Number 2361: Seems like old times...

One million years ago sounds like a long time, and it is. But there were no dinosaurs one million years ago, despite the premise of Tor, created, written, drawn and colored by artist Joe Kubert. Tor looks more like Tarzan, a tall, muscular white European, wandering from place to place in that world of a million years ago, encountering primitive tribes. Tor is a type of prehistoric social worker, solving problems for people who are presumably what we think of as “cavemen.” I believe the idea for Tor came from the 1940 movie, One Million B.C., which Kubert may have seen; it was very popular.

I have met people with a peculiar religious viewpoint, who believe that humans and dinosaurs literally existed together, so perhaps they would not see Tor as fantasy, but as a slice of life from the past. I like the page by Kubert, featuring himself and his co-editor Norman Maurer, where they opine on the modern world with its nuclear weapons, compared to the world of a million years ago. It is earnestly said, “If it weren’t for man’s inherent desire to conquer evil and injustice, he would have destroyed himself long ago...”

Tor is well drawn, and unlike most comic book creations Tor belonged to Kubert, so in later years he could cash in on the character. That was almost unheard of in those days, so Joe Kubert had a rare kind of relationship with his publisher, Archer St. John.

From Tor #4 (1954):

Number 2291: Kubert’s Zebra

In my experience, the Zebra, a character that went through the war years and even beyond, was usually drawn by Bob Fujitani. This episode is drawn by the young Joe Kubert. I showed a Hawkman story from Flash Comics just a couple of weeks ago. Joe was so young that in retrospect he seems like a child prodigy. As a callow youth, he was mentored by other artists, Mort Meskin for one. He also got credit for coloring some stories for Will Eisner. The kid got around.

Looking back over his career, Kubert hit a high level of professionalism very early on and never faltered. Joe Kubert is gone now, but he has left thousands of beautifully illustrated pages of comic art as his legacy.

As for the Zebra...I understand the striped shirt, but the pair of skin tight swim trunks and bare legs I guarantee would not make it through a winter. I mention it because I don’t remember any blizzards in superhero comics, leaving the characters able to walk around dressed like it’s a warm, sunny day at the beach, and because a large winter storm is knocking on my door as I write this. When I go out in a few hours with shovel in hand to clear sidewalks and driveway, I will be bundled up like an Antarctic explorer, yet still thinking that in the never-never land of comic books the heroes never seem bothered by weather.

From Green Hornet Comics #20 (1944):

Number 2286: The boy who fooled Hawkman’s hawks

Young Timmy is the son of a rich man. Timmy is an artist. His father is an antiques collector. Timmy’s dad is trying to discourage him from painting, telling him if he quits he’ll buy him a motorboat. Dad would rather have an indolent son than one with artistic talent.

Dad is targeted by a couple of crooks who steal his valuable antiques and young Timmy is kidnapped.

Joe Kubert, about the same age as the fictional Timmy (Kubert would have been 19 when he drew “Ring Out the Old, Ring in the New!”) was something of a prodigy himself.

I have a couple of gripes: Hawkman faces a dinosaur on the cover; the “dinosaur” in the story is one of Timmy’s lifelike three-dimensional paintings. Here he has painted the dinosaur on grass, which caught Hawkman’s attention while flying over. I also spotted the word “shone” mistakenly used for “shown” in one of the speech balloons. Sheldon Mayer is listed as editor by the Grand Comics Database, with Julius Schwartz and Ted Udall as story editors. The letterer and the editor(s) missed it. I mention it because I used the same hawk eye to spot the spelling error that Hawkman’s hawks use in finding Timmy.

From Flash Comics #67 (1945):

Number 2019: Kubert: the Nose knows

Joe Kubert was very young when he drew “The Man With the Amazing Nose” for Flash Comics #70 (1946). He was born August, 1926, so I figure he was 19 when he drew this story. He used a technique in some of the panels I haven’t seen before. Some of the figures’ lower bodies are outlined (see the teaser panel above), with no detail, just color fill-in. Hmmm. It’s a bit too technique-y, if you know what I mean. Even the callow Kubert was good enough he did not need to resort to such tricks.

Gardner Fox, credited by the GCD for writing the story, resorted to a trick I also have not seen before, having a perfume-smelling character (“Proboscis Jones”) take on different personalities through sense of smell. (The kids who read the story and opened a dictionary learned a word, “proboscis.”)*

I am bothered by the false advertising represented by the cover. I got excited seeing a gorilla in boxing regalia, only to find out it was a symbolic cover. That would have been an editorial decision. As we know, the powers-that-be at DC Comics knew even then that putting an ape or gorilla on a cover meant higher sales. Oh well...good early Kubert cover art, anyway, even if I turned up my proboscis at such base deception.

*KIDS! DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME! Do not try sniffing gasoline as Hawkman has Proboscis Jones do at the end of the story. As an Internet site warns us: Gasoline contains methane and benzene, which are dangerous hydrocarbons. Can do harm to your lungs when inhaling fumes.

Number 1917: Crime Machine

In 1971 Skywald Publications (a company founded by Sol Brodsky and Israel Waldman) published two issues of Crime Machine, which was a blackline reprint magazine of 1950’s crime comics, mostly from Avon.

Someone thought it was a good idea to introduce a host, Matt Grover, a “crime fighter and researcher into crimes and criminals of the past.” It required some paste-ups of Matt’s head in the splash panels of the stories. Perhaps the editor thought it would bring a touch of the present to stories of the past. Waldman, who had published the I.W. reprints line of comics sold through grocery and chain stores, had made his reputation with comics fans by reprinting old comic books, and when he co-launched Skywald he apparently had this sort of material lying around the office.

“Marion Gilmore” is drawn by Joe Kubert, and is a standard crime story of the era made special by Kubert’s dynamic artwork. Love that symbolic splash panel. (You got more of Joe’s artwork in the Pappy Tenth Anniversary Sunday post on July 3.) Marion’s story was originally published in Avon’s Parole Breakers #2 (1952). Did Gilmore really exist? Is this another example of a so-called true crime story? Did a girl luring men with an offer of sex, then having them mugged by her accomplices, move up to become crime queen of the San Francisco waterfronts? I don’t know. I don’t even care. Joe’s artwork is enough for me .