Number 1210: PG-49

Paul Gattuso, who did the artwork I stole borrowed for this blog’s masthead, was a journeyman comic book artist whose work in the forties looks bizarre to me. Gattuso gained some infamy by being included in Dr. Wertham’s anti-comics book, Seduction Of the Innocent with this incredible panel:

Gattuso’s stories for Harry “A” Chesler’s comics mainly starred the Black Dwarf (again, see the masthead above) and Echo. A few years later, in some sort of business arrangement I’ve never understood, Chesler declared bankruptcy and his comic line disappeared, and Archer St. John began his comic book line using material from Chesler. Gattuso’s Black Dwarf and Echo became the Blue Monk and Ventrilo. Those are the stories I’m showing today from the St. John title, Western Bandit Trails #1 (1949). The Blue Monk story, “Beggar King’s Last Bonanza” is signed with initials PG and DD, which is Gattuso and writer Dana Dutch.

Black Dwarf was a 5’4” former pro-football player named Shorty Wilson. Blue Monk was a former football player, Stubby Watson, whose name is hardly an improvement.

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Number 636


Pappy's Fourth Annual Thanksgiving Turkey Awards


Thank you. Thankyouverymuch. I am thankful for all of Pappy's readers.

Today is Thanksgiving Day, time for Pappy's annual Thanksgiving Turkey Awards. It's
the one day a year I get to pick the dumbest story I've found all year and present it to Pappy's readers. It's all my subjective judgment. You don't get to vote.

This year I've chosen "Million-Year Monster," which originally appeared in Forbidden Worlds #14 in 1953. I've scanned it from its appearance in a black-and-white magazine, Shock, volume 1 number 3, from 1969. Here's the cover of Forbidden Worlds by artist Ken Bald, where the story was so highly thought of it got the pole position. Note the red dinosaur with a man's face, note the Shemp Howard hairstyle. Note the atom bomb cloud surrounding the monster and a lone soldier shooting.

Inside note that the Million-Year Monster can speak, but what it mostly says is, "Me want Jill!" Words alone cannot describe this story. You just have to read it. The Grand Comics Database says the artists are Paul Gattuso? (? means they aren't sure) and Dick Beck.

"The Million-Year Monster," our award winner for 2009, earns four turkeys.

Previous award winners are:

2006: "The Flat Man"
2007: "The Day the World Died"
2008: Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen in "The Bride of Jungle Jimmy"

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