Oh, I'm a Lumberjack and I'm Okay...

For some reason, the writers, artists and editors of Superman found this image of the Man of Steel cutting down trees compelling:

There are quite a few more examples and I will add them as I find them. Here's an early one from Adventure #184:

The earliest one I've found so far is this one from Adventure #110, although it's somewhat different from the others in that Superman hurls a spinning circular saw at the trees:

Either way, it's apparent that Kal-El would not find himself welcome at a meeting of the Earth Liberation Front.

Update: Bryon in the comments points us to this dueling lumberjacks panel from Superman #199:


Update II: Another example from Superboy #106, pointed out in the comments by Dave:

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Number 937


I'd walk a camel for a mile


All American Western was the continuation of DC Comics' All American Comics. Western comics were popular in the late '40s and superheroes had lost their audience, so All American added "Western" to its banner and covered another genre entirely. This issue, #126, is the last under that title. In 1952 All American Western was canceled and replaced by All American Men of War, a title that lived on until 1966.

The last we see of Western action hero Johnny Thunder he and his girl are watching their horses return to them in the desert. They had just had an adventure with some Arab raiders on camels who tried to kill them. It's probably a story not likely to decrease tensions between our cultures. But camels in the Southwest, imported as pack animals, were a reality. The experiment of using them in the deserts of the United States territories just didn't work and by the Civil War the experiment was essentially over. As Western historian Will Bagley writes:

It wasn't that the camels couldn't adapt to the West; the West couldn't adapt to camels. They were not friendly animals, even to fellow camels, and they held grudges. Despite their bad temper and ability to spit the contents of their stomachs with the accuracy of a Kentucky marksman, it was camel stench that helped do them in. Odor usually was not an issue for Western muleskinners, but the slightest whiff of camel stench played havoc with a mule train. Sometime in 1865, camels stampeded a pack train bound for Missoula and turned the whiskey-bound town's Fourth of July celebration into Montana mud. It was not long before camels were banished from northern mining camps.

Their vast advantage as pack animals notwithstanding, it was America's affection for horses that doomed Western camel caravans. Camels and their legends long survived among the boomtowns and ranches of Arizona, Nevada, Colorado and Utah. A grizzled sideshow camel with a U.S. brand turned up in San Antonio in 1903. Arizona declared camels extinct in 1913, but hunters reported seeing them in the desert around Yuma into the 1950s.

As interesting as the history is, and it probably influenced this Johnny Thunder episode, it wasn't noted by the writer or editor Julius Schwartz, who loved to drop these types of facts into stories in the form of footnotes.

"Phantoms of the Desert" is written by Robert Kanigher, drawn by Carmine Infantino and Seymour Barry, from All American Western #126, 1952.

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Super-Swipe #8: The New Parents

Here's another one that's pretty easy to spot:


In both stories, a trouble-maker has advised juvenile court that Superboy is without parents. In both cases, Superboy tells the judge that he does have parents but he cannot reveal them without jeopardizing their safety. The judge is all set to send the Lad of Steel to a state home for boys, but fortunately for the town, there is a way out:


In both cases, the adopting couple intend to use Superboy to get rich, although not in the same way. In Adventure #176, Mr Smirt wants his new son to advertise a sale at his store (which competes with Pa Kent's). In Adventure #281, the Hurds intend to turn their residence into Superboy Land:

Superboy gets his newly adoptive parents to regret choosing him in similar ways:


And:


And in both stories, the judge comes to a sensible decision when Superboy points out that there is no proof he's a minor:

I find it interesting that in the reprise, it's a committee of local citizens who claim Superboy is an adult. Perhaps this is because of Weisinger's insistence that Superboy never tells a lie?

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Number 936


Grim Paree


Looking through some old crime comics I noticed that stories of Parisian criminals looked back at me from three of the five comics I leafed through. What was it about Paris that incited writers of crime comic books? France had been liberated from the Nazis just a couple of years before, yet there is no mention of war in any of the stories. Crime in any country is much the same as any other country, and god knows the USA has enough crime of its own. But Paris, to those comic book scripters of 60+ years ago, must've been a very exotic place, full of people who wore neckerchiefs, and exclaimed "Parbleu!" or "Sacre bleu!" They had the bleus in Paree in those days...

From Crime and Punishment #2, 1948 comes "The Plague Of Paris," illustrated by Fred Guardineer, he of the fastidious ink line. It is a reprint from its older sister magazine, Crime Does Not Pay #48, from 1946. And speaking of Crime Does Not Pay, Rudi Palais, his usual over-reliance on flying sweat drops missing from "The Blonde Queen of Crime," does the illustrative honors, picturing the blonde queen in fishnet stockings and her man in a beret, thus apprising us via such visualizations that yes, they are Frenchies! The story is from issue #39, 1945.

Our last story was drawn by Bob Butts, who signed his name R. Butts in the penultimate panel of page 7. I have featured the splash panel before in Pappy's #727, in my continuing quest to find all the swiped figures of what I call "Jeepers Girls."* The story, "Murders On The Rue Brevet," set in Paris in 1925 is from Pay-Off #1, a crime comic from 1948.
























*More Jeepers Girls here.

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Number 935


Rubeny


When the Filipino comic artists were introduced to us American comic book readers nearly 40 years ago, I quickly came up with some favorites whose work I looked for. Ruben Yandoc, who sometimes went under the name Rubeny, is an artist I like. Yandoc had honed his skills for years in the local Philippine comics industry. The blog, PilipinoKomiks says, "Yandoc was at his best when illustrating fantasy and horror stories, the kind of which I consider Philippine gothic. It was a very popular genre in the early years of komiks in the Philippines." He includes a 4-page story by Yandoc from 1951.

These stories are some from copies of DC's mystery comics I had close at hand. "Fear Is A Nameless Voice" is written by George Kashdan and is from The Unexpected #143, 1973; "The Totem's Threat" by Carl Wessler and Yandoc, is from The Unexpected #147; "Over My Dead Body," also by Wessler, is from The Witching Hour #34. Kashdan also wrote "Blood Of Our Fathers," for The Witching Hour #42, 1974, which fits the description of gothic.

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