Number 2366: Catman vs his readers and Dr Macabre

Catman #28 (1945) is considered scarce by Overstreet. I don’t know why, specifically. Perhaps by the time it reached newsstands and comic book racks (approximately April, 1945), the racks were full of too many comic books and it got lost in the jumble, or maybe Catman, being a costumed hero, was getting boring to readers. During that era the readers were fickle, and apt to drop comics that used to excite them and then after a while bored them. The issue even has an L.B. Cole cover, which I have always thought, based on Cole’s poster-like illustrations, to be foolproof in attracting buyers. Maybe not. The cover has a skull, no less, which has been gold for periodical sales since the beginning of publishing. Images of sex and/or death, the rule for big sales. So why no big sales for this issue? It has been 74 years since it was published, so we’ll never know for sure.

Something I do know: the Catman lead story is drawn by Bob Fujitani (signed “Fuje” in that time of war with Japan), who brought his usual craft and dynamics to the story.

Number 2142: Man and Hangman

I feel that Bob “Fuge” Fujitani was the Hangman artist. The dark character originated when he stood in for his murdered brother, the Comet, created by Jack Cole. Fujitani’s art has a mood of its own, and in this particular episode from Pep Comics #47 (1944), the drama is heightened by his camera angles and dynamic figure drawing. He worked early on with the Eisner-Iger Shop and you can see the Eisner influence in his inking. At some point he left the shop to work directly for Quality Comics. He worked for many comics publishers over the years, and did a lot of work with Dan Barry on the Flash Gordon daily comic strip. Over time his style changed from the Eisnerish look of this story to a more illustrative style seen on this cover drawing of the Hangman, which he did in 2002:

According to an interview in Alter Ego #28 (2003), Fujitani joined the U.S. Navy during World War II. but he was kicked our because his father was Japanese. He was also issued a less-than-honorable discharge. When I hear stories like that I have a sense of outrage. I was relieved to read that a few years later, after an appeal, he was given an honorable discharge, which made him eligible for veteran’s benefits.

I am writing this in October, 2017, and the biographies I read online about Fujitani don’t mention whether he is still alive. He was born in 1920, so he will be 98 in 2018. He is one of the very last of the original comic book men who came into the industry in its early days.

Number 1703: Prince Valiant and the Holy Grail

There were seven issues of Prince Valiant in Dell’s Four Color series, this being #849 (1957), the second-to-last issue.

A religious theme runs through “Quest For the Grail.” The quest being to the Holy Land, looking for the Holy Grail. The chalice is held hostage by some “pagans” (a euphemism for Muslims). There is a sequence of Prince Valiant being crucified on a battlement. There is no cross, but the position Val is put into is the same. Usually comics, and especially Dell Comics, avoided religion, but here religion is the linchpin of the plot, right down to Val filling in symbolically for Jesus. In Val’s case, he gets to climb down.

Prince Valiant is a Viking, as is his pal Boltar, who is part of the search party. Boltar apparently still believes in the Viking gods and is not a Christian. It begs the question: with all of the many religious philosophies alive today, does anyone still pray to Odin or any Norse gods? Just wondering.

The Dell issues of Prince Valiant were drawn by Bob (“Bob Fuje”) Fujitani. The script for “Quest For the Grail” is credited by Grand Comics Database to Paul S. Newman. I do not know if there is anything on record of the feelings of Prince Valiant creator, Hal Foster, on the comic book handling of his character.

Two years ago I showed another Dell Prince Valiant. Just click on the thumbnail: