Number 2541: The Maker of Monsters

I have looked at Landor, Maker of Monsters a couple of times when going through early Speed Comics, but never stopped to read. I think I sensed what I later found to be true: as a monster maker Landor usually fell short of total success, and he would get his butt kicked for his efforts. Apparently Landor had at least one couple who would get rid of the monsters, Jack Torrence and his girlfriend, Marcia. You’ll see them in this episode.

Where are the villagers waving torches, like in Frankenstein movies and comics? Is there no one except Jack and Marcia who care that monsters are being produced locally?

Landor lasted for 11 issues of Speed Comics. The story today was apparently the last, appearing as it did in Speed Comics #11 (1940). The stories were fillers, and show it. The main interest for me is that Landor artwork is credited to Bob Powell. In this story I can’t tell if it’s Powell art or not. Maybe one of you without burnt cinders for eyeballs, like me, can tell me if it is Powell.

 

Number 2509: One-eyed zombies shock Shock Gibson!

The early issues of Speed Comics published some very campy tales of superhero Shock Gibson, who became super when some chemicals splashed him.  A typical origin for a comic book character. This particular story, featuring green, furry, one-eyed “zombies” uses few words to tell the story, which mostly gives it the look of something done for a young person with a kid’s reading level, or someone semi-literate. The panels are simple, and illustrated in a naïve drawing style. The Grand Comics Database “credits” Norman Fallon for the artwork. Fallon, as I found out with a bit of reading online, was in comics in the ’40s and ‘50s. and appears to have been one of the artists working on Batman. Everybody’s got to start somewhere.

You know one of the villains controlling the zombies is bad with a name like Comrade Ratski.

Shock also has the ability to jump over buildings, which is taken from the early version of Superman who could “leap tall buildings with a single bound.”

I considered holding this story until my annual Thanksgiving Turkey Award, but I won’t deny you a few laughs now, when reading that the zombies talk backward: “Zombies the are we.” This like stuff up dishes who, Pappy am I.

From Speed Comics #11 (1940):

 

Number 2502: Interplanetary mailman: Stamping out the Sour Snouts

In 1940 it was probably easier, and more logical to the reader, that in the future when people are zipping around the universe in rocket ships, that mail would be delivered the old fashioned way. In stamped envelopes, and delivered physically to other planets. Mars Mason is the Interplanetary Mailman, whose job it is to get mail to other planets, even when monsters attack.

I give artist Munson Paddock (here signing his name as Martin Nye) credit for some truly bizarre aliens. And I also give credit for their names, Sour Snouts.

The swirling creatures, the pulsating colors created by whomever the colorist for Fox Features was in those days, give the story something of a psychedelic effect.

In 1940 Munson Paddock was a real old-timer. He was born in 1886, and his art was being published shortly after the dawn of the twentieth century. I don’t want to get into too much conjecture, but I think of artists of his generation who went into comic books as artists who were not making a living in the art field. I think they found being a comic book artist in the earliest days of that industry better than going on relief, or starving in a garret. I consider Paddock one of the more interesting oddball artists of the period.

Paddock is also credited by the Grand Comics Database as being the writer of the story. From Speed Comics #11 (1940):

 

Number 1904: Black Cat’s “skunk hunt”

Three Nazi saboteurs disguise themselves as American GIs in order to kidnap some Hollywood stars and ruin the soldiers’ morale. Eh? That seems like a plan that is bound to fail, and it does (sorry for telling). Movie star Linda Turner is actually Black Cat, and when it comes to kicking Axis ass she is nonpareil.

According to the splash panel, this was “written, drawn and directed” by Al Gabriele, an artist from the Simon and Kirby school of superheroics. Not much is known about Gabriele, but he did artwork in the comics up until 1949, at least. He has a link to the Black Cat. He drew her first story in Pocket Comics #1 (1941).

This story is from Speed Comics #29 (1943).

Black Cat surrendered her title to a horror anthology, and this is her last story under her own title. Just click on the thumbnail.

Number 1480: Thanksgiving Turkey Award 2013 featuring Shock Gibson

It is time again for our annual award, the Thanksgiving Turkey Award, which is given to the comic book story I think is the most oddball, stupid or awful (or some combination) that I have encountered in the past year. The judgment of what wins the award rests solely on me. You don’t get a say in the matter, so if you don’t agree with me you can tell me, but my decisions are final.

The 2013 Turkey Award story was a clear winner, which I picked out of Speed Comics #8 (1940) this past January. I figured I wouldn’t find a more worthy candidate for the honor of accumulating gobblers than this story of Shock Gibson’s trip to Africa to end the slave trade, wrestle a gorilla, fight a knight from a lost city, build a pyramid single-handed, rescue the sexy queenֹ’s son from some other knights, and reject the queen’s marriage proposal. (We are not told what happened to the former king, the prince’s father.)

The Grand Comics Database gives credit to writers Maurice Rosenfeld and Bill Scott as “Maurice Scott,” (it took two guys to write this?) and art credit to Norman Fallon ?, with that question mark meaning they aren’t sure. Whoever is to blame, it earns a solid three-and-a-half turkeys out of a possible four.

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From latest to earliest, the former Thanksgiving Turkey Awards winners. Just click on the thumbnails:

2012: “Yarmak’s yakety-yak”:

2011: “Andy’s Atomic Adventure”:

2010: “Satanas”:

2009: “The Million Year Monster”:

2008: “The Bride of Jungle Jimmy”:

2007: “The Beyonders”:

2006: “The Flat Man”: