Number 1302: Airboy and the ancient alien invasion

Airboy doesn't need to call in the Army (there wouldn't be room in eight pages, anyway) to handle an invasion from space. He's got his wits, savvy, and a suit of wooden armor.

The tentacled monstrosity looks inspired by H.G. Wells' The War Of the Worlds, the pyramid-shaped UFO goes against the stereotype of the flying saucer, popular at the time in science fiction comics. It makes one think of ancient aliens, especially when the monster tells Airboy it's their second visit to Earth. The planet is much more developed than the first time, when “your Earth was no danger to us.” Holy Erich Von Däniken!*

From Airboy Comics Volume 9 Number 6 (1952), art by Ernie Schroeder:

*Chariots of the Gods, 1968.

**********

Since many of the creators of comic books were Jewish, there are parallels to be drawn to a people, a religion, and superheroes. Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster certainly fit the description since Superman, above all others, lifted the comics industry “up, up and away,” and in its early years into the stratosphere of popularity. And they did it with a character who, according to Rick Bowers in his book, Superman Versus the Ku Klux Klan, had Jewish attributes.

From the book:

“Jerry and Joe’s Jewish heritage deeply influenced the makeup of Superman too. The all-American superhero reflected many of the beliefs and values of Jewish immigrants of the day. Like them, Superman had come to America from a foreign world. Like them, he longed to fit into to his strange new surrounding. Superman also seemed to embody the Jewish principle of tzedakah —  a command to serve the less fortunate and to stand up for the weak and exploited – and the concept of tikkun olam, the mandate to do good works (literally to ‘repair a broken world’). Even the language of Superman had Jewish origins. Before Superman is blasted off the dying planet of Krypton, Superman’s father, Jor-El, names his son Kal-El. In ancient Hebrew the suffix El means ‘all that is God.’”

Bowers goes on to compare the Superman story to Moses, especially the “crib-shaped rocket” launched toward earth “to be raised by loving strangers.” In the Old Testament Moses’ mother, after Pharaoh’s decree that all newborn Jewish males be killed, puts Moses in a crib-shaped basket and puts him in the Nile. He is raised by Pharaoh’s daughter. Bowers ends by further comparing Superman to the story of Rabbi Maharal of Prague, “who created his own superman, called the Golem, to protect the people of the Jewish ghetto from hostile Christians.”

Superman was also a secular American product. As was the custom, obvious religion or ethnicity was avoided. Bowers mentions Siegel’s love of science fiction, reading pulps like Amazing Stories, The Shadow, Doc Savage, and the novel, Gladiator by Philip Wylie. In that book a father creates a superhuman in his son. There were a whole lot of influences on Siegel and Shuster as Superman came haltingly to life over a period of years. At one point he was even a villain.

The Superman backstory is setup to the point of the book, the story arc from The Adventures of Superman radio program of the late forties, which involved Superman fighting a Ku Klux Klan-type organization.

Bowers gives a history of the Ku Klux Klan and its political power in the early decades of the Twentieth Century.  In 1946, with the Adventures of Superman program riding high in the ratings the advertising agency for the show’s sponsor, Kellogg’s, suggested the program do shows about intolerance. (Fresh in the public minds were images from the Nazi death camps.) Producer Robert Maxwell “jumped at the chance,” according to Bowers. But it was a jump carefully taken. The producers reportedly read 25 scripts they rejected, but finally settled on former New York Times reporter, then freelancer, Ben Peter Freeman, to do the writing. He had written some very successful scripts for the program, and he was tapped to do the job on “Operation Intolerance.”

There’s some information in the book on Josette Frank, who was listed prominently for years in DC Comics as a member of the Child Study Association of America. Although such experts as Frank were dismissed as flacks by comic book critics like Fredric Wertham, Frank did have some input into what DC was doing. (She was a critic of Wonder Woman and the bondage themes of that comic, for instance.) She arranged a meeting between Bob Maxwell and anthropologist Margaret Mead who, according to Bowers, “advised Maxwell to step carefully with – as the agenda put it – ‘stories dramatizing, realistically or by allegory, the fight against threats to democracy – fascism, intolerance, mob run, vigilante movements,’” as Mead said might be “inappropriate to the building of serene attitudes.” Maxwell’s response was, “What makes you think there is any serenity in children’s programming?”

And that debate is still with us nearly 70 years later.

Superman Versus the Ku Klux Klan is an interesting blend of comic book, radio, and American history of the first half of the Twentieth Century.  Bowers has done his homework. I find his tie-ins with Jewish culture and popular culture especially interesting. Run out of Europe, Jews came to the United States and founded movie studios and publishing empires. They even set the course of comedy on television. When we talk about what is “American” we include what has been assimilated, folded into American society from other cultures, now so well accepted we often forget origins.

