Number 2547: “There's a Starman, waiting in the sky...”

 

The impetus for showing this Starman story is the David Bowie son, "Starman," which is now an earworm due to a television commercial. I am hoping posting this will make the earworm go away. The story, which is the last Starman story, is from Adventure Comics #102 (1946). Superheroes were being cancelled after the war, because many of them were out of favor with readers. Oh well...Starman was a filler feature anyway. 

Art is credited to Emil Gershwin.

Number 1849: Boy Commandos in Davy Jones’ Locker

Death comes to us all. As the caption on page 3 of “Davy Jones’ Uninvited Guests” reminds us, “The brave, the weak, the rich, the poor — all must go...” Gulp! Thanks for reminding me!

This fantasy comes to us from the Simon and Kirby studio, and features the Boy Commandos. They have survived the war only to succumb to a mine on the International Date Line, and find themselves fighting the souls of dead pirates. Holy Pirates of the Caribbean.

It is from Boy Commandos #14 (1946). The Grand Comics Database attributes the art to Louis Cazeneuve, and the writing to Joe Samachson, both with question marks because the GCD isn’t sure.

It has been a few years since I last showed a Boy Commandos story. Click the thumbnail:

Number 1155: Star Spangled Tomahawk

 

There isn't a lot of information available online about artist Edmond Good. He was born in 1910 (no death date listed; is he still alive at age 102?) Worked in Canadian comic books during WWII, then came to the U.S. to work on the comic strip, Scorchy Smith, and then comic books. He was the first artist on "Tomahawk," which began in Star Spangled Comics in 1947.

Tomahawk's first appearance was shown in Pappy's #985. Good worked for Fox, doing Dagar, Desert Hawk, and also at ACG in the 1960s, doing supernatural stories for editor Richard E. Hughes. He had a very pleasing style, which once identified, becomes immediately apparent when spotted.

In the answer to a question in Adventures Into the Unknown, Hughes further identified Good as a member of the Woodstock, N.Y. art colony.

 Joe Samachson wrote this tale, the second-ever Tomahawk story, in Star Spangled Comics #70 (1947):

Number 985


Tomahawk begins


For a non-super character, Tomahawk lasted a long time for DC Comics. He was featured in Star Spangled Comics as a back-up strip, but soon took as cover feature. His own comic book lasted over 20 years, until the early '70s.

I liked the idea of Tomahawk set in a time frame of the American Revolution, a white man trained by Indians. But as we've shown before, DC Comics, who never met a wild concept it didn't like if it involved dinosaurs or gorillas, went far afield of the original frontier concept. A typically wild Tomahawk tale of the Go-Go Checks DC Comics of the 1960's was shown in Pappy's #848.

But this is the original Tomahawk tale, shown in Star Spangled Comics #69, from 1947. It's written by Joe Samachson and drawn by Edmond Good. Later on Tomahawk was taken over by writer France "Eddie" Herron and artist Fred Ray, but this first story paved the way, establishing Tomahawk for the next 25 years.