Number 1453: “A Thousand Years a Minute!”

Sucker that I am for time travel tales, here is a four-chapter sequence from 1939. “Adventure In the Unknown” was a series appearing in All-American Comics, and these chapters appeared in issue numbers 9 through 12.

Writer Carl H. Claudy was born in 1879. Before there were comic books he was noted for his books on Freemasonry and his science fiction stories for boys. He worked for DC from '39 to 1943. Claudy was also a journalist, also authored books on photography and aviation; an all-around, all-American author! He died in 1957, but several of his books on Freemasonry are still available at Amazon.com

This story sequence from All American, illustrated, according to the GCD, by Stan Aschmeier, is one of those cavemen and dinosaurs tales of “one million years ago.” The cavemen wear shaggy blue shorts, and there are no cavewomen, who are presumably back in the caves keeping the home fires burning. Our heroes, Ted and Alan, befriend a caveman named Ikki, who becomes their helper. In the last chapter, in a burst of feelgood emotions for their new pal, Alan says, “I've a great idea, Ted!...Let’s take Ikki back to 1939 with us!” To which Ted replies, “Sure — we’ll donate him to a zoo — or a sideshow!” All heart, that Ted.

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In time for Halloween...

 The Chilling Archives of Horror Comics: 

 Jack Cole's Deadly Horror

Jack Cole, one of the greatest cartoonists to ever work in comic books, did several horror stories during the horror boom of the '50s. (After a short time he was out of comic books altogether, and drawing sexy women for Hugh Hefner.) The horror stores are unsigned, and some of them have the heavy hand of inkers other than Cole, but they are immediately identifiable as being by the creator of Plastic Man.

Jack Cole's Deadly Horror editor Craig Yoe (attempting to hypnotize us into buying the book in the picture above) prints a statement by me where I say that Cole never got far from his bigfoot cartooning origins. Even though the horror comics would seem to be far from Cole’s “Burp the Twerp” comedy one-pagers, the same level of craftsmanship and even, yes, FUN — albeit grisly — have gone into each page and panel.

The book, being number four in Yoe's ongoing series of horror comics reprints, fits right in with its predecessors, and as you can see from this look at one of my Pappy Studio bookshelves, looks mighty handsome when stacked with those volumes. (As well as the other books I keep in a rotation depending on what I’m researching at the moment. The other crap stuff on the shelf is eye-candy I can't seem to put in boxes and store away in my basement.}

The Cole book is highly recommended, just as I’ve recommended other Yoe books before. It’s because Craig Yoe has a fine sense of design, history, and the importance of a good horror story right before Halloween to, you know, set the mood for a chilly autumn evening when the wind is whistling down your chimney like the howls of souls in torment...tree limbs like skeletal fingers are tap-tap-tapping on your windows...and you feel that delicious terror that comes from looking up from a horror story startled, thinking, “Did I just hear heavy footsteps coming up the stairs toward me?”

 Bargain priced at a suggested retail or $24.99, it’s inexpensive enough for you to get a copy for yourself, and one for the horror comics loving friend on your Christmas gift list.

The Chilling Archives of Horror Comics #4 Jack Cole's Deadly Horror is available from your local comic book store or online retailer including Amazon.com, Bud Plant, and yoebooks.com

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Number 1370: Doiby’s ruint derby

Paul Reinman was an American comic book journeyman who was born in Germany and emigrated to the U.S. at a young age. He worked in comics from at least the early forties to the mid-seventies. His work is instantly recognizable, and he drew thousands of pages over a long career.

Green Lantern was one of the features he worked on during his time at DC in the 1940s. This entertaining story, which takes place in the time of King Arthur, is a pretty good example of the DC superheroes of the era whose time ended in 1949, only to be revived in different form about ten years later. By then Reinman was long gone from DC, working at Marvel, ACG and Archie. Reinman died in 1988, at age 78.

Doiby Dickles was Green Lantern’s sidekick, supposed comic relief. I find the character annoying, like I did the Three Stooges knockoffs who showed up with The Flash in his comics. I suppose they were there so the main character had someone to talk to, like Woozy Winks in the Plastic Man stories. The difference was Woozy Winks was actually funny.

From All-American Comics #72 (1946):

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All-American Comics #23 {REQUEST}

All-American Comics #23
53 pages | Feb 1939 | CBR | 15.1 MB
request from Raymond

This is one that I found
Download MIRROR #1

Download MIRROR #2

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Number 466


The Terrific Whatzit


McSnurtle the Turtle, also known as The Terrific Whatzit, was a feature in DC/AA's Funny Stuff title for the first 17 issues. Drawn by Martin Nadle (who sometimes signed his name as Naydel to distinguish himself from his brother, DC editor Larry Nadle) the Whatzit was sort of a...sort of...well, I don't know exactly what he was. I guess that's why he was the Whatzit. If you follow the link above you can read about him in Don Markstein's Toonopedia.

In this particular story, from Funny Stuff #6, Fall 1945, McSnurtle is duped by a cross-dressing guy posing as a woman. In a funny animal comic book! Maybe that's the part that's "funny."

The reason the colophons at the top of the pages say AA All-American Comics is because DC and All-American were conjoined companies, owned by different people. All-American was owned by Max Gaines, publishing under the DC imprint. Max Gaines split off from DC at one point, then sold out to them, coming back into the field with EC Comics. And the rest, they say, is history. The Terrific Whatzit made up a very small piece of that history.

I'm including a couple of ads from that issue of Funny Stuff, which was published just as World War II ended. The ads have a war theme. The Thom McAn ad especially so, with wartime racist caricatures of Japanese. The Captain Tootsie ad is not only a candy ad, but a public service announcement. Don't play with hand grenades. Gee, I think that'd be self-evident, and I don't know how many hand grenades were lying around for kids to pick up, but knowing kids, I'm sure if a kid found one he'd pick it up. Maybe the ad saved some lives.

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