Number 874


EC's only superhero(ine)


This is the last day of our EC theme week.

Maxwell C. "Charlie" Gaines started EC Comics after selling his All American Comics line to DC in 1945. They'd had a co-publishing arrangement for years, anyway, and Charlie Gaines' heroes, Flash, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, et al., were assimilated by DC. We go forward to 1947, the last issue of Animal Fables, #7, and the story of the "new" Wonder Woman, Moon Girl.

There were a lot of similarities between the characters, but Moon Girl was missing a couple of key elements that made Wonder Woman so memorable: Harry Peter's outrageous artwork, and Wonder Woman creator William Moulton Marston's bondage themes. Moon Girl was drawn by Sheldon Moldoff, who had worked for Gaines at All American. Moldoff later went on to do a variety of genres, including horror comics for Fawcett, but settled in for a steady gig as Bob Kane's ghost artist on Batman in 1953.

Moon Girl was short-lived. Her comic book morphed from #1, Moon Girl and the Prince, to #2-6, Moon Girl, to #7 and 8, Moon Girl Fights Crime, and finally A Moon...a Girl...Romance. She was the only super-powered character to appear in EC Comics (unless you count Freddy Firefly or "Comics" McCormick).From the looks of the history of EC after its founder died, it's clear that his son, Bill, who inherited EC, had other ideas about what would sell, and superheroes weren't in the mix.

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Number 872


Freddy Firefly lights it up


We're into a theme week on EC Comics, and today we've got examples of EC's funny animals from the 1940s. Animal Fables, which ran for seven issues in 1946 and '47, featured some covers with Freddy Firefly, who did a Human Torch imitation. He could burn through walls just like the Torch. He just had to yell, "Take fire!" and the young bug became the flaming firefly.

I don't know who drew Freddy; I haven't been able to find any reference material from the Grand Comics Database, or even my usually reliable EC sources. But what I think is that Freddy probably looked a little too close to the Human Torch for the purposes of Martin Goodman's Timely Comics.

By #7, the last issue of Animal Fables, Freddy was burning with "green fire", a creative way to solve the problem of the lookalike characters, but too late.

Actually, I don't think anyone, even very young children, would've confused the two, but that's what lawyers are for, to bring up those subjects. Freddy wasn't seen again after 1947.

By the time the last issue of Animal Fables was published EC founder, Maxwell C. "Charlie" Gaines, was dead, killed in a boating accident, and his son, Bill, was sent by his mother to take over the company. Although it eventually led him to become a millionaire with Mad, in 1947 he wasn't interested in comic books. Within a short time the funny animals published by EC were gone, and over the next couple of years it became the notorious EC Comics we know and love.

From Animal Fables #4, 1947:












From Animal Fables #7, 1947:

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