Number 835

Man Hunter of the North

Dell Comics licensed many popular animation characters, but when kids went to the movies and saw cartoons featuring their favorite characters in the movies and then read a Dell Comic they were often reading about a different character with the same name.

The publisher found out early they couldn't just reproduce animated cartoons. The characters got into adventures and stories unlike the movie cartoons. Even with that editorial policy the first issue of Woody Woodpecker, in Dell Four Color #169 from 1947, while entertaining enough, seems jarring. John Stanley, of Little Lulu fame, is credited with this issue. "Man Hunter," which is 29 pages long, seems like a stretched out 10-pager. There are jokes, even Stanley's "Yow!" to assure us he wrote it, but my feeling about this story is that it seems generic, that you could take Woody out, insert Bugs Bunny, Andy Panda or Porky Pig and they'd fit just fine.

I posted the second story from this issue--even more startling in its representation of Woody--in Pappy's #350, and a non-Stanley New Funnies story featuring Woody acting more like the zany character of the screen in Pappy's #577.

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The new Pappy's logo comes from one of my favorite covers, Man O' Mars #1, published by Israel Waldman's IW Comics in the late '50s. Flying saucers, aliens, half-dressed babe. Yep, that'll do it for me every time! It's a reprint of a Fiction House comic of the same name. I posted the story that goes with the cover in Pappy's #343.

As I said in my original posting, I believe the cover is drawn by Gray Morrow, an homage to Frank Frazetta's cover of Famous Funnies #212, from 1954, used as inspiration rather than a swipe.

Number 458


More Space Rangers


A couple of weeks ago I showed you a Rocky X story, another Space Cadet/Space Patrol/Space Rangers type of story from the early 1950s. When it comes to a good thing, I'm all for overdoing it. So here's a Fiction House strip about--appropriately enough--Space Rangers!

It's from Man O'Mars, a Fiction House one-shot from 1953, which consisted of one new story, "Man O'Mars", and the rest of the contents reprints from Planet Comics.

Lee Elias, one of the greats of the Golden Age drew the story, attributed to the ficticious Hugh FitzHugh. Elias drew another Space Cadet series in the '60s for DC, Tommy Tomorrow in Showcase.

Number 424


Star Pirate again



This story is scanned from Man O'Mars #1, an IW reprint comic book from 1958, reprinting a one-shot Fiction House comic book from 1953, also named Man O'Mars. It in turn was comprised mostly of reprints from 1940s Planet Comics. It's where I lost the trail on this story.

I showed you another Star Pirate strip here. The earlier story, from 1946, was signed by Murphy Anderson. This one isn't signed, and the art is a bit more polished, so it could be Murphy later on, after he'd worked more at this craft.

What I like about this story is its look at the future based on its present. It's grounded in its 1940s origins. The devices seem exotic, but also contemporary. There was a mythology that grew up during and after World War II about "the world of the future," which looked a lot like the 1940s, but with science-fiction looking labor-saving devices, houses, and personal transportation. That mythology of the future didn't include the mythology of centaurs, though, which also appear in this story.

Number 343


Man O' Mars


The cover above is one of my favorites. The Grand Comics Database guesses it's by Sid Check, but it looks more like Gray Morrow to me. It looks like it was inspired by Famous Funnies #212, a Buck Rogers cover by Frazetta.

Man O' Mars is a reprint of a Fiction House one-shot from the early '50s. The original cover from Fiction House is also good, but I'm not sure of the artist on that one either. Maybe Maurice Whitman?

While the 10-page lead story, "Man O' Mars" looks to have been new in 1953, the rest of the comic is made up of reprints from Planet Comics.

I.W. Comics (later Super Comics) was Israel Waldman, who would buy printing plates and the rights to reprint from the original publisher, then issue the books three to a bag for 25¢. Since he wasn't going through newsstand distribution channels he didn't have to deal with the Comics Code. I have great affection for these comics. I bought the I.W. comics in 1959. I was too young to have read their original printings, so they were my introduction to those wicked pre-Code comics. I became an innocent seduced!