Number 882


Black Condor


Day four--and final---of Superzeroes Week:

We started this week with Dynamic Man, a story drawn under the influence of artist Lou Fine.

Doing this posting seems a bit like sacrilege. When I entered comic fandom the work of Lou Fine was venerated. It was the comic book equivalent of Da Vinci or Michaelangelo. So what if some of the stories Fine drew were hopelessly dumb, like this origin story of the Black Condor from Crack Comics #1, 1940? He was LOU FINE. And he was part of the Will Eisner group of artists doing some of the very best artwork of that early era of comic books.

And I do admire the artwork, except when I read this story I'm struck by how bad this origin story is. And it's not just because it was written 70 years ago. I believe it was just as bad in 1940. Richard Grey Jr. is a foundling adopted by a Mama Condor. She feeds him. The idea of him swallowing regurgitated condor food, which is--urp! gag!--carrion (think of dead cattle, bloated and stinking). Revolting. The child grows up, but he takes a long time. Well, that's what humans do. We have a long childhood so our larger brains can develop. Dick seems determined to do what his fellow condors do, which is fly, so he uses that human brainpower to figure out air currents and such and pretty soon he's flying just like a condor.

I'm aware the Black Condor was revived, although I haven't read any of the modern stories.

What I can tell you about this origin story is a) the art by Lou Fine is very fine; b) the story is attributed to Will Eisner by the GCD, and I'm sorry Eisner fans, but it is stupid.

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Number 765


King of Crime


Happy Independence Day, mah fellow Americans...

Will Eisner's Uncle Sam character seemed like a natural for a nation anxious about going to war, as America was before Pearl Harbor. Uncle Sam, a symbol of patriotism, was in Eisner's hands a mystical character, a soldier from America's Revolutionary War who, quoting Don Markstein's Toonopedia, "...envisioned American freedom so strongly, his soul, instead of moving on, merged with the Spirit of Liberty, and remained on Earth to fight for that cause. As history sped by, Uncle Sam manifest himself repeatedly, lending his strength whenever his country needed him."

As a character Uncle Sam comics didn't last through World War II. Maybe it had something to do with the stories which, even for comic books, seem over the top. In Uncle Sam #1, where this story originated, the first story, shown in Pappy's #625, there's a plot to replace government officials, including the president, with doubles...that's after selling America's children into slavery. In this story the King of Crime founds the "State of Rex", where all the crooks go to hide.

In my opinion, crooks don't really need to hide; they just need effective camouflage. Put on a tie, look like regular guys, go to work in a bank or on Wall Street!

Yes, as through this world I've wandered
I've seen lots of funny men;
Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen.
--Woody Guthrie, "The Ballad of Pretty Boy Floyd"

According to the Grand Comics Database Will Eisner did the splash page and Lou Fine inked it; the GCD doesn't know who did pages 2-14.

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Number 739


Crandall and Fine...a couple of originals


These covers, both original art and printed versions, are from Heritage Auctions. I found them during one of my foraging forays into their fantastic archives.

The first impression I have of the covers is that graphically, while all are well drawn, from a commercial standpoint Reed Crandall's Modern Comics covers are much stronger than the Lou Fine National Comics covers, which have too many confusing elements.


The Fine covers are early, from 1940, the Crandall covers from 1948. By that time most comic book publishers had learned what covers sold comic books, and at Quality the late 1940's motto seemed to be, "keep it simple." The less elements, the less time it takes for a person looking at a newsstand to make a decision.


The worst cover is National Comics #9, which is a confusing mess of activity. The next worse would be #5, with that oddball looking skull peering out at us. Why the unusual placement of the skull? Neither illustration looks guided by an editor's hand.



The Crandall covers are just the opposite, with action clearly read. My favorite is Modern Comics #77, with its Beast Men cover, and next to that is #78, the girl with butterfly wings. I've said before that Crandall's action panels look to me like dioramas, people frozen in motion, but from a commercial standpoint these covers are posters which popped out at a newsstand browser.


Considering the auction prices realized for these covers, the buyers of the original artworks disagree with me. The National Comics #5 cover sold for $50,787.50.

The top price for one of the Crandall covers was the Madame Butterfly original, which went for just under half that amount, at $23,900.00.

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Number 633


Stormy Weather is "just Fine..."


On October 30 I showed you a Spirit story by Will Eisner. This story, drawn by Lou Fine and probably written by author Manly Wade Wellman, is from an underappreciated era of the Spirit, from the World War II years when creator Will Eisner was in the armed services.

This Spirit story doesn't have the cinematic flair that Eisner brought to the strip, the film noir elements from the postwar period, but it's a well drawn story, nevertheless. All of the non-Eisner stories, I believe, have been reprinted in The Spirit Archives, but I don't own any of those books. I got this from The Spirit #3, 1945.

Hedging his bets that Eisner might not come back alive from the war, publisher Everett "Busy" Arnold had the character Midnight, visually a Spirit-clone, appearing in Smash Comics. How Eisner tolerated such an abuse, a blatant infringement on the Spirit, is beyond me. But Busy was his partner on the Spirit, so it was probably just a business decision. Early on, after the initial appearance of Superman, Victor Fox hired Eisner to make Wonder Man as much like Superman as possible, and Fox lost a lawsuit from Superman's publisher. Eisner knew about plagiarism.

The non-Eisner Spirit looks more to me like Midnight than Eisner's Spirit, but there was a time when they co-existed.

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