Boy Comics 3 3

[frozentundraguy]

Yeah, it's not a big deal. I bought it knowing there was a page missing. But when I mentioned the missing page to a few people they suggested it might be made that way, so I got excited briefly at the thought that I might have a complete copy after all.

 

But hell, I never read the text stories anyway.

 

 

"But hell, I never read the text stories anyway."

 

+1

 

For some reason I thought I had posted more than one Boy Comic here.

 

The second to last issue in the run, with Kubert art.

 

Edited January 19, 2013 by frozentundraguy

[Crimebuster]

Received this in the mail today, at long last. I don't know why it was so hard to find an affordable copy of this issue, but it was like pulling teeth:

 

 

 

 

 

This plugs the last gap in my run from #11-119. So I am pretty happy.

 

 

[Sqeggs]

Received this in the mail today, at long last. I don't know why it was so hard to find an affordable copy of this issue, but it was like pulling teeth:

 

 

 

 

 

This plugs the last gap in my run from #11-119. So I am pretty happy.

 

 

Congrats! (thumbs u

[adamstrange]

That's a cover that only makes sense for WWII when sugar was rationed and black market supplies were worth a pretty penny.

 

Congratulations!

 

Received this in the mail today, at long last. I don't know why it was so hard to find an affordable copy of this issue, but it was like pulling teeth:

 

 

 

 

 

This plugs the last gap in my run from #11-119. So I am pretty happy.

 

[Flex Mentallo]

I've owned three different copies of this book over the past 10 years or so. Finally found one I'm happy with.

 

[rjpb]

That's a cover that only makes sense for WWII when sugar was rationed and black market supplies were worth a pretty penny.

 

Congratulations!

 

Received this in the mail today, at long last. I don't know why it was so hard to find an affordable copy of this issue, but it was like pulling teeth:

 

 

 

 

 

This plugs the last gap in my run from #11-119. So I am pretty happy.

 

 

Sometimes I think Biro forgot he was doing a superhero cover not a CDNP cover. Whacking dudes in the head with a monkey wrench is pretty brutal.

[mrmyst]

I've owned three different copies of this book over the past 10 years or so. Finally found one I'm happy with.

 

You lucky doggie. I've seen that book and it's spectacular. Here's mine. Thought it looked nice in a PGX 6.0 holder. Cracked out to reveal a coupon torn out of the last ad page. But, I still love it.

[pmpknface]

Received this in the mail today, at long last. I don't know why it was so hard to find an affordable copy of this issue, but it was like pulling teeth:

 

This plugs the last gap in my run from #11-119. So I am pretty happy.

 

Very nicely done! What is going on here? They stealing butter and sugar? I love how Squeeks is tipping his hat to the dude they knocked out.

[vaillant]

Sometimes I think Biro forgot he was doing a superhero cover not a CDNP cover. Whacking dudes in the head with a monkey wrench is pretty brutal.

 

The titles were cross-advertised on each other.

The approach to stories is very varied, I can speak for Daredevil only but I think Biro and the other authors weren’t worried to forcedly fit a book into genre labels, which would have eventually come later, anyway.

 

Judging from the inside editorial pieces and ads Crime was supposed to be aimed at parents, while Daredevil to a more younger audience, as Boy Comics I suppose.

Even more: as the climate towards "crime" books started to heaten, Biro focused more and more his attention (on Daredevil) on moral themes, and Daredevil and the Little Wise Guys reflected on the various situations in stories which had a pretty educational value as well.

[Crimebuster]

Received this in the mail today, at long last. I don't know why it was so hard to find an affordable copy of this issue, but it was like pulling teeth:

 

This plugs the last gap in my run from #11-119. So I am pretty happy.

 

Very nicely done! What is going on here? They stealing butter and sugar? I love how Squeeks is tipping his hat to the dude they knocked out.

 

 

They appear to be black marketeers capitalizing on wartime shortages, yeah.

 

However, this issue was actually released in the summer of 1946. As a result, the stories inside aren't specifically about war profiteering (though there was such a story in #12). Instead, the first story is about G.I.'s returning from the war in Europe only to become easy marks for scam artists looking to bilk them out of their war pay. It's a very interesting tale to read now, very topical.

 

The second story, on the other hand...

 

Well, here's the splash page from the criminally underrated Norman Maurer.

 

 

 

This does happen in the story and it's even more gruesome than it looks here, as the husband smashes a lit kerosine lamp on his wife, engulfing her in flames. Then he loads her in the car and as she moans for help, all delirious with agony, he drives around in circles until she dies. It's right up there among the most gruesome deaths in the whole series.

[Flex Mentallo]

 

 

Well, here's the splash page from the criminally underrated Norman Maurer.

 

 

 

This does happen in the story and it's even more gruesome than it looks here, as the husband smashes a lit kerosine lamp on his wife, engulfing her in flames. Then he loads her in the car and as she moans for help, all delirious with agony, he drives around in circles until she dies. It's right up there among the most gruesome deaths in the whole series.

 

Wow! Any chance of seeing the whole story?

[vaillant]

To be honest, I prefer the late Maurer. Occasionally he was nice, but he was still learning to draw.

[pmpknface]

 

 

Well, here's the splash page from the criminally underrated Norman Maurer.

 

 

 

This does happen in the story and it's even more gruesome than it looks here, as the husband smashes a lit kerosine lamp on his wife, engulfing her in flames. Then he loads her in the car and as she moans for help, all delirious with agony, he drives around in circles until she dies. It's right up there among the most gruesome deaths in the whole series.

 

Wow! Any chance of seeing the whole story?

 

Whoa. Yeah, I'd love to see what she did to provoke this tool into torching her. What, did she burn the roast?

[Flex Mentallo]

Imagine if it had been on the cover like this one

 

 

 

[rjpb]

Has anyone charted the thematic shifts in Boy Comics. From the covers and what little interior art and story I've seen scanned, it seems to go from boy hero fights WW2 villains to gritty violent crime stories to teen adventure to an ongoing battle between Crimebuster and Iron Jaw to some weird crime/humor hybrid where Sniffer vexes Iron Jaw then back to teen adventure and ending with an emphasis on sports adventure stories.

 

For those that collect and read the title I was wondering what are your most and least favorite eras?

[vaillant]

The early issues are by no means a mere "boy hero fights WW2 villains".

Biro constantly made the characters evolve, so although you can generally delineate thematic strands, it is always good enough not to fall into the trap of a "genre".

 

Of course, I speak more of Daredevil, but from the few I have read of Boy it‘s more or less the same. Personally I prefer the wartime material, as it is more varied.

For example, on Boy #20 there is a war-related story but without standard "WW2 villains" like Iron Jaw. In fact, I think Iron Jaw is not so interesting per se.

[Crimebuster]

Basically how it goes is like so, from my perspective:

 

Boy Comics #3-17 or so feature Crimebuster in a kind of pseudo-superhero mode.He has a supervillain arch enemy, Iron Jaw, who dies in #15. He also fights a few other "supervillains," such as He-She in #9 and the incredibly lame The Moth in #17, which is just an arsonist with no powers and a dumb nickname. These stories are mostly fairly short and relatively straightforward, though often weird (again, He-She) and usually topical (not just fighting WWII villains, but actually taking on home front issues, such as in #12 where Crimebuster goes undercover to expose a black market ring of profiteers).

 

Issues #18-27 or so feature a lot of growth in the characterization. The stories become longer, with more dialogue that delves into the motivations of the criminals and their crimes. Thematically, with the superhero stuff gone (other than CB still wearing his costume), the series becomes a true crime series. However, Biro hasn't really hit his stride yet, so the later complexity still isn't quite there.

 

Issues #28-44 is what I consider to be the best era of Boy Comics, where Biro really hits his stride, particulary in the late 30's and early 40's. By the end of this period, Crimebuster has pushed all the other characters out of the book and now gets 2-3 long stories every issue. Often, Crimebuster himself doesn't even show up in the story until the third act, stepping in on page 15 or 18 to solve the crime and bring the perp to justice. These are really detailed looks at crimes, motivations and are basically just straight up morality plays. Some great, great stuff.

 

Issues #45-59 during this period, Biro starts easing off the hard crime and starts moving towards what I would call public service stories. There are certainly still crime stories with murders and stuff, but there are also a lot of stories about sports, cheating in school, juvenile deliquency, the dangers of racing cars, etc. These stories read like the great PSA movies from the late 1940's and early 1950's they would show in classrooms to scare kids straight.

 

Issues #60-74 With #60, the series takes a turn. Iron Jaw returns from the dead. In the same issue, we have one of my favorite comic book moments of all time, where Crimebuster's supporting cast have an intervention to tell him that, well, nobody wanted to mention it, but he looks like a fool wearing a superhero costume around town. He gets in a fight with them over his clothes, but by the end of the issue he's ditched everything except his signature hockey sweater, losing the cape and replacing his hockey pants with slacks. It's a fantastic bit of meta-commentary on the demise of the superhero genre, and I think this is entirely intentional on Biro's part. [note: this issue has a cover date of December, 1949 - right when the superhero era was crashing to an end]

 

The last superhero vestiges are gone with this issue, though ironically at the same time they bring back his supervillain arch-enemy. Iron Jaw begins appearing regularly as an antagonist again, meaning there is less room for morality plays and PSAs and more straightforward hero vs. villain stuff, though with a Cold War twist. Crimebuster also loses one story slot to Dilly Duncan, a lame Archie ripoff.

 

Issues #75-96 By far the worst section of the series, these issues feature more and more Iron Jaw and less and less Crimebuster. In a rare three-issue arc, in #80-82, Crimebuster battles a dumb supervillain named The Vacuum, while Iron Jaw teams up with Sniffer and the Deadly Dozen. These knobs end up taking over the book, relegating CB to one little 8 page backup. The lead stories with Iron Jaw and Sniffer are tedious "comedy" stories, while Crimebuster, stuck with just a few pages to work with, begins having more adventure-themed stories with less hard crime and less character work.

 

The only "highlight" of these issues, beyond the still-decent Crimebuster backup, is the new Rocky X backup, which starts in #75 and runs until the end of the series. Rocky X is an astronaut in the future who visits other planets and fights aliens and the like. It's actually... more boring than it sounds, but at one point he does battle the classic Biro supervillain The Claw.

 

Issues #97-119 Crimebuster returns to the cover spot and starts getting longer stories again. The series becomes boy's adventure, with CB doing stuff like bullfighting, flying stunt airplanes and the like. #107 is a major turning point for the title. Biro was faced with the impending creation of the Comics Code, which would eventually prohibit him from even using the character's name - Crimebuster - because it had the word "crime" in it. So he came up with a typically realistic story to deal with this. Basically, the powers that be suddenly realize that an unlicensed, unregulated teenager is running rampant in their police department. Crimebuster is given an ultimatum: If he wants to keep fighting crime, he has to actually get a degree, then go to police academy and become an actual cop. Loover then gets Crimebuster a position at a school called Curtiss Tech, where he can get a diploma before heading to police academy. The rest of the series is CB under his real name of Chuck Chandler doing Hardy Boys style adventures while dealing with the reality of being in a high school environment, complete with an Archie-style cast of new teen supporting characters. It's a radical shift, but Biro still makes it work.

 

One very odd note: Just as Crimebuster becomes a teen adventure series, Rocky X - the sci-fi backup series about an astronaut in the future fighting aliens - somehow transitions into a Korean War series, with Rocky X and his sidekick fighting the red menace in Asia as soldiers. Don't ask me to explain how they made that shift.

Edited March 7, 2013 by Crimebuster

[Flex Mentallo]

Basically how it goes is like so, from my perspective:

 

Boy Comics #3-17 or so feature Crimebuster in a kind of pseudo-superhero mode.Hhe has a supervillain arch enemy, Iron Jaw, who dies in #15. He also fights a few other "supervillains," such as He-She in #9 and the incredibly lame The Moth in #17, which is just an arsonist with no powers and a dumb nickname. These stories are mostly fairly short and relatively straightforward, though often weird (again, He-She) and usually topical (not just fighting WWII villains, but actually taking on home front issues, such as in #12 where Crimebuster goes undercover to expose a black market ring of profiteers).

 

Issues #18-27 or so feature a lot of growth in the characterization. The stories become longer, with more dialogue that delves into the motivations of the criminals and their crimes. Thematically, with the superhero stuff gone (other than CB still wearing his costume), the series becomes a true crime series. However, Biro hasn't really hit his stride yet, so the later complexity still isn't quite there.

 

Issues #28-44 is what I consider to be the best era of Boy Comics, where Biro really hits his stride, particulary in the late 30's and early 40's. By the end of this period, Crimebuster has pushed all the other characters out of the book and now gets 2-3 long stories every issue. Often, Crimebuster himself doesn't even show up in the story until the third act, stepping in on page 15 or 18 to solve the crime and bring the perp to justice. These are really detailed looks at crimes, motivations and are basically just straight up morality plays. Some great, great stuff.

 

Issues #45-59 during this period, Biro starts easing off the hard crime and starts moving towards what I would call public service stories. There are certainly still crime stories with murders and stuff, but there are also a lot of stories about sports, cheating in school, juvenile deliquency, the dangers of racing cars, etc. These stories read like the great PSA movies from the late 1940's and early 1950's they would show in classrooms to scare kids straight.

 

Issues #60-74 With #60, the series takes a turn. Iron Jaw returns from the dead. In the same issue, we have one of my favorite comic book moments of all time, where Crimebuster's supporting cast have an intervention to tell him that, well, nobody wanted to mention it, but he looks like a fool wearing a superhero costume around town. He gets in a fight with them over his clothes, but by the end of the issue he's ditched everything except his signature hockey sweater, losing the cape and replacing his hockey pants with slacks. It's a fantastic bit of meta-commentary on the demise of the superhero genre, and I think this is entirely intentional on Biro's part. [note: this issue has a cover date of December, 1949 - right when the superhero era was crashing to an end]

 

The last superhero vestiges are gone with this issue, though ironically at the same time they bring back his supervillain arch-enemy. Iron Jaw begins appearing regularly as an antagonist again, meaning there is less room for morality plays and PSAs and more straightforward hero vs. villain stuff, though with a Cold War twist. Crimebuster also loses one story slot to Dilly Duncan, a lame Archie ripoff.

 

Issues #75-96 By far the worst section of the series, these issues feature more and more Iron Jaw and less and less Crimebuster. In a rare three-issue arc, in #80-82, Crimebuster battles a dumb supervillain named The Vacuum, while Iron Jaw teams up with Sniffer and the Deadly Dozen