Number 1536: Talon of Terror

This won’t be the last story I’ll be mining from a fine issue of Ibis the Invincible, #5, published in 1946. The stories, written by Bill Woolfolk, are entertaining and the artwork, done by a diverse crew of comic book journeymen, is uniformly good.

The Grand Comics Database credits the artwork on “Talon of Terror” to Kurt Schaffenberger, inked by Pete Costanza.

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More Ibis. Just click the thumbnails.

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Number 1235: “Release the kraken!” The last Whiz

This is the final posting of our Fawcett week.

Captain Marvel's last adventure in Whiz Comics came in issue #155, cover dated June 1953. There would be more of Captain Marvel Adventures (the last issue, #150, had a cover date of November, 1953), but Whiz Comics, the Old Number One, the first comic book in a long string of comics under the “A Fawcett Publication” colophon, was finally cancelled. I'd like to know if the Captain Marvel comics were making money up until the Superman verdict. I assume they were.

By that time in 1953 horror was big in comics, and Fawcett's titles and covers reflected that. Whether the stories were genuinely horrible isn't the point, they were aiming at the monster crowd.

In his final Whiz, Captain Marvel faces the kraken, a monster out of classical mythology.

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Number 1232: The Marvel Family gets hissed off

 I've lined up a week of stories from Fawcett, publishers of Captain Marvel, The Marvel Family, Captain Marvel Jr, and Captain Midnight, all of which I'll be showing during my usual postings through Friday.

First up, the Marvel Family “Battles the Hissing Horror.” In this instance the “horror,” the Hissmen, look more like Albert the Alligator than evil sentient reptiles from a million years ago, but that's because despite the title, the cartoony art* dispersed any real horror. The Hissmen come bent on conquest from the dinosaur era, through a time tunnel which Billy, Freddy and Mary, and their friend Dexter, discover.

It's a very entertaining story, written by Otto Binder. 

P.S. Does it look to you like Mary Marvel is taking a bloody shot to the head on the cover? No such scene appears in the comic book. In the period before Fawcett, publisher also of crime and horror comics, closed down their comic book line in 1953, horror elements were used on the covers.

From The Marvel Family #74 (1952):

*I had originally credited Kurt Schaffenberger as artist. In the comments section of this post R.A.M. '67 credits C. C. Beck,  and after another look at the story I agree with him. The GCD credits Pete Costanza with a question mark.

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Number 1001





The Time Travelers and the flying saucers!





Flying saucers really captured the public imagination in the late '40s-early '50s. I've featured a few comic book stories about UFOs in the last month or so. I collect books, magazines and comic books with flying saucers on the covers. I love the imagery and fun stories, coupling them with the pleasures of such goofy comics as the Time Travelers.



The Grand Comics Database guesses at who drew the story, using their question mark technique: Ken Bald?



From Operation: Peril #4, 1951:



























This UFO story, drawn by Bob Jenney and written by editor Richard E. Hughes under one of his pen-names, Bob Standish, is from Adventures Into the Unknown #174, the final story from the last issue of that title. I love the title of this story, "U.F.O.'s....Bunk Or the Real Thing?" "Bunk" is a word my grandmother used decades ago.



The cover is by Kurt Schaffenberger, who used his sometime pseudonym, Lou Wahl, for what reason I'm not sure. His work is unmistakable, no matter what name he put on it.

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