Number 159


Jet Powers Puts Them To Sleep


Anarchy! Murder! Looting! Chaos! "The Rain Of Terror," is from Jet #4, ME Comics, 1951, written by Gardner Fox and drawn by Bob Powell. It's a follow-up to "The Dust Doom" in issue #3. I explained in my last entry for Jet Powers about the unique way they had with continuity and continued stories in Jet Comics. You can check out my last couple of postings by clicking on "Jet Powers" in the links at the bottom of this page.

The title refers to an attack by the villains of this post-apocalyptic story, a "former torch-singer," now called The Red Queen, and a general who has been dishonorably discharged from the Army. They crush a rebellion against their subjugation of the population with a rain of napalm--jellied gasoline--one of the worst anti-personnel weapons ever invented. Jet Powers rallies support and attacks the Red Queen and her general buddy with a rain of his own. Jet's rain being more humane, of course.

Su Shan, the sexy Chinese woman Jet met back in #1 (when she was an accomplice to the diabolical Mr. Sinn), is here in a couple of panels, along with Jet's new friend, Jimmy, who survived the dust doom. Su Shan tells Jimmy, "What a man!" referring to Jet, which leads me even further to believe that when he isn't saving the world, he and Su Shan are entertaining each other on that lonely mesa in the desert Southwest where they're shacked up. What can I say? Jet's a virile scientific hunk, and she's a sexy Asian woman in the Dragon Lady class.

Jet #4 is the last issue of the series. In that strange way of Golden Age comics and their re-naming of titles to fool the Post Office, it turned into American Air Forces with #5. Jet Powers had a role as an air ace, minus the science fiction elements. I have one of those stories, from a 1960s reprint book, and I'll present that after I post the whole of Jet #4. Be patient, Jet-fans. In a few weeks you'll have all of the Jet catalogue I own at your fingertips.

Number 158


Tara Is A Wonder


A reader has reminded me that in Pappy's #144 I promised to show stories from Wonder Comics #16, dated February, 1948. This is the lead story, "Tara," an outer space strip in the Fiction House-Planet Comics mold. The art is attributed to Gene Fawcette.

There's an old story about writers in the pulp era of the 1930s, who with a change of setting from Tortuga to Venus, cutlasses to rayguns and pirate ships to rocket ships, could turn a standard pirate tale into science fiction. That's pretty much the case with this Tara story. You don't have to use a lot of imagination to put it back on earth sailing along the bounding main in the 18th Century, especially with the stilted dialogue. Anytime a villain spouts lines like, "Swine! Ye comb the universe and bring back none but these cabbage faces…?" or a hero shouts out, "A quick death with the taste of steel in thy throat for this sacrilege, pirate cur!" you've got something entertaining on a whole other level.

I've included the two-page text story from this issue, because even though it's Tara and her pals, the dialogue is definitely more modern.

Finally, the splash panel is a classic of the type with the huge looming villainous figure, and be sure to check out the cover of Wonder Comics #16, which can found by using the link in the first paragraph.

Number 157


Herbie Hallucinates In Hell


Herbie Popnecker might've been the most unlikely character ever to star in his own comic book, but in the 1960s he was not only a hit in several issues of Forbidden Worlds, he was spun off into his own series. His title ran for 23 issues until the issue dated February, 1967. By that time the American Comics Group was running on fumes and soon after shut down operations. I read Herbie and thought the stories were completely bizarre. In retrospect, perfect for the 1960s and the dawning of the psychedelic era.

This particular story was the last story to feature Herbie in the anthology comic, Forbidden Worlds. Herbie moved into his own book after this story.

A couple of things really worked in Herbie, the aforementioned bizarre storylines--unlike anything else being published--and the wonderful solid artwork of Ogden Whitney. Somewhere I read that Whitney, who is apparently now deceased, was an alcoholic, but I've been unable to trace that story. If he drank he didn't drink and draw, because studying Whitney's inking is a study in a rock-steady hand.

Most, if not all, of the articles about Herbie usually have looked at the book from a strictly literal viewpoint. In other words, they have just accepted the fact that Herbie could walk in the air, knew all sorts of famous people, could talk to animals, or as in this story, could descend to hell and beat Satan. Perhaps Herbie was prone to hallucinations. I don't think Hughes wrote it that way, nor did Whitney (who reportedly based Herbie on himself as a boy) draw it that way. But that's what it looks like to me.

In this particular story, "Herbie Goes To The Devil," Herbie not only sells his soul to the devil, he acts in the movie Cleopatra* with Elizabeth Taylor, and more importantly knows everyone, knows how to handle every situation, and can walk on air. Not bad for a "fat little nothing," as his verbally abusive father calls him. But what if Herbie is hallucinating? The story is straightforward up to this panel, where Herbie is sitting in class, "thinking." To me it's almost the best panel in the story because Whitney has, with very subtle drawing, indicated that Herbie is spacing out. After that I consider the rest of the story to be pure hallucination. Trust me on this. I know what I'm talking about.**



From Forbidden Worlds #116, 1963:

On another matter, I'd be surprised if editor/writer Hughes didn't get some feedback from conservative Christian groups, if any of them were reading comics, that is. The storyline using the devil as a funny character seems almost sacrilegious to people who would have Satan, "the adversary," as part of their theology. He's handled in this story in a very flippant way. But then, since we know now that Herbie is hallucinating, even Satan can act any way that Herbie wants him to act. After all, it's Herbie's fantasy, and we're just looking in.

