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 2329: Comics McCormick underwater

I believe this is the last Comics McCormick story I have to offer. There might be a couple more in some issues of Ed Wheelan’s Fat and Slat (published by EC Comics for four issues in the late 1940s), which I don’t have. Wheelan, long a favorite old-time comic artist of mine, wrote and drew these imaginative and funny stories of a boy’s obsession with comic books.

You can see more by typing Comics McCormick into the search engine for this blog.

Comics McCormick and the Waterman is from Comics’ only appearance in Cat-Man Comics, issue #28 (1945).

Number 2272: The Terrific Comics McCormick

Ed Wheelan was an old-time cartoonist with a newspaper comic strip, Minute Movies, which began during the silent movie era. He worked on other comic strips after Minute Movies was canceled. Wheelan drew new episodes of Minute Movies for Flash Comics, and followed Max Gaines, publisher of Flash Comics, into Gaines’s later endeavor, EC Comics, where he did Fat and Slat.

Wheelan’s style has a particular charm for me. He still drew in the style of an earlier time. It was not changed by him to reflect contemporary tastes of the 1940s.  “Comics” McCormick was a feature Wheelan did for two different publishers: M.C. Gaines (Educational Comics), and Frank Temerson (publishing comics under various names. In this case called Continental Magazines, publishers of Terrific Comics) where Wheelan’s work was shown. Obviously Wheelan was allowed to retain the rights to his character. “Comics” McCormick appeared in five issues of early EC Comics after appearing in five issues of Frank Temerson’s comics.

“Comics” appeared in Terrific Comics numbers 2-6, and today’s story is from the final issue, number 6 (1944).

For more “Comics” adventures click on the thumbnail: