob Powell. I would advise them to turn back a few pages in the comic to the Spirit of ’76 story, which is by Powell, and compare the artwork. Blonde Bomber is drawn by Jill Elgin, one of a small number of fantastic female comic book artists of the era. Go to the link below for another Blonde Bomber story, and more information on Jill Elgin.

“Taurus the Nazi Bull” is from Green Hornet Comics #20 (1944). I love the symbolic splash panel for this story.

More Blonde Bomber and Jill Elgin. Just click on the thumbnail.

Number 1927: “Bein' ate alive”

Blonde Bomber was a backup feature in some of the Harvey Comics superhero anthology comics of the WWII era, Speed Comics, All New Comics, and Green Hornet Comics, from which this episode is taken. The Blonde Bomber was Honey Blake, newsreel reporter, who got into adventures with her sidekick and cameraman, Jimmy Slapso. The characters were first drawn by artist Barbara Hall, and then taken over by Jill Elgin. “Horror Rules the Quicksand!” is from Green Hornet #22 (1945). It’s about saboteurs, set in a swamp.

Jill Elgin was the pen-name of Kathleen Jo Elgin, born in 1923. After her time in comics, during a long career as a writer and illustrator of children’s books, she signed her work both with her real name, and occasionally her pen-name. She retired from illustrating in 1975, and after the death of her mother moved to Florida, where she died in 2005 at age 82. David Saunders’ biography of Elgin is in “The Field Guide to Wild American Pulp Artists”.

Finally, does anyone remember newsreels? In the days before television they were shown in theaters. They were the forerunners of television news, although I remember them into 1963, at least, when I saw a newsreel on the funeral of Pope John XXIII.