*In the early 1960s the movie, Cleopatra, was a scandal-plagued, costly production in the grand scale of that era's blockbuster movies. Elizabeth Taylor, married to singer Eddie Fisher (after "stealing him away" from Debbie Reynolds in another scandal), was having an affair with co-star Richard Burton, whom she later married. So the production was a natural to feature on the cover of a Herbie comic book. After all, it was on the cover of every other magazine of the time as well. It also might have gotten the interest of conservative groups who'd wonder why Taylor, considered an adulteress and condemned from the pulpit, was featured on the cover of a comic book sold to children.

**Update, May 14, 2014: When I wrote this post in 2007 I immediately got a couple of e-mails which pointed out to me that Herbie was not hallucinating. I agree. But for some reason saying he was seemed like a good idea at the time, and still does. But take it as a joke. After all, I know that comic books are reality and hallucinations are fantasy.

Number 156


Getting Graphic


It Rhymes With Lust from 1950 is widely considered as the first of what we now call graphic novels. It was published by St. John, written by Arnold Drake and Lesley Waller under the pseudonym of Drake Waller, and drawn by one of the star artists of the golden age, Matt Baker.

Not so well known is the follow-up to this experiment in "Picture Novels," The Case Of The Winking Buddha by Manning Lee Stokes, illustrated by Charles Raab. I found a stack of these at my druggist. They sat near the magazines for a couple of months before I finally gave in and bought one. I wasn't all that impressed with it and it ended up in a box with other oddball items from my collection.

I should qualify it: It Rhymes With Lust would be the first American graphic novel. In December, 1969, I found the Tintin graphic novel, Explorers On The Moon, on a bargain table at a department store, and picked it up for under a dollar. It was the edition published by Western Publishing, also publishers of Gold Key Comics.


When I read it I wasn't all that impressed by the 1954 story, which is hackneyed, but I loved the format. When this was originally published in America in 1960 I don't think people were ready or willing to pay $1.95 for what looked like a comic book, even one in a more deluxe format. A few years later when Asterix found his way to America and Tintin was available again comics had gained more acceptance as acceptable literature for adults and even for children, and parents were more willing to pay the price for a more quality book.

In the early 1970s, thanks to the Graphic Story Bookshop in Culver City, California, I was able to pick up some really great graphic novels, Valerian, Lone Sloane, and this book by Greg and Hermann, part of their Bernard Prince series. I am still knocked out by the dynamic art, and wonder if it has ever been reprinted in English.

At that time in the early 1970s I expected American comics to collapse at any moment; distribution channels were disappearing. Less stores were willing to sell comics because they were a nuisance. They cost 15¢ with low profitability, kids stood around and read them without buying, and they took up valuable display space.

Just before the independent comic book stores took up the slack it looked like comic books as we had known them since the 1930s would be gone. The French had anthology comics coming out every week with serial chapters, printed on slick paper with beautiful coloring, and were then collecting the serials into graphic novels. When I saw the French graphic novels I thought, wouldn't this be a great idea! Legitimize them, collect comics into these deluxe format books. But naw, this is America…readers expect a cheap product and won't pay more for a comic book. Another example of my lack of foresight.

I notice now that most bookstores devote a whole section to graphic novels, and especially manga. I see something I haven't seen in years: I see kids, usually teenagers, sitting in bookstores actually reading them. I hope some of them are buying them as well. Manga seems really popular with young people. I'm not a manga fan, but around the time I bought the books from Graphic Story Bookshop I also bought a couple of Japanese "graphic novels," reprints from their original comic books. This is my favorite. Isn't it the character we Americans know as Gigantor, who had a TV cartoons series a la Astro Boy and Speed Racer, in the mid-1960s?


I don't like all graphic novels, but there is enough variety to insure I can find something I like.

America's comic heritage is exceptionally rich, but it has been people from other countries who have paved the way and shown us that heritage shouldn't just be left to rot in cheap, disposable formats. Which reminds me: has anyone ever given the Pogo reprint books of the 1950s the credit they deserve as graphic novels? Yes, they were collections of daily comic strips, but edited and composed so as to make a "novel." They were sold for a dollar and even at that price were successful beyond anyone's expectations.

Number 155


Jet Powers Fooled by Fleebs!


"The Interplanetary War" is the final story from Jet #3, published in 1951 by ME Comics. As with the rest of the Jet Powers series, it was written by Gardner Fox and illustrated by Bob Powell.

Issue #3 started out with the near-destruction of our planet by a cosmic dust storm, but that fact isn't mentioned in the following three stories. When I post the stories from Jet #4 you'll see that both the first story and this story from issue #3 are continued. It's an odd way to continue something…you'd think they'd devote a book to each storyline individually, but apparently that wasn't the way they did it at ME Comics in 1951.

"Interplanetary War" begins with some Martians hunkering down against their Venusian enemies, the "white slugs," as the Martians call them, and "Fleebs," as the Venusians call themselves.

This is a screwy story and I won't ruin it for you by breaking it down into its composite pieces, but to me it looks like a whole lot of plot crammed into eight short pages. Su Shan, Jet's live-in lady-love, shows up in four panels, but Jet leaves her at home in his lab. He makes it to Mars — in two days, yet! — by himself, mistaking the Venusians for the Martians. Just for the record, the most jarring panel to me in the whole story is the one with Jet sitting with his Fleeb "host" at what looks like a coffee-shop table, eating lunch, with musical accompaniment. I'm not sure what author Fox could have said in his script to indicate the action in this panel: "Jet is having a sitdown lunch with the Fleebs. Waiter serves, and Fleeb with mandolin plays in background." This panel is oddball, even for this story. Jet seems to communicate very well with the good-guy Martians when he finally finds them. The Fleebs used a translation device. I don't see him using one with the Martians.

Ah, but I wasn't going to break it down, was I? As is true with the rest of the contents of Jet #3, the printing is bad, blobbing up in spots and washing out in others. It's not my scanning, folks…it's some long ago printers who didn't care about what they printed or what it looked like.