Number 483


Cinderola and the Three Bears


It's Friday and I need a laugh. You'll laugh too at this outrageously funny take on Cinderella from Pogo #8, 1952, with Pogo as Cinderella. The genius that was Walt Kelly...what a great artist and humorist. There will never be another Kelly.

This story was presented with four other Pogo stories in The Smithsonian Book of Comic Book Comics from 1981. That fine book been out of print for a few years, but I have seen used copies for sale at places like Amazon. If you've seen this Pogo story before, then it's worth a second reading. If you haven't, enjoy!

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Craig (ARF) Yoe, comics historian, cartoonist and all-around good guy, sent me a press release on his new book. (He also has the book, Boody, which I mentioned Monday.) This description of the book makes me really want it. Sounds fascinating!

I recently discovered incredible, previously unknown, fetish art by the creator of Superman, Joe Shuster. The artist and his writing partner, Jerry Siegel, had sold Superman for 130 dollars. When they sued to get the rights back they lost and got drummed out of the comic book industry and Shuster fell on hard times. It was unknown that to get by and/or because of a personal interest in the subject, Shuster then did S&M porn for under-the-counter booklets called "Nights of Horror," sold in Times Square in the early fifties. The back story I uncovered involves the Mob, showgirls, neo-Nazi Jewish juvenile delinquents, inspired by Shuster's art, known as the Brooklyn Thrill Killers, the famed anti-comic book crusader Dr. Frederic Wertham, Senate investigations, cops on payola, the books being banned by the Supreme Court, teenage girls being horse-whipped in the park, two murders...and dare I say MORE?

I have a full color coffee table art book I wrote and designed coming out April 1 (no fooling!) about all this, "Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman's Co-Creator Joe Shuster". The publisher is the number one leading art book publisher in the world, the prestigious Abrams. 

Number 482


Russ Heath has a good Brain


I had plans to attend WonderCon in San Francisco last weekend, but then found out I needed surgery. So instead of WonderCon I stayed home and convalesced. There's always next year.

Dave Miller, who I'd planned on palling with at the Con, attended and sent me some photos. Bless Dave and his ever present camera. He got me a picture of Russ Heath. Russ, who was born in 1926, is 82 and looks well in this picture.


It ties in nicely with a couple of Russ Heath classics I've been wanting to show. I'm sure these stories of the Brain, from Atlas pre-Code horror comics, have been reprinted a couple of times, but they're always worth seeing. I scanned them from the Marvel 1993-94 reprints, Curse of the Weird #'s 1 and 3.

Number 481


Boody call


Craig Yoe's book, Boody, featuring Boody Rogers' strips from Sparky Watts and Babe, is available for pre-ordering.

Even though I own a lot of what Yoe is reprinting I don't have it all, so I will be ordering the book. I don't intend anything I post online to compete with anything in printed form; I am a bibliophile, love books. I love having them on my shelves to be able to pull down and peruse. I fully support any books that reprint old comics, and want everyone else to support them, too.

So in honor of Yoe's Boody book, here are two of the backup stories from Sparky Watts #6, 1947. I showed you the 26-page lead story here.

Number 480


Ghost Patrol in Spain


While on the same side as Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, Spain kept itself a "non-belligerent" in the World War of 1939-45. That's where our ectoplasmic pals, the Ghost Patrol, save some prisoners. This story from is Flash Comics #35, November 1942. It's drawn by Frank Harry, who helped create the strip in Flash Comics #29.

Ghost Patrol was a popular second banana feature for DC in the 1940s, but made its last appearance in Flash Comics #104.