Number 2557: No man is an island...not even Samar

Besides sharing his name with an island in the Philippines, Samar is another white jungle guy. He appeared in Feature Comics from 1940 to 1942, and shared something with the much more successful character, the Phantom. They were both headquartered in India, which often looks more like Africa. 

Nicholas Viscardi (who later went by Nick Cardy) and Ted Cain are credited with creating the character Samar. Viscardi/Cardy, born in 1920, was just a youngster when he began his comic book career. This story, which appeared in Feature Comics ##32 (1940), is not credited for a writer by the Grand Comics Database, but gives Maurice Gutwirth credit for the artwork. 

 

Number 2422: The Spider Widow meets the Spider Man

The Spider Widow “has the ability to control black widow spiders,” (Public Domain Super Heroes) a power I would pass up if offered. I have nothing against spiders; they have their place in the ecosystem, but as long as they aren’t climbing my walls I am fine. Despite an aversion to real life spiders, I chose this particular story because of the giant “spider” in the splash panel. The story is drawn by Frank Borth, an unsung artist of the Golden Age and beyond.

The Spider Widow, who wears a green witch mask, works with a costumed character called the Raven. There was also a Raven in Ace Periodicals comics, including Lightning Comics, around the same time. Neither Raven lasted very long in the comics. In this story the Spider Widow goes up against creepy Spider Man, who is obviously not today’s Spider-Man.

After returning from the war artist/creator Borth worked on a comic strip, then was a mainstay for years in Treasure Chest, a comic book for Catholic school kids. Like other artists who worked in Quality Comics before and during the war, Borth was inspired to do his best work by working with hot-shots like Reed Crandall, Lou Fine, Will Eisner, et al. An interview with Frank Borth from 2006 is included at the Catholic University website.

From Feature Comics #66 (1943):

TO READERS OF PAPPY’S GOLDEN AGE COMICS BLOGZINE:
It is December, and I have all of the stories and postings for this month in the Blogger queue. I want everything to work like it is supposed to, because after my final posting of this month, December 30, I will retire from Pappy’s. After 13 1/2 years it is time to go out while I still have the energy to do something else.

I don’t want to retire without thanking all of you for visiting this site. Many of you visit every time there is a new posting, three times a week. I deeply appreciate all who have been with Pappy’s since the blog — and you and I — were young. I think you understood what I have been trying to do, and when you have commented, especially in the last couple of years, you have been kind to an old man who spent his days squinting at his computer screen.

With any luck Pappy’s blog archives will be online for a long time. Although I will not be contributing, you and future readers will be able to go through a couple of thousand postings.

Best wishes to you all. Your friend, Pappy

Number 1987: “It’s that binkety blank little Doll Man again!”

I have shown a lot of Doll Man stories over the years, 17 by my count, including this one. There were several artists who worked on Doll Man. I see the same challenges for any artist where the size of the character against the normal size of objects has to be consistent. The art on this particular early entry to the Doll Man series is by Reed Crandall, but how much of the art I don’t know. Some of the poses are obvious Crandall, some aren’t. I wonder if someone else inked him, and/or if other artists pitched in and helped with some of the pencils. Something I do know about Crandall is that many of his superhero poses ended up in the swipe files of other artists. He was just that good.

Doll Man, who is Darrel Dane when he is full-sized, has a girlfriend named Martha. Later on in the series Martha became Doll Girl, but in the early days she was a typical superhero girlfriend who couldn’t tell her everyday boyfriend was really super. (And he took pains not to include her in the secret.) In this entry Martha gets to kick some butt, and like many other girlfriends of heroes, gets tied up. Truthfully, I was so busy looking at each panel for Crandall poses I missed most of the story. It probably doesn’t matter that much, does it? The most surprising thing to me about the story itself is told in this spoiler alert. If I were you and didn’t want to know, I would skip the next paragraph and go right to the story.

[SPOILER ALERT]: At the end of this story Doll Man, in his miniature form, has to steer a car out of danger and tells the bad guys, "I have a driver's license!" I assume he got his driver’s license as Darrel Dane, rather than as his diminutive alter ego. He would have some explaining to do for any cop who pulled him over as Doll Man. But...wait. On page 7 we see that Doll Man can instantly become Darrel Dane, so when in peril while driving down a narrow mountain road, why not just transform to his larger self? Ah, there’s no dangerous fun in that![END SPOILER]

From Feature Comics #56 (1942):

Number 1779: Origin of Doll Man: Let’s get teeny-tiny

Feature Comics, which had once been Feature Funnies and was composed mainly of comic strip reprints, went over to superheroes when that genre exploded, saleswise. Will Eisner created Doll Man for Feature Comics #27 (1939). He wrote it under the name William Erwin Maxwell, and it was drawn by him, probably with some help from his art shop employees.

Doll Man is a tiny man, and the story is a tiny story. Four pages. There is no portent of how popular the character would become. Doll Man appeared throughout the forties, through the superhero crash, into the fifties. DC bought up the Quality superheroes, including Doll Man, who did show up later in DC’s revivals of the Quality heroes.

Getting small is a really popular theme, used over and over again. In this horror story from Mysterious Adventures #2 (1951), becoming tiny is the horrible fate of a young couple. They do nothing to deserve their fate but be in the wrong place with the wrong villain. That is what makes it so horrible!

In 2012 I showed the origin of Doll Girl. Just click on the thumbnail.

Number 1750: Hot librarian, cold romance

Darrell Dane, the Doll Man, is handsome, but a “milquetoast,” according to the beautiful librarian. (A milquetoast, as in the popular H. T. Webster newspaper comic panel featuring the wimpish Timid Soul, aka Caspar Milquetoast).

With Doll Man, it is when he becomes small that he becomes a big man, if you know what I mean. Since she has obviously not read the book on superhero behavior, the librarian cannot know Darrell is Doll Man, so she cannot know he is just pretending to be a coward.

This brightly colored, beautifully illustrated entry into the Doll Man series is from Feature Comics #47 (1941). There is a discrepancy with the Grand Comics Database for the artwork credits. Quoting the indexer notes: “According to Lee Boyette in Alter Ego #90, Fran Matera sneaks his initials into panels on pages 5 and 7. According to Jim Amash, in the Quality Companion, and who had done an interview with Matera, he states this art is by Reed Crandall.” I’m siding with Jim Amash on this one.

Number 1379: Ace of Space, meet Space Ace

With a comment in Pappy's #1346, reader Darci sent me on a hunt for the character, Ace of Space. Ace Egan is considered to be a precursor to Hal Jordan, the Silver Age Green Lantern. The story is from Feature Comics #38 (1940), and crams a lot into an origin story, but whether it inspired editor Julius Schwartz or writer John Broome, who knows? It’s an interesting thought. The writing on this five-page origin story is clumsy, especially as Ace discovers his powers. After putting on the power belt bequeathed him by the dying alien he says, “I seem to know the answer to all problems!” Despite growing to be nine-feet tall, jumping a quarter mile or having super vision, I’d think just having answers to all problems would be power enough. Harry Francis Campbell did the artwork, and H. Weston Taylor the writing.

I’ve included the Space Ace story by Gardner Fox and Fred Guardineer from Manhunt #4 (1948). Here Space Ace is Jet Black, a “space patrolman” (space would be a mighty big patrol area). The Space Ace character from the four issues of Jet (Jet Powers, not Jet Black) a couple of years later, also published by ME, is more of a pirate.