Number 1115


Return of the singing cowboy


This post gives me a chance to make up for a faux pas. The last time I showed a story from DC's Jimmy Wakely comic book* I titled it "The second-string Gene Autry." A reader sent me a note, telling me he understood I was trying to be funny, but felt that Wakely deserved more respect.

The Jimmy Wakely Trio was a popular Western group with several hit records. Wakely was in movies with his trio, then starred in his own movies for Monogram in the late '40s. I'm not able to find any that are currently available on DVD.

I believe that Wakely has mostly disappeared from the pop culture radar, but Jimmy Wakely deserves respect for what he accomplished in his career as a movie star and popular singer. I'm reminded to be careful what I say about people, even though they may be deceased. Family members and fans are googling their names and sometimes ending up at Pappy's. I don't need anyone angry with me over some snarky comment I may have said about their father, grandpa, brother, uncle, best friend...you get the picture.

Drawn by Alex Toth and Joe Giella, from Jimmy Wakely #1, 1949:











*"Jinx Town Lives Again," also from Jimmy Wakely #1, in Pappy's #1020.

Another Jimmy, this time Jimmy Thompson, was the artist for this beautiful three-page strip, "The Sun-Dance of the Crow Indians!" from this issue of Jimmy Wakely. Writing is credited to Gardner Fox, although a caption on the splash page says that Thompson lived with the Crow Indians. I assume he had more than a little to do with technical advice.

Thompson is also the artist who did the Robotman back-up strip in Detective Comics.

Number 1020


The second-string singing cowboy


I don't want to disparage the memory of Jimmy Wakely, who died in 1982, but I never heard of him before I saw DC's Jimmy Wakely comic book series. The comics lasted longer than Wakely's career as a movie singing cowboy, which was ending as DC's series began. The comics continued on until 1952.

I have a story from the last issue of the series, featuring a knock-off Ghost Rider, at Pappy's #666. It seems appropriate; Wakely was Monogram studio's knock-off of Gene Autry, with whom Wakely was inevitably compared. Wakely did have a good singing voice, appeared in other stars' western movies with his band, and had several hit records in the 1940s, but, unlike Autry, six decades after Wakely's career in movies ended he's not a household name.

Alex Toth and Frank Giacoia aren't household names, either, unless you live in my house, or the house of Golden Age comic fans. I've featured Toth several times in this blog, and hopefully many more times before my career, like Wakely's, comes to its end.

"Jinx Town Lives Again" is from Jimmy Wakely #1, 1949:

Number 666


The Phantom Brander


I wonder how the folks at Magazine Enterprises felt in 1952 if or when they noticed the cover of DC's Jimmy Wakely #18, and saw what looked like their character, the Ghost Rider, under another name. Vincent Sullivan was the publisher at ME; in the earliest days of comic books he had worked for DC Comics. I can imagine a phone call to Jack Leibowitz, DC publisher: "Uh, Jack, Vin here...yeah, Vinnie Sullivan. Say, Jack...I wonder if you know you folks have stolen my character?"

The Phantom Brander was a one-out villain, one story and he was gone, but very close to artist Dick Ayers' depiction of the Ghost Rider.

In 1952 there were hundreds of comic book titles. Maybe folks at DC who worked on Jimmy Wakely comics hadn't heard of the Ghost Rider, or had even seen it. But Gardner Fox would know. Fox worked for both DC and ME, where he wrote most of the Ghost Rider stories.

Jimmy Wakely was a singing cowboy who was in movies toward the end of the singing cowboy era in the late 1940s. This story is from the last issue of his comic, artwork attributed by the Grand Comics Database to Gil Kane and Bob Lander.