Number 892

Comics McCormick and the Super-Robot!

Comics McCormick was a feature in the four issues of Fat and Slat, written and drawn by Edgar "Ed" Wheelan for EC Comics during the time of publisher Maxwell C. Gaines. Gaines apparently liked Wheelan, whose work also appeared in some of the All-American Comics line during Gaines' time as publisher. Here's an example of Wheelan's work in Pappy's #630, from Fat and Slat #3. You can type Ed Wheelan into the search engine above or click on the Ed Wheelan label below for more.

Back to Wheelan's Comics McCormick, a sharp satire on comic books in the late 1940s when they enjoyed their greatest popularity. Comics McCormick represented what many adults were noticing, kids totally obsessed with comic books. Comics hides a comic book in his geography book, and more than likely that happened in real life. Like many comic book fans, Comics has an active fantasy life, and Wheelan has a lot of fun with the concept.

Wheelan, who had drawn the popular Minute Movies strip during the 1920s, never changed his style. He kept his bigfoot, old-fashioned style, which I find completely charming. You can see a two-part Minute Movies continuity here and here.

Number 630


Comics McCormick and Marvel Maid


From Fat and Slat #2, 1947, here's another Comics McCormick short, featuring sexy Marvel Maid. M.M. looks, facially at least, to be patterned on Wonder Woman, whose adventures were published by Max Gaines. (See the previous Pappy posting.) At the time of this issue of Fat and Slat Gaines had sold his interest in that publishing company and was publishing the EC Comics line, which included educational and entertainment comics for young readers, like Fat and Slat.

Ed Wheelan, who created Fat and Slat, also created Comics* McCormick. In the 1920s he created the daily comic strip Minute Movies, a double-tiered comic strip with sprocket holes like strips of movie film. Wheelan never changed his art style and his art seems quaint, even for those longago days of 1947. I posted the first Comics McCormick strip here and an earlier Ed Wheelan story here.

*I refuse to do like Wheelan and use quotation marks around nicknames. It's old-fashioned and unnecessary. And it's irritating; almost as irritating as an asterisk leading to a footnote.