Superman Versus the Ku Klux Klan by Rick Bowers. National Geographic Books, 2012. Hardbound, 160 pages. $18.95.

— Pappy

Number 1301: In India-Africa with the Phantom

I never thought much about where the Phantom is headquartered. Some jungle, somewhere, in a cave. One jungle and one cave is much like another, I thought. But then I read that originally the jungle-based Phantom stories were set in India (even using the derivative name, “Bengali,”) but were at some point re-set in Africa. In the Evansville Courier and Press of January 19, 2012, writer Andrew A. Smith, discussing his lifelong love of the Phantom comics wrote, “Sometimes The Phantom's jungle adventures seemed to be in India, sometimes Africa. (For the record, the strip was set in India in the 1930s, but The Phantom's home turf gradually shifted to Africa by the 1960s, and has been there ever since.)”

Okay, sounds good enough for me, and the only reason I point it out is in this story the Phantom’s girlfriend Diana is arrested for stealing a necklace from a maharajah, who is strictly Indian. The story itself...well, it’s fairly typical Phantom business, i.e., getting Diana out of trouble. What would that woman, born of privilege,* do without the Phantom? She'd probably be home in America married to a banker, spending afternoons having cocktails with her friends at the country club, that's what. Which would mean the Phantom wouldn't have much to do except hang around the Skull Cave, sitting on his stone throne.

From Harvey Comic Hits #56 (1952):

*According to a Wikipedia entry on Diana Palmer: “Diana was born into a wealthy family, to mother Lily Palmer and father Henry Zapman.” Zapman! I like that name.

Number 1300: Frankenstein and Sam Pyre the vampire

For our fourth and final posting of Funky Funnies week at Pappy's I'm going back to the early days of this blog, when I had a tradition called “Frankenstein Friday.” I revived it for one post in Pappy's #966 over a year-and-a-half ago, and yes, the wheels turn slowly at Pappy's, but eventually we get things done.

Poor Frankenstein — he's the victim of a misimpression that he has become a vampire, and noble sort that he is, wants to end his miserable existence. And that's the bizarre plot of “The Brain of Sam Pyre the Vampire,” from Frankenstein Comics #13 (1948). It's written and drawn by Dick Briefer, who wrote and drew several different features for comic books during his time in the industry. He is best known for his various versions of the Frankenstein monster character, which he drew for over a decade in Prize Comics, and then two different series of Frankenstein.

I made sure I wasn't posting something that Frankenstein fans can find in Craig Yoe's compilation, Dick Briefer's Frankenstein, which is Volume 1 of Yoe's Chilling Archives of Horror Comics. I support Craig in his labors to get great comic books in more permanent format, and his matching sets of books are collectible, must-haves for comic fans. The book is still available from Amazon.com and from Craig's own catalog at Yoebooks.com.

Number 1299: Carrying a Torchy

This is the third of our Funky Funnies postings, funny comic book stories from the Golden Age.

Bill Ward (1919-1998) was a very fine cartoonist with an extra-special talent for drawing beautiful women. It was his bread-and-butter for over five decades. When Ward had a character such as Torchy to draw he made her the focus of the panel. The men he drew in those strips, and what must be thousands of gag cartoons done over several decades, just didn't get the attention the girls did. Of course they didn't! We don't look at Torchy to see guys. We want to see beautiful, bosomy, long-stemmed girls strutting proudly in shoes that would cripple most women. (Even when she's getting a treatment at a spa, as in this tall tale, she's wearing stilettos.) No matter that this story is from a long time ago — 1947 — Torchy is as modern in her sexiness as she was when Ward did his lovingly rendered drawings of her.

From Modern Comics #58 (1947):

Number 1298: Going Nuts

This is posting number two of our Funky Funnies week, highlighting some oddball humor comics.

Nuts, which came from the small publisher, Premier Magazines, is actually one of the better Mad imitations. I say that with qualifications. In my opinion no comic ever really came that close to Mad, calling Nuts a better imitation is faint praise. But John Benson, in his excellent compilation from Mad imitators, The Sincerest Form of Parody, gives some space to Nuts. (I'm showing different stories than Benson.) I recommend his book if you're into this type of comic book which, with the success of Mad, sprang up like toadstools after a rainstorm.

The penciler of “Tick Dracy” is unknown, but Hy Fleishman is credited by comic art expert Jim Vadeboncoeur Jr. with the inks, and John Belcastro, using his pseudonym Johnny Bell, did “Prince Valuable.” Fleishman and Belcastro both became known in comics during this era of the early 1950s, and did work in various genres. Fleishman is especially well known for his work, pencils and inks, in horror comics. (Check out the search engine using his name in Karwell's The Horrors Of It All blog for some great examples of his work.)