Number 2584: The Clock strikes midnight

The Clock, created by George Brenner, is known as the first masked hero in comic books.  The Clock was yet another rich person who put on a mask, and went out to take on criminals. The pulp magazine heroes were the inspiration, and they were what the Clock was striving to be. Pulp magazines had a lot of text, and undoubtedly daunting for children to read. The Clock was a bridge between pulps and comics. He appeared first in Funny Picture Stories in 1936.

Clock creator George Brenner went to work for Everett “Busy” Arnold. Brenner created other characters, including my favorite, Bozo the Robot. Arnold made Brenner editor of the Quality Comics line, but he was fired in 1949. (Some say it was because of drinking, although some dispute that. So, another mystery from the Golden Age.)

In this story we have an element I call a dumb idea that for some reason works. The Clock sends the villain a business card that says he will strike at midnight, and he does. Despite being warned, the bad guy gets the Clock in his house. Only in the comics.

I like a couple of things. One, when a henchman says about the District Attorney, “He has a ‘way’ with gals...ha-ha...if ya get what I mean.” Maybe the kids reading this comic in 1940 didn’t know what he means, but I get it. And in the very last panel the Clock, as Brian O'Brien, tells his friend and helper, Pug, that because he knows the Clock’s secret identity he can tell no one, even if it should mean death. Pug agrees. In my opinion, asking someone to die for you is really asking a lot, if ya get what I mean.

From Crack Comics #1 (1940):

 

Number 2566: My brother, the super dead hero

                                                                               

Captain Triumph, singular, is actually two characters, one living...one dead. Lance and Michael Gallant (appropriate last name for a super hero) are identical twins. They even share a birthmark on their wrists. Michael gets blown up by some Nazi saboteurs, and Lance swears vengeance. He is visited by the ghost of Michael, who tells him when there is some derring-do what they will dare to do to get vengeance against Nazis. Lance just rubs the birthmark and voila! Lance now has Michael's powers, bequeathed to him by “The Fates of Greek Mythology” and becomes a superhero with the name Captain Triumph. I'm showing the origin story here, so you can see how it works. I notice that Michael doesn't get a funeral. He is dead, yet quick to reveal himself to Lance, explaining the new super hero job, and there is no mourning or a pretense of grieving for a dead brother.

Captain Triumph appeared in Crack Comics for a few years, originally drawn by Alfred Andriola. Andriola’s career was resurrected a few times. He began as an assistant to Milton Caniff on Terry and the Pirates, then got the job of doing the Charlie Chan comic strip. Charlie Chan was a popular detective character of the time, but the comic strip only lasted a short time and if I’ve got this right, was cancelled after Pearl Harbor. Perhaps it was like today, when people don’t distinguish Asians from each other. Andriola then became an assistant on the Dan Dunn comic strip, which ended a year later. The day after it ended Andriola was back with Kerry Drake, a comic strip character in the Dick Tracy tradition that went on in newspapers until Andriola died in 1983.

The origin story of Captain Triumph is from Crack Comics #27 (1943):

 

Number 2557: No man is an island...not even Samar

Besides sharing his name with an island in the Philippines, Samar is another white jungle guy. He appeared in Feature Comics from 1940 to 1942, and shared something with the much more successful character, the Phantom. They were both headquartered in India, which often looks more like Africa. 

Nicholas Viscardi (who later went by Nick Cardy) and Ted Cain are credited with creating the character Samar. Viscardi/Cardy, born in 1920, was just a youngster when he began his comic book career. This story, which appeared in Feature Comics ##32 (1940), is not credited for a writer by the Grand Comics Database, but gives Maurice Gutwirth credit for the artwork. 

 

Number 2540: Forever ambergris

This story sent me to the Internet to see exactly what ambergris is. All I remembered about  ambergris is it is used in perfumes. Ambergris is now illegal to own because it is from a sperm whale, an endangered species. Ambergris is rare.*

The tale is from Plastic Man #3 (1946). In one scene Plastic Man’s pal, Woozy Winks, walks in on a man with a gun to his head. Eleven years later Jack Cole put a gun to his head, then shot and killed himself. But, it is better not to make connections with a real event by attaching it to a comic book event. I looked up the credits for Plastic Man #3 on Grand Comics Database, and found the writing credit is not given to Jack Cole, but to Gwen Hansen. A very short biography online credits Ms Hansen as a writer/editor for Quality Comics. She was a humor writer, notably on Torchy stories that Gill Fox illustrated. Writer Manly Wade Wellman described Hansen as “a good editor, intelligent, educated, fair-minded, and very pretty.” A photo of her bears that out. With that I leave the subject.

*A couple of weeks after completing this post and putting it in the queue I read an article in the July 2, 2021 issue of The Week magazine: “A group of fishermen from Yemen struck it rich when they reeled in a 280-pound chunk of whale vomit worth $1.5 million . . . the 35-person crew captured a sperm whale’s carcass whose stench suggested the presence of ambergris, a waxy substance produced in the whale’s intestines. They found a massive block of the substance, prized by perfumers because it makes fragrances last longer. They split the money equally, buying new homes, cars, and boats. ‘It was an unimaginable price,’ said one. ‘We are all poor. We never expected this thing would give us such a huge amount.’”

Number 2532: Doll Man’s girlfriend...she's a hit!

John Cassone drew for several publishers, and in my opinion was one of the better artists of the period, so I would like to know more about this skilled artist. Cassone signed the first page of this Doll Man story in tiny letters, but spelled it Casson. If anyone knows more about John Cassone please let me know.

Looking for information on Cassone made me almost neglect the story. On first reading, from Doll Man Quarterly #3 (1942), it has a panel with his girlfriend getting punched in the jaw and rendered unconscious by Doll Man. It may be too late to apologize for showing it in this blog, but I'll do it anyway: I'm sorry. It is an example of changing times. For some reason when this was published, 80 years ago, it was considered all right for the hero to hit a woman.The woman he was in love with, no less. It is brazen to show it in a comic book ostensibly for kids, and one has to wonder what the editor, writer and artist thought about the subject. If they thought at all, that is.