Number 2526: Black Rider and the desert palace

Just last week I showed a story about four deposed kings, and this is another story of royalty forced to set up again — in the Wild West of America, no less — after escaping the mobs of disgruntled common folk in France.

The royal was a hot-shot until those scalawag revolutionaries kicked him out during the Terror, when heads rolled. I am not sure how this exiled marquise managed to build such a luxurious palace in the middle of the desert without getting someone’s attention, but then this is a comic book. Anything goes. Oh, and there is torture, too. Just thought I’d warn you.

What I like about the story is the artwork of Joe Maneely. Black Rider is a character usually best known as done by artist Syd Shores, but Maneely was more than able to match Shores as an artist.

From Black Rider #14 (1951).

Number 2491: A jaunt to Jupiter

This type of science fiction I call a future in the past story. It was published in 1954, and takes place in 2006. The 21st century sounded wayyyy far away to those of us mid-century types. We (or maybe just me) thought  that after many years in the future we would certainly have bases on other planets, the moon, Mars, Venus...many achievements have been made, but habitation of any celestial body is still quite a few more years into the future.

The cute little 5-page tale of a couple of Army guys flying a ship to Jupiter is silly not just because we are looking back and we know none of it happened. Jupiter, at 33,000 mph, as the spaceship is flying, is a mighty long distance from Earth. According to the fount of all knowledge, the Internet, Jupiter is 483 million miles from Earth as claimed by one site, which makes a time table a bit more than a hop, skip and a jump. But actually the distance between planets depends on where the planets are in their orbits. Space.com says, “The New Horizons mission took a more direct path after its January 19, 2006, launch. On February 28, 2007, it performed a flyby of Jupiter on its way to Pluto and other dwarf planets. The travel time to Jupiter was just over 13 months.” And that’s no comic book trip.

 Art by Joe Maneely, from Spaceman #4 (1954):

Pappy’s Favorites Number 10: It’s a Riot!

News that Mad magazine is being cancelled should not be surprising news, because the magazine business is not as it once was. All I can say is, so long, Mad, it’s been good to know ya.

I believe Mad, which had plenty of imitators, was always the best of the bunch, but there were still some of the imitations I liked, including this comic from Atlas. They threw some of their best artists into their versions of Mad, hoping to cash in. Years ago I showed the contents of a 1956 issue of Riot, with Severin, Maneely and Everett. Just click on the thumbnail.

Number 2311: “Your Name is Frankenstein!”

I like the old Atlas stories written by Stan Lee. His issues of the horror comic, Menace, are good examples of his skill and style. It helps that he had top illustrators to do the artwork. In this issue, besides the stories being written by Lee, the comic has artwork by Syd Shores, Joe Sinnott, Russ Heath, and the illustrator of today’s offering, Joe Maneely. A stellar lineup of talent.

Menace #7 (1953) was one of the first pre-Code horror comics I owned, thanks to Bill Thailing of Cleveland, Ohio, a very early comic book dealer. I think it cost me 50¢.

I showed the Frankenstein story in the very early days of this blog. I had only my own copy to scan and present, and it was in bad shape when I scanned it. Today I am showing much better scans from a copy I found online.

Number 2282: Two from Uncanny Tales

Jack Keller was a longtime comic book journeyman, working in a variety of genres. He was definitely able to tell a story, and my opinion was also helped by seeing some of his Kid Colt western stories for Atlas/Marvel. I would bet Keller was a very dependable artist who got his work in on time. An editor's dream.

For today I have picked a werewolf story by Keller; the Grand Comics Database credits Carl Wessler for the script.

Speaking of scripts, the late Stan Lee showed his funny side with this Joe Maneely-drawn shorty of a horror comics editor who can’t seem to find a decent story from writers. I have mentioned before I like self-referential stories about the inner workings of the comics business. I wonder if Joe Maneely caricatured himself bent over a drawing board (page 3, panel 2). Obviously he didn’t caricature Stan Lee, who was too tall and slim to be mistaken for the fat and angry editor, Bradbury Bulldozer.

Both stories are from Uncanny Tales #4 (1952).

Number 2249: You’d have to be crazy not to like horror comics

 I have a couple of cute horror stories from 1950s Atlas Comics. “Cute horror” may sound like an oxymoron, but these have a light tone, and are also amusing.

I love stories from comic books that are about comic books; artists, editors, anything that makes me feel I am getting a look inside the busy atmosphere of a comic book publishing company. In “Raving Maniac” from Suspense #29 (1953), drawn by Joe Maneely, an irate critic of comics invades the office to complain about showing monsters, and the editor refutes his criticism. Frankly, if this is a poke at those who were publicly criticizing comic books at the time, then it would bounce off any comic book hater. As I have found out, it is nearly impossible to get past a prejudice with examples, facts, or even humor. Whoever wrote the story was preaching to the choir about comics; no one who hated them would be dissuaded from their hatred. They might also be upset about how the title is a pun on the resolution of the story, “Raving Maniac.”

I showed Stan Lee and Joe Sinnott’s “The Witch in the Woods” in a blog post from 2007, so I made some new scans. It is a funny story about a dad angry with his son for reading comic books when he should be reading “good” books, like Grimm’s Fairy Tales. I always thought “Hansel and Gretel” was a gruesome story, not that it bothered me. My mother regretted taking me to a puppet version of it when I was six or seven. Like the story, she didn’t think fare that included parents abandoning their children in the woods and having a cannibal witch was wholesome enough for me. Ha-ha. Little did she know how bent I was toward this sort of horror, even at such an early age.

From Menace #7 (1953):

Number 2179: Two tragedies

In Battle #4 (1951) from Atlas Comics, artist Joe Maneely is represented with a cover and two stories. The stories are different in tone. One is a light story about a horny soldier vying for a young woman, but outranked by a superior. The other story is about a tough major on the battlefield of Korea, and a young man he constantly rides. It has a surprise ending, yet I am sure I have read a version of the story long before reading this one. That wouldn't be surprising, because comic book stories are often swiped. “Battleground of Hate!” is an old tragedy.

The second tragedy is not a story, but real life. Joe Maneely, one of Atlas’s top artists, died young. Dying of natural causes, in war, or by accident like Maneely, at age 32, leaving a wife and young family, is always a tragedy.

In the same Wikipedia entry on Maneely, there is this: Marvel editor-in-chief Stan Lee opined in the early 2000s that had Maneely lived, "he would have been another Jack Kirby. He would have been the best you could imagine."