Number 2567: Sparky Watts, glamour boy

Sparky Watts, the creation of cartoonist Gordon “Boody” Rogers, got his super powers from Doc Static and Doc's cosmic ray machine. Sparky was the strongest man on Earth, and could fly, but for some reason he still wore glasses. Occasionally Sparky had to get his powers recharged by Doc Static’s cosmic rays.  In this story Doc Static makes a mistake and Sparky becomes beloved by all, because Doc pushed the wrong button, the glamour button.

The story was published in a one-shot, Columbia Comics #1, in 1943. Boody Rogers had joined the Army the year before, but he had done a Sparky Watts newspaper comic strip before leaving civilian life, and this story appears to be an edited version of one of the continuities from the newspaper appearances. The story seems a bit crude compared to Rogers’ postwar work in Big Shot Comics and occasional full-length Sparky Watts comic books.

In the story Sparky defines “mugging” as a violent crime and robbery. He then flies off to catch the muggers. I remember as a kid being puzzled by the word “mugging.” In the context I knew it did not mean a drinking cup. When I asked my mother she said “mugging” was a slang word that meant kissing. Good thing I didn’t go to a big city and based on her definition, look to be mugged.

 

Number 2079: Skyman flies in

The Skyman was a charter member of the Big Shot Comics line-up. Columbia Comic Corporation, a small publishing company, had a nine-year run without putting out a lot of product. Big Shot Comics lasted for 104 issues, succumbing finally in 1949. That left adrift not only Skyman (who ended in issue #101), but Tony Trent (formerly the Face), and Boody Rogers’s eccentric and funny Sparky Watts.

Skyman’s initial appearance in Big Shot Comics #1 (1940), shown today, did not explain his origin. Skyman was yet another rich guy who made it his mission to fight crime and bad guys. He even paid for his own advanced aircraft, Wing. As one source explained it, aviation comic strips were popular in the thirties, so not only did comic books feature many of them, like the Skyman they were sometimes costumed characters.

Ogden Whitney did the artwork. He was born in 1918, so he was about 21 or 22 when he first drew Skyman. I have featured many stories with Whitney’s artwork, and to my eyes there was very little change in his style or approach to drawing from this early time until the last artwork he did in comics. Whitney died in the early '70s, according to some accounts. For as long as Ogden Whitney was active in comics, and the wide range of publishers he worked for, there seems to be very little information about him.

What information I have on Skyman has him created and written by Gardner Fox.

Pappy's Sunday Supplement #7 — The Face #2

The Face was a masked patriot. He pulled an ugly green mask over his face and went to war against America’s enemies. And anyone else who needed a pounding from a two-fisted radio reporter, Tony Trent, the face behind the Face.

I have complained before that the Face’s mask seems more silly than frightening. I have had it pointed out to me that Batman’s costume is designed for the same thing: to strike terror into the hearts of the bad guys. Well, there is the real world...and then there are comic books...and what works in one sometimes doesn’t work in another. Nuff said. The Face lasted through the war, then tossed the mask and became Tony Trent, where he finished out his run in Big Shot Comics, ending in 1949.

The Face #2 (1943), was mostly written, according to the GCD, by Gardner Fox, and it was drawn by Mart Bailey. Bailey, like his fellow Big Shot artist, Ogden Whitney (Skyman), had a very clean illustrative style with crisp inking. I have shown a couple of stories from The Face #2 in the early days of this blog, but these are much better scans. (P.S. Tony Trent may be a reporter, but he is not carrying a dictionary, or he would know that “skulldrudgery” is not a word (page 61, panel 2), but “skulduggery” is. Again, nuff said.) UPDATE: Look in the comments, where reader Ryan tells me I am wrong about "skulldrudgery."