Number 2473: Thanksgiving Turkey Award: Stardust!

It is the day of the American Thanksgiving, the holiday gathering, with food, on the last Thursday of November. Sorry, nothing to eat here. The annual turkey award is only for the silliest, or most stupid or awesomely oddball comic book story I have seen this year.

I picked an example of what made Fletcher Hanks one of the most screwball comic book men of all time. His stories are trippy, and his artwork just plain weird. Stardust lives on a planet and watches what goes on in our solar system so he can get the criminals. Get them he does, usually with a bizarre and vengeful punishment.

For this particular story, taken from Fantastic Comics #12 (1940), Stardust rescues a woman who remains nameless throughout the story. Artist Fletcher Hanks has made Stardust much bigger than the only other people, a villain, Kaos, and the no-name girl. Stardust’s head is twice human size, even though in a couple of head and shoulders panels his head looks tiny! Still, he and the girl seem to have a physical attraction. “Would you like to come to my private star for awhile?” asks Stardust, a real smooth talker. She agrees.

Hanks’s artwork is always unusual. He breaks whatever comic book laws there are in depicting super people in flight. Hanks’s decision in this story is to show Stardust’s body from a birds-eye view of his back while flying. Hanks didn’t need to draw Stardust’s face.

Considering the body of his work in the early days of comic book, it is almost too easy to name a Fletcher Hanks story the award winner. But, he gets the prize. I give this story 3 and 1/2 turkeys.

Here is the Stardust story from Fantastic Comics #1. Just click on the thumbnail.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Go to the Turkey Award winner for last year. Links will take you eventually back to the first entry, from 2006.

Number 2263: 2018 Thanksgiving Turkey Award: The Cat-Crook Caper!

If you are new to this, today is Pappy’s Golden Age Comics Blogzine’s annual Turkey Award, wherein I recognize the American holiday of gathering family for a sumptuous meal and (hopefully) conviviality. The main dish for this meal is usually turkey, and the word “turkey” is also American slang for foolish, stupid or inept. I use the word to mean the most offbeat, stupid, or unusual comic book story I have read all year. Since I read hundreds of comic book stories each year a Turkey Award is a singular award. It is also my decision, and there is no public input in the project.

In this case, I have chosen the story, “Krypto’s Cat-Crook Capers!” from Superboy #132 (1966), for being truly offbeat, stupid or unusual, although I also give it credit for being true to the spirit of many of the stories that appeared in the Superman family of comic books during the latter part of the career of editor Mort Weisinger. He would have had a conference with the writer, usually discussing plots, and told him to write said story. From a viewpoint of 52 years after the story appeared, today’s award winner looks to me to be even more oddball than usual, and that can be saying a lot when it comes to Weisinger. As soon as I saw it I knew it was going to be honored today, and has the additional honor of being scanned from my personal copy of Superboy #132, which is from a stack of sixties DC comics I got from who-knows-where, who-knows-when. I had forgotten it until some archaeology in my basement produced the comic, and immediate shouts of “Voila!” and “We have our winner!” The story earns three-and-a-half turkeys.

It is written by Otto Binder, who also wrote the goofy “Rex King” story I showed yesterday. Otto, who wrote hundreds, and maybe thousands, of comic book scripts in his long career, had a sense of humor, and I believe he probably got a kick out of writing something like this. George Papp was the artist. As an additional treat, see the circulation figures for Superboy on the last page, which shows that as wacky as comics edited by Weisinger could be, they appealed to a lot of readers.

If you wish to see past Turkey Awards winners, just click on the thumbnail from the 2017 winner, and follow the links. By following them you will eventually end up in 2006.

Number 849

Thanksgiving turkey 2010

It's that day again...time to plop down, stuff yourself with food, fall asleep on the couch watching football. Yep, the traditional American Thanksgiving Day!

Here at Pappy's we celebrate by showing the most off-the-wall comic book story I've seen all year, the so-called Thanksgiving turkey. This year I've got a classic from 1944's Red Band Comics #1, featuring Satanas, one of the most bizarre characters to come out the comics (and that's saying a lot). He's from another planet; he comes to earth to do evil; he wears a wide-brimmed hat and a cloak--looking like a World War I-era cartoon of a bomb-throwing anarchist--has green skin and one cyclopean eye. That's bizarre, all right.

I'm the judge and jury here. You don't get a vote; sorry, but that's the way it is. "Satanas The Most Evil Man In The Universe" earns a solid three turkeys.

This is the fifth annual Turkey Award presentation. You can view the others by linking to them or clicking ont the pictures:

2006: "The Flat Man" from Pappy's #57

2007: "The Day The World Died" from Pappy's #222

2008: "The Bride of Jungle Jimmy" from Pappy's #421

2009: "The Million Year Monster" from Pappy's #636

...and my Thanksgiving Turkey for 2010: