Number 2523: The travail of Gale

I would like to say that Gale Allen and Girl Squadron were inspirational to girl comic book readers of the World War II era, but...

...as shown on the cover (drawn by Joe Doolin), Gale is on a table in the much overused bondage pose that comic books loved. In the story the scene is repeated. As always, Gale and her crew are dressed in skimpy costumes. [Spoiler alert] she is also rescued by a male criminal who puts some moves on her when they are in his spaceship. Does rescuing her give him the right to sexually harass her? We talk about sexual harassment a lot nowadays. I can’t help thinking about how this older stuff looks to modern eyes.[End spoiler]

The artwork on the 6-page story is credited to Richard Case, who we are not to confuse with an artist who has the same name. There doesn't seem to be much information published about the Golden Age Richard Case. The current Richard Case did artwork for DC and Vertigo.

This story appeared in Planet Comics #26 (1943):

 

Number 2484: When “Rosie” drew some riveting comic art

The character, Rosie the Riveteer, was the symbol of females working in the defense industry during World War while men were in the armed forces. There was no symbolic muscle-flexing woman who represented the women who were drawing comic books during that time.

In one issue of Planet Comics (#39, 1945) two women are for sure represented: Lily Renée and Fran Hopper. Renée drew the cover and “The Lost World;” Fran Hopper drew “Mysta of the Moon.” (There is possibly a third, Ruth Atkinson, but because the Grand Comics Database equivocates with a question mark after her name, I have decided not to show the “Space Rangers” story. I am also not showing “Gale Allen,” because of the question mark from GCD when listing Hopper with the drawings of Gale in an art job otherwise credited to Joe Doolin.) I am sure that both women helped morale of the male readers of Fiction House comic books by drawing pin-up Fiction House beauties, but also eye-candy to the younger male readers.

Lily Renée stayed in comic books for a few postwar years, mostly drawing Abbott and Costello for publisher Archer St John, but Fran Hopper left comics in 1948.

 

Number 2352: George Evans’s Lost World

George Evans, a superb comic book artist with an illustrator’s style, worked for a time at Fiction House, and included in his assignments “The Lost World,” which he drew in Planet Comics #50-64.

I have never tried to read the whole run of “The Lost World,” although it is one of the better series from Planet Comics. I have shown more stories from it than any other from Planet, I believe. It was popular, and probably because it had good artists working on it. George Evans is on my favorite artists list, and after Fiction House he worked for Fawcett, then went on to EC Comics. After EC went under he free-lanced, and eventually ended up drawing the Secret Agent Corrigan comic strip. Something I noticed about this Planet Comics story is it appears Evans used photographic references. If you look at the panels which feature different men in shorts, they all have the same legs. Maybe he had his wife take pictures of him posing, and then used them as reference. I am not holding it against him. It was (and perhaps still is) a common practice.

No credit for writer given by Grand Comics Database; George Evans signed the story as artist. Joe Doolin did the cover, which features the main characters, Hunt and Lyssa.

From Planet Comics #60 (1949):

Number 1966: Gale Allen and her All Girl Squadron

We begin our November postings with a silly, sexy, spacy story from Planet Comics #19 (1942). In six short pages we get girls in two-piece costumes, a couple of bondage panels, “Mitemen” and “vulture bats,” and enough science fiction accoutrements to qualify it as space opera, Fiction House-style. Years ago I hated stories like this because they are goofy...now I love them for that same reason.

I was taken by Black Barto’s gang of interplanetary prison escapees and thieves, because they wear their six-digit numbers on their chests. They remind me of the Beagle Boys, Uncle Scrooge McDuck’s mortal enemies. (Carl Barks panel from Uncle Scrooge #7.)

Artwork for “Gale Allen” is credited to George Wilhelms, a long-time comic book journeyman often associated with the American Comics Group. His work shows up in comics from ACG as late as the 1960s.

Number 1862: Otherworldly Tales: Queen of Outer Space

This is the second in our science fiction theme week, Otherworldly Tales. In this six-page story set in a vessel somewhere between Mars and Earth, a captured Earth crew is given a mind-reading treatment by a queen and her crew. Toward the end of the Fiction House comics line the forties style was passé, so in their single science-fiction magazine, Planet Comics, they went to a more traditional science fiction anthology format.

[SPOILER] I’m not sure what the snap ending of this story has to do with the rest of it, but in similar circumstances I would advise Captain Lance Rawley to lay down a big bet on the New York Giants in the 1954 World Series. That year the Cleveland Indians were heavily favored, yet the Giants took the series in four games. After all, Captain Rawley is now stuck in the past, and his job doesn’t exist. [END SPOILER]

Art is signed “Albert.” Published in Planet Comics #73 (last issue, 1953).