Number 902


"I've just seen a Face, I can't forget the time or place..."


I've gone on record a couple of times saying I think the Face had a pretty stupid schtick. He wore a suit and his costume was a green mask which wouldn't scare a 6-year-old. Artist Mart Bailey wanted us to believe he could scare crooks and the whole Japanese army, until the character gave up the mask after World War II and appeared in his civilian identity as Tony Trent.

Apparently, from notes I've gotten from a couple of my readers when I've shown the Face, they forgive the Face for wearing a funny-looking mask, and I have been gently chided for my complaint. After all, this is only a comic book character. I have to agree with that. But it also has to do with driving down the freeway just before last Halloween and becoming aware of a car in the next lane pacing me. When I looked over the passenger was looking at me; he was wearing an old man mask, and it startled the bejabbers outta me.



I maintained my composure and stayed on the road. I turned, outwardly calm, back to my driving. I did not want the young whippersnapper in the mask to know I needed to change my underwear.

So I guess the Face's mask would scare someone, and now I know it would be most likely me.

This is the final posting from Sparky Watts #1, 1942.

Number 284


A Face and no head


"The Headless Monster of Bloodrock Castle," drawn by Mart Bailey, is the second story from The Face #2, published in 1943 by Columbia Comics.


This almost looks like a storyboard for a 1940s movie. It's a potboiler, set in a "haunted" English castle with a spook ("This castle has more spooks than a wheel!" as Tony Trent/The Face puts it), a sinister butler, a bride left at the altar by a Nazi boyfriend.

The main quibble I have is something I've complained about before, The Face himself. Just because he sticks on a mask, which is actually more stupid than frightening, doesn't mean he's really disguised from anyone. They're telling me a guy Tony Trent's build, height, weight, walks like Trent, talks like Trent, wearing Trent's clothes, can put on a Halloween mask and not have people know who he is? Caw-mahhnnnn… Maybe somebody finally broke Tony's self-delusion: "Uh, Tone…you might think you're fooling us with the dopey mask business, but we all really know you're the Face." Mart Bailey might've thought that too, because Tony Trent later dropped the Face persona.

Other Face stories posted in Pappy's are here and here.

Number 197


The Face gets in their faces!


I've always thought that superheroes looked sort of dorky in their costumes. I'm the one comic book fan who thinks that, though, because to superhero fans often it's the costume that makes the hero, not the other way around. The Face had just a Halloween mask to slap on when he was daring to do that derring-do he done. Apparently he had Batman's logic: "Criminals are a cowardly, superstitious lot, and I'll frighten them by becoming a bat…or better yet, a silly green face!"

But, in these comics, at that time, with Mart Bailey's artwork, it all seemed to fit. This is the first story from The Face #2. The Face was a two-fisted war correspondent who fought America's enemies with his typewriter as Tony Trent, and with his fists as The Face. Besides appearing in Big Shot Comics, The Face also appeared in his own book for two issues during the war years, 1942 and 1943. He reappeared in 1948 and 1949 for issues #3 and #4 under his civilian name, Tony Trent, The Face.

I'm prone to think of stuff like this: how much did artist Mart Bailey influence artist Ogden Whitney, or was it the other way around? Mart Bailey did the feature, "The Face," for Big Shot Comics, and Whitney* did "Skyman." Their artwork and their approach to illustration seem to come out of the same school. They are both solid artists without a lot of flair. Their pictures tell the story without using a lot of flashy technique to distract from the narrative.

In the latter years of Big Shot Comics, Bailey was listed as art editor. I have seen his work in early 1950s issues of Treasure Chest, the comic book sold to Catholic school children. According to the biographies I've read, he had a career until he was mugged in the 1960s. The crime apparently ended his career, but I have no other details.

*Click on the link for Ogden Whitney at the bottom of this page for more Whitney-work.

Number 63


The Face


We'll soon be observing the 65th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the event that drew America into World War II. While mobilization was taking effect, the comics jumped right in, sending their characters into the fray, usually whipping on the enemy with savage ferocity, and of course, coming out the winners.

In real life it wasn't so easy, but the job was eventually done.

The Face was one of those characters. Tony Trent, war correspondent, put on a Halloween mask, his entire costume. Later on in The Face's run in Big Shot Comics, as the strip was re-titled simply "Tony Trent."

The art was by Mart Bailey, who had a good illustrative style with solid and clean inking. His art style wasn't spectacular, but Bailey was a pro who started his career at DC Comics for Big Shot Comics editor, Vin Sullivan. In a lot of ways Bailey's style reminds me of fellow Big Shot artist, Ogden Whitney, who drew Skyman.

This story, from Big Shot Comics #37, August 1943, shows The Face participating in a Marine invasion of an island, which is in fact what was happening in real life at the same time. The story takes off into a flight of fancy. In real life islands like Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal were taken only after fierce fighting and great loss of lives. The Face and his friends, the bearded "Mattress" McCarthy, spouting his annoying rhymes, and "Babbling" Brooks, showing timidity in the face of the enemy (something you didn't usually see in comics), took care of the situation in short order and the island was taken. Hooray for our side. To his credit, Bailey didn't draw the Japanese as ugly caricatures, which was common in those days. It wouldn't have fit into his style of art at all.