Number 98


Toth and Tufts in Drag Cartoons!


I got my first car in 1963. Those were the days when we thought all of the "bitchin" cars came out of Southern California. We--my buddies, me and most all the rest of the adolescent and adolescent-acting males in America--all wanted to be part of the car culture they had in that magical place of California.

That car culture produced one of the most unusual comics of all time, the black and white hot rod cartoon books, CAR'toons and later, Drag Cartoons. Both of these magazines were started in Southern California by racing enthusiast and cartoonist, Pete Millar. The story is that he created CAR'toons, walked out when he had a disagreement with the publisher, and started Drag Cartoons. Millar's artwork was pretty good, and the cover to this issue is extremely well done. But the art seems rooted in its era, maybe even earlier. It looks very 1950s to me, but it also seems perfect for the stories he was doing, about cars, hot rods and the kids who drove them.

In the earlier issues some of the best comic book artists who lived in Southern California worked for Drag Cartoons. In this installment of Pappy's I'm showing two of them, Alex Toth and Warren Tufts, both four-page stories from Drag Cartoons #2, December 1963. Toth is legendary for his comic book work, working in all sorts of genres. I think this example, "The Tell Tell Car," is a fine story. He didn't get a chance to work with satirical material often, and the splash panel shows the Mad influence of Mort Drucker. For you younger readers, the fellow making the speech in the splash is a caricature of distinguished actor E.G. Marshall. Along with "Mr. Brady," Robert Reed, he starred in a popular early 1960s TV drama called The Defenders.

Warren Tufts did a fantastic Western comic strip called Casey Ruggles, but as was claimed, was a perfectionist who spent a lot of hours at the drawing board and at some point quit the syndicated comic strip biz. The "Vincent Van Gears" story he did here shows how hard he worked. Every panel is beautifully composed and drawn. What a great-looking story with a very strangely grown-up Dennis Mitchell, swinging into a real close approximation of the Dick Tracy comic strip. Oh yeah, for you younger readers again: The "Kennedy foot bit" the hot-rodding Dennis refers to on the first page would be the Presidential Fitness Program founded by President Kennedy in the early '60s, putting more emphasis on physical activity. And we would think, less on driving. (John F. Kennedy was assassinated just before this issue went off sale.)

All of the men mentioned on this page are gone now. Millar died in 2003, Toth in 2006, and Tufts died in a flying accident in the late '70s or early '80s.

Drag Cartoons, its predecessor and its descendents, were products of their time, and had a loyal following of young readers for whom cars and that California car culture were "Bitchin, man, bitchin!"

Number 97

Frankenstein Friday: Frankenstein And The Plant!

Shades of Audrey II. For the final story in the horror comics incarnation of the Frankenstein monster, from Frankenstein#33, October-November 1954, creator Dick Briefer turns to the world of botany and plants. Of course, this is a horror comic, so the titular plant is a meat-eater. The Monster is in the story as an observer, standing back from the action for the most part, until the end when he is once again set upon and betrayed by humans.

The botanist, a "mad" scientist (there are no other kinds in horror comics), remains unnamed, but gets his just desserts, a la Little Shop Of Horrors. That movie in its original, non-musical form, was released just six years after this comic was published, and it's not too much of a stretch to imagine the screenplay writer had this story in mind. Stranger things have happened.

In the next-to-last panel of the story the Monster takes off for parts unknown, but we never get to find out where he's going. The series is at an end. The last panel is reserved for the mad scientist's gruesome fate.

I said this would be the last Frankenstein Friday, but I lied. Next week a 1966 Steve Ditko story.

**********

I just got this book:

The Monster Of Frankenstein, written and drawn by Dick Briefer, reprints all of the horror comics issues of Frankenstein, numbers 18 through 33, from the early 1950s.

Production on the book is good. The stories, for economy's sake, are reprinted in black and white, but the reproductions are clear. This is a page from the story that I have posted this week in color, and you can compare the two.
In an afterword, Briefer's granddaughter, Alicia Jo Rabins, says she grew up with her grandfather's paintings, including Frankenstein, but beyond that tantalizing claim nothing is shown. If the cover artist of this volume is identified I can't see it. The painting seems crude compared to the rest of Briefer's art, but if it is by Briefer, could have been done in his later life.


I think the covers from the individual issues should have also been reprinted, a la Marvel's Essentials and DC's Showcase series'. I believe it was a mistake of omission.

The book is available from Amazon.com for $20.99. If you've enjoyed the stories I've posted from Briefer's horror phase of Frankenstein you'll like this book.

The Monster Of Frankenstein, Story and Art By Dick Briefer. Supplementary Material by David Jacobs, E.J. Robinson, Alicia Jo Rabins. 2006, 246 pp., 7"x10 1/8" trade paperback. Color covers, black and white interiors.

Number 96

Sparky Watts and The Father Of His Country!


I've been waiting for President's Day to show you this story from Sparky Watts #5, 1947. It's by the great Gordon "Boody" Rogers, in my opinion one of the top cartoonists of the Golden Age.

I last showed you a story by Boody in Pappy's #32, where I posted a story from his regular monthly appearance in Big Shot Comics #86. Boody had a unique and clear cartooning style, which he developed as Zack Mosley's assistant on that cartoonist's Smilin' Jack comic strip.

I also showed you a favorite science fiction theme of mine, time travel, in Pappy's #89, when I told you about what I liked about the Alley Oop comic strip. This Sparky Watts story has a form of time travel. Instead of them going into the past, they bring George Washington into the future. Actually they resurrect him, using a special "life restorer lite" that Doc Static has invented. Considering its shortness, three chapters adding up to 20 pages, Rogers manages to make some pretty good gags. The man-out-of-his-own-time possibilities are well exploited by Boody.

Learn what really happened when Washington cut down the cherry tree, or why he stood up in the boat crossing the Potomac. See George Washington in a zoot suit! Learn how many stars Slap Happy thinks are on the 1947 American flag!

Enjoy the laughs, and Happy President's Day!

Number 95


The Original Ghost Rider


The movie, Ghost Rider, was released yesterday. In it Nicolas Cage plays the Marvel Comics character, a supernatural being with flames shooting out of his head. We Golden Age comics fans know that's not the true Ghost Rider, but some usurper who is using his name.

Ghost Rider #1 came out in 1950 from Magazine Enterprises (ME), a comic book company founded by one of DC Comics' original editors, Vincent Sullivan. It wasn't a big company, but they used some of the best artists: Bob Powell, Frank Frazetta, and the Ghost Rider artist, Dick Ayers.

The original Ghost Rider appeared in his own title for 14 issues between 1950 and 1954. He also made appearances in several other ME Western comics. Ghost Rider was canceled because it wouldn't survive the new Comics Code. In 1967 Marvel Comics published seven issues of a new series, also drawn by Ayers. AC Comics re-named the character Haunted Horseman when they began republishing the original ME stories.

The 1950's Ghost Rider stories were fast paced and entertaining. They had elements of horror, but as in the story posted for Frankenstein Friday in Pappy's #50 sometimes the supernatural turned out to be a trick, like the Ghost Rider himself.

In the origin story the supernatural appears to be real. The "Calico Kid," Rex Fury, hovers between life and death, he is trained by famous dead Westerners. It packs a lot into six pages, and as always, the art is superb.