Number 2169: Airboy vs the rats, part 1

I have held off showing the two part Airboy story from 1948 for a good reason. It more properly belongs as one of my Thanksgiving Turkey Award winners. But at 30 pages of story over two issues, I have decided it is too long for that award.

It’s a science fiction story about rats declaring war on humans. That would be silly enough, but throw in a little mouse named Cheesie(!) that owes allegiance to Airboy for setting its broken leg, and the jaw drops another few inches.

This cheesy story is from Airboy Comics Vol. 5 Number 11 (whole number 58, 1948). Cover by Dan Zolnerwich (“Zolne”), and artwork on the story by Ernest Schroeder. Grand Comics Database doesn’t know who is to blame for the script.

Come back on Friday for part 2.

Number 2168: Just a harmful young lady

In March I posted a crime comics story featuring a female criminal. I have chosen another. (Look back through the history of this blog and I have showed several stories featuring bad girls. I will let you decide what that means about me. You are probably right.)

I don’t know if there was a female criminal named Mara Hite, who earned a death sentence in 1937. In crime comics if they didn’t really exist they made it seem like they did. In this story, illustrated by Syd Shores for Gangsters and Gun Molls #4 (1952), Mara is a murderer, even using the desperado tactics of traveling gangsters like Dillinger or Bonnie and Clyde, shooting at cops from the window of a speeding getaway car. It is a timeworn tale, but the drawings by Shore make it worth a look.

Shores was an early comic book artist who worked with Simon and Kirby early on, and worked freelance in comics for many years until his death from a heart attack at age 59 in 1973. Gene Colan described Shores as a “big smoker,” and we know that smoking will kill you more surely than any gangster, male or female.

Number 2167: Just a harmless old lady

Even for early comic books, Madam Fatal was a peculiar character. Richard Stanton, former stage actor, dressed up as an old woman. Anyone who thought Madam Fatal was a pushover soon found out she could handle herself and her enemies quite well.

Today we think of cross-dressing, but actually, it is an old stage tradition. Think Shakespeare in his era, as one example, when men dressed as women because no women worked on stage. (Stanton also had a parrot, Hamlet, who could recite Shakespeare.) However, Madam Fatal was another of those early comic characters who also met an early demise. This story, from Crack Comics #21 (1942), was M.F.’s next to last appearance. After #22 she, errrr, I mean he, retired and put the orthopedic shoes in the closet.

Drawn by Arthur Pinajian.

Number 2166: “Of kissing and killing”

I like early issues of American Comics Group’s Lovelorn when they featured interesting locations. The bulk of traditional love comics stories are more contemporary, along the lines of “I Stole My Sister’s Boyfriends,” or “My Sister Stole My Boyfriends,” but this issue of Lovelorn sets a story, “Sweetheart of a Slave,” in 18th century Barbados. A young woman who manipulates men falls for Barbados’s governor. The governor is ruthless with slaves. Our heroine falls for one of the bond-slaves, who becomes something of a Nat Turner or Spartacus, the leader of a slave rebellion.

Unfortunately, the Grand Comics Database doesn’t list a writer or artist.

Lovelorn later had a title change to Confessions of the Lovelorn, looking more like the common romance titles with weepy-eyed girls on the covers, and lasted until 1959, finally dropped in favor of ACG’s better selling supernatural titles.

Here is another early story with a non-traditional locale, also from Lovelorn. Just click on the thumbnail.

Number 2165: London and Nightro during wartime

London was created for Charles Biro’s Daredevil #2 by Jerry Robinson, as was Nightro, drawn by George “Inky” Roussos. Both Robinson and Roussos were courted by Biro because they worked for Bob Kane. Robinson came up with London, Dick Wood and Roussos did Nightro. Biro probably thought he could get some sales spillover from some of the talent behind Batman, but no. The strips created by these two men for Biro both disappeared within a short period of time.

The no-boost-from-Batman last London strip can be seen by going to the link below today’s strips.

London’s last appearance in Daredevil #11, is here. Just click on the thumbnail.