Number 714

Daze of future past

I love stories from years ago that when written told of a distant future, now in our real life past. That describes this Stuart Taylor story from Jumbo Comics #89, published in 1946.

Alex Blum does the artwork for this story. It was probably written by his daughter, Toni, writer for the Iger shop, supplier of material to Fiction House. We get their impression of the faraway future world of 1975, where Adolf Hitler, who is still alive, is again planning world domination. And how does Stuart Taylor know this? Because some dumb Nazi drops the original plans for world domination out the window and Stuart finds them!

I love the clothing styles of "1975." Hitler in short pants and sports coat. How chic.

In the real world we know that Hitler didn't survive until 1975, but if he had he would have been 86. Many people live to that age and beyond. But the Hitler in this story looks much like he did in his prime.

Thanks to Marble River for the scans.

If you haven't had enough Hitler, we have two more Hitler stories coming up on April 16.

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Number 713


Reed Crandall and the speed lines


I've been looking at Reed Crandall's artwork for over five decades, and for me it's instantly recognizable by the action poses he drew. Sometimes the characters look to be in suspended animation or a diorama. Comparing any other artist to Jack Kirby is unfair, because hardly anyone ever rose to his level of action art, but while Kirby's characters seem to be in a blur of motion, frozen at an instant as if by a high speed camera, Crandall's characters often appear as if they have just struck a pose for the artist.

I'm not knocking Crandall...it's his artistic style, and as evidenced by this excellent 1951 Captain Daring strip from Quality's Buccaneers #27, he drew everything very well. Taking on a strip about pirates would involve researching clothing styles, ships, cities and places of the early 18th Century, and would be a lot more work than drawing a routine private eye strip like Ken Shannon, and probably for the same page rate.

Crandall didn't use the comic artist's conventional speed lines. When most artists showed a punch being thrown, pen lines would be drawn to show where the fist started its arc, with a big starburst at the point of impact.*

Artists drew that way for so long that they and their readers accepted it as part of comics' visual shorthand. Crandall reserved the speed lines for panels where he had no other way to explain the action. Page 6 of this story has a couple of examples, where Crandall used the lines to show the arcs of the sabers in order to explain the results of their swings.

Action poses are a great tell when looking for a particular artist's style.

This was the last of the Captain Daring strips. As good as it was, pirates just didn't last long in comic books. The first Captain Daring story I showed in Pappy's #595.












*In early Kirby Captain America strips the head would sometimes be replaced by that starburst, to show an especially brutal impact.

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Trivia Quiz #39: The Joker. Tee Shirt Prize!

The kind folks at Nerdy Shirts have offered to give the winner of this trivia quiz a tee shirt featuring the Costumed Crime Clown. Because of the prize, this post will not allow comments; send me your answers via email. The contest will end at 11:59 PM on Tuesday. Note: Some of these questions involve the Golden Age Joker as well as the Silver Age version.

#1. What color was the Joker's suit?

#2. Who was the son of the Joker?

#3. What crime boss willed his fortune to the Joker?

#4. It is well-known that the Joker appeared in a story in the Golden Age which also featured the Catwoman, and another story where he teamed up with the Penguin. Who was the next super-villain to team-up with the Joker?

5. Who was Gotham City's police commissioner in the 21st century?

6. How did the Joker get his distinctive appearance?

7. Was there a Bizarro Joker?

8. Who was the Joker's diminutive sidekick in the Silver Age?

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D16 The Baboon Boy - 18-12-1956 to 26-02-1957 (by John Celardo )

Dear friends,

You know I like sharing several comics in one post. But the daily strips by John Celardo #16 to #36, I'm going to share one by one in very near future.

It's respect to the contributor Emile who had downloaded every strip manually in better resolution as well as provided the contents (which is coming in every strip).  Hoping you will understand & enjoy! Kudo Emile!

Contents for this archive:
Art:    John Celardo
Story:    16
Title:    The Baboon Boy
Start:    1956-12-18 [#5421]
End:    1957-02-26 [#5480]
Strips:    62 daily strips
This story was reprinted on the UFS web site using these dates:
First strip:    2006-01-09 (Matrix #5419)
Last strip:    2006-03-21 (Matrix #5480)

P.S. This is not the last series contributed by Emile, several rare strips are coming also. Please make at least 6 GB space at your hard disk, may be more will be required. :)

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Number 712


Feldstein and Ingels in love!


I can picture Feldstein doing love comics because he had done teenage books before coming to EC. I have a little more trouble with Graham Ingels as a love comics artist. In these two stories from the A Moon, A Girl, Romance, (the continuation from Moon Girl) neither artist looks like he feels very comfortable drawing romance.

In "I Was Jilted and Had No Desire To Live!" a spurned girl turns to rat poison with intentions of ending her own life. A couple of years later Feldstein might write the story for Jack Kamen to draw in Crime SuspenStories or one of the horror titles. The girl would give the rat poison to her ex-lover. In "I Was A Flirt," the spanking at the end would turn into a gruesome panel in The Haunt of Fear drawn by "Ghastly" Ingels. No spanking, he'd be chopping her up with an ax.

Maybe I'm sick, but thinking about those scenarios made me enjoy the stories more.

From A Moon, A Girl, Romance #9, 1949:

















This is the last of my EC Pre-Trend postings for now. I will revisit the subject at some point in the future. I've had a lot of fun presenting these stories and hope you've enjoyed them, also.

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Hot Links

New blog noted: Blog Into Mystery. Not entirely Silver Age, but several of the posts do relate to that era. I like his comparison of the cover to Batman #165 and a mid-1980s Flash issue; I would never have caught the similarities, but it is clearly Infantino using key elements from one of his earlier covers.

Dick Giordano's passing gets tribute from Gorilla Daze. Giordano came to DC in the late 1960s and took editorship of several titles, including Teen Titans and Aquaman, among others. Giordano was at least partly responsible for bringing some of the younger talent to DC, including Denny O'Neill, Steve Skeates, Jim Aparo and Mike Friedrich. He was a long-standing penciller and (mostly) inker as well for DC. although I confess I don't recognize his work automatically, like I can with many of the other artists.

Booksteve has more on Giordano, particularly relating to Batman:

Dick Giordano drew a unique type of comic book realism. His superhero women were not the supercute, overly busty fanboy favorites. He didn't draw girls--he drew adults. He drew women who looked like women and looked genuinely heroic. He drew city scenes that looked more like real cities than anyone since Will Eisner (with the possible exception of the late Marshall Rogers). He drew a BATMAN who was a sane grown-up who would save me if I needed saving and do so for all the right reasons. He drew MY BATMAN.

Sounds like I need to do a post on Giordano for Nothing But Batman.

Silver Age Gold features a full Jack Davis story called Betsy from Two-Fisted Tales. Brilliant sequential artwork; Davis turns a pretty dull story into a breathtaking adventure.

Jacque Nodell scores an interview with Susan Loeb, an advice columnist for Marvel's romance comics. Is it too much to hope that someday she'll actually locate Marc, on the Man's Side?

Super ITCH has the background story on some sensational Golden Age original artwork featuring Jack Kirby on Captain America. I don't want to think what that first page, with Bucky and Cap in fine form is worth; I'd guess I could almost retire on it.

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Number 711


Dragula's April Fool by Toth


Alex Toth did this 5-page strip for Drag Cartoons publisher/editor/cartoonist Pete Millar in 1963. These are scans of the originals, dug out at some point in my career of internet mining.

Note the label for Grafix paper. That paper was chemically treated; a second chemical applied by a brush brought out a pattern that the lithographic camera saw as line art. Grafix was once called Craftint. In 2009 due to low sales and a changing market it was discontinued by its manufacturer. Goodbye to an era, comic book fans! Craftint/Grafix was used to great effect by some of the best cartoonists of the Golden Age.

Sadly, Millar died in 2003, "Den-Den" (cartoonist, later editor Dennis Ellefson) died in 1997, and Toth in 2006.

Tomorrow, back for one more posting from the EC New Trend era, as we find Feldstein and Ingels in love!

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