Number 2431: Bozo is no clown

The word “robot” is from the 1920s, from the Czech word “robota,” meaning forced labor. It comes from K. Čapek's play, R.U.R. Rossum's Universal Robots, now over 100 years old. It seems that since the industrial age the fantasy has been to have robots do all the work. We humans can sit back in a rocking chair sipping our drinks while our obedient ’bots do the heavy lifting. It’s a great idea!

A personal feeling is that not only was the fantasy of a mechanical man doing the repetitive, hard work, but of making a perfect working man who asks no questions, nor asks for more money.

Bozo was invented by a mad scientist, and where would fiction be without scientists who are mad? Bozo later hooked up with Hugh Hazzard. In this episode, as explained by the Grand Comics Database, “Bozo truly meets his match in a modern-day Prometheus named Brutus, created by a mad scientist, who stole its body parts from graves.”

From Smash Comics #14 (1940). Drawn by George Brenner using the pseudonym Wayne Reid.

 

 

 

Bozo’s origin from Smash Comics #1. Just click on the thumbnail.

Number 2112: Bozo the ’bot

Bozo the Robot was “born” in Smash Comics #1 as “Hugh Hazzard and His Iron Man.” After awhile the feature’s name was changed to “Bozo the Robot.” Hugh and Bozo were created by artist George Brenner, whose career went back to the very early years of comic books. In 1943 Brenner took over the editor’s job at Quality, and lasted there until 1949.

Brenner died young, at age 43, of an apparent heart attack. Even his son, John, in an interview, has had trouble finding out more information about his father’s role in the history of comic books. You can read an interesting interview with John Brenner  at the Quality Companion blog.

Early comics often played fast and loose with the United States Constitution, or acted like it didn’t exist. There are all sorts of problems with the plot device of having a law passed with a penalty of immediate death for spies and saboteurs. [SPOILER!] Not only that, the villain here, Emil Kurt, is taken into custody by Bozo, found guilty and executed the same night by firing squad.[END SPOILER]  There is such a thing as due process, and it does not look like it was done in this case. A law like the one in this story would not get signed by any President of the U.S. Well...I sure hope not, anyway...

From Smash Comics #29 (1941):

Number 1212: Black Ace, Archie O. and Bozo

These stories from Smash Comics #4 (1939) have a rigid panel arrangement. It goes throughout the book. I wonder if it was to make the comic book originals look more like they came from newspaper comics, which had a set format, not the relative freedom of a comic book page. Will Eisner, who did the “Espionage starring Black Ace” strip could still set a mood, as he did later with the Spirit, but the page layout is ultimately self-limiting. It's no wonder other artists like Jack Kirby decided to use the whole page divided in a way to maximize the effect of the individual drawings.

To go along with this story, I've included a two-page humor strip by Eisner, "Archie O'Toole," which is immediately recognizable as being Eisner's by the beautiful dancing girl. Archie asks of her, "Can she shag?" which should cause you to chortle gleefully over the modern sexual implication. I looked it up, and the Shag was a popular swing dance from the 1920s to the 1940s. You can see a couple shagging if you go to this video,

Sandwiched between the two Will Eisner jobs is a George Brenner story, using the pseudonym Wayne Reid, of my favorite metal man, Bozo the Robot.

There's a racial caricature in this story. I apologize to readers who may be offended.

Number 805

Bozo the 'bot

It's hard to take a robot named Bozo serious, but readers of Smash Comics did that from the first issue to #41, when he clanked off for the last time.

Bozo probably got his name from the West African Bozo tribe of Mali. The robot preceded Bozo the Clown. George Brenner, one of the first comic book men, created Bozo and his owner, Hugh Hazzard, using the pseudonym Wayne Reid. Brenner created the first masked comic book hero, the Clock, in 1936.

This is the origin story of Bozo, such as it is. It has stock elements like a mad scientist (driven mad by his "need for funds" as the newspaper headline says), Dr. Von Thorp, creator of Bozo. The hero who gets Bozo after the mad doctor is taken down is rich guy Hugh Hazzard, who fights crime on the side. I guess the idea of rich people in the 1930s--at least in comics and pulps--was that they were idle playboys who needed secret identities to be able to work.

Bozo is believed to be the first robot to be featured on the cover of a comic book, and who am I to argue? It also preceded the 1941 Fleischer Superman cartoon, "The Mechanical Monsters," flying robots, manipulated by remote control and used to steal jewels. Bozo was preceded by Adam Link, the artificial intelligence robot from the series by Eando Binder. Adam Link first appeared in Amazing Stories, dated January 1939.

From Smash Comics #1, 1939: