Number 2588: Witch Hazel’s niece, Little Itch, makes her debut

Despite the title of today's post, I am not sure the story, “Ol Witch Hazel and Her Niece, Little Itch,” is the actual debut of Little Itch. I looked at various sources, including the Grand Comics Database, and they list the story as the debut, but with a question mark. They are guessing, like me.

You’d think a grown man would have better things to do than spend a morning looking for such arcane information, wouldn’t you? You’d be correct.

Despite wasting time on the search, I am happy for the story, typical to me of writer John Stanley’s talent. My favorites from the Little Lulu comic books are Witch Hazel and Little Itch. This is the final story I am posting for the Little Lulu and Her Special Friends Annual #3, from 1955. Little Itch’s first appearance or not, Lulu’s impromptu and inspired story, by way of John Stanley, still made me laugh.

Number 2572: Tarzan and the lost astronaut

In a recent re-reading of a Dell Giant comic starring Tarzan, I was sure I was looking at the artwork of Jesse Marsh, who had been the Dell Tarzan artist from the 1940s into the mid 1960s, when he died. There were some things about Tarzan’s face that gave me a clue the artist was not Marsh, and sure enough, credit was given to an artist, John Ushler, of whom I was not aware. According to Alberto Becattini, who has amazing knowledge of Dell artists, Ushler worked in Dell comics from 1952 to 1962. Ushler had his own amazing ability, making his drawings look like Jesse Marsh’s.

The story is “The Lost Astronaut,” which was published in Dell Giant #51 (1961), Tarzan King of the Jungle. As usual, Tarzan is away from his wife and son, hanging around the folks of another lost city, Pal-Ul-Don, whose civilization is not only unknown to outsiders except Tarzan, but Pal-Ul-Don has dinosaurs as well. As per the story’s title, an American spacecraft lands in Pal-Ul-Don, and surprise! the astronaut is a woman. I don’t remember thinking about it when I read the story new, in 1961, but there were no female astronauts in the United States space program until long-overdo women joined the formerly males-only group in 1978, and the first American woman in space was Dr Sally Ride.

The foresight of showing a woman as astronaut is credited to Tarzan writer Gaylord Dubois.

 

Number 2515: The cowboy and the artist

The internet biographies of comic artist Russ Heath say that his father had once been a cowboy, so young Russ took to admiring Western artists, especially Will James and Charles Russell. When he went to work as a comic book artist his first assignments were  in the Western genre.

Dale Robertson, actor, was born in Oklahoma, and was a cowboy. After his service during World War II (where he got the Purple Heart for being wounded on two separate occasions), he went to Hollywood and became an actor.

The two men, the cowboy and the son of a cowboy, crossed paths when Heath illustrated a Dell Four Color series comic book of Tales of Wells Fargo, a popular Western television show. The show starred Robertson, and was on the air from 1957 to 1962, for 202 episodes. They are still being shown today on at least one pay cable network and one nostalgia channel on basic cable.

Robertson had a presence as an actor; tall, handsome and as his war record showed, just shy of bullet-proof. He was mucho macho. Heath was perhaps one of the top comic book artists of the era after World War II, when he worked for Timely/Atlas, and then freelanced for many years, doing a lot of war comics, among others. Heath’s art style was dynamic. He had studied art, and he could draw. Robertson became an actor without studying acting.

Both Robertson and Heath are now deceased: Robertson in 2013, and Heath in 2018.

Gaylord Dubois, who also wrote the comic book Tarzan for Dell, wrote “Thunder Over Lost Soldier Gulch.”  

From Tales of Wells Fargo #1215 (1961):

Number 2483: Tarzan bundolo!

 

Tarzan hops onto Argus, his giant eagle, for a flight to the city of Cathne. There he encounters some belligerent Bolgani, who are bent on making Tarzan bund. Yep, there are ape-words in this story. Bolgani is gorilla, bund is dead. The creatures, as well as Tarzan, are wont to holler out "Bundolo!" which means kill. Tarzan is a bloodthirsty type, having named his own son Korak,* which in the ape language means killer. (Note: after this appeared reader Dwight Harvey wrote to remind me that Korak's real name is John.)

That aside, this is yet another story where Tarzan helps with the fighting in a city hidden in the African jungle, injecting him into their wars. It was written by Gaylord Dubois and drawn by Jesse Marsh. It appeared as the lead story in Tarzan Jungle Annual #4 (1955).

It is the end of the year. I’ll wish you Happy New Year, because 2020 has been a terrible year. We’ll hope for better in 2021. 

*In the Dell version of Tarzan’s parenting, his son is called “Boy,” which is what they named him in the old Tarzan movies, and was carried over into the comic books. It was apparently because the movie Tarzan and Jane were not married, and after they found the baby, decided to set up treetop housekeeping. Don’t ask me the circumstances. It has been at least 50 years since I saw that particular movie in the Tarzan series. For a time in the early 1960s there was interest in the Tarzan of the screen, and they were shown on a local TV channel on Saturday afternoons. I remember having an attitude about the movies, since I was a member of the Burroughs Bibliophiles, and was actively reading the original novels. I thought that made me an expert. When I once tried to explain the differences of the movie Tarzan and novel Tarzan to some classmates they looked as if they would rather grab a vine and swing away through the trees, somewhere far from me. 

In retrospect, who could blame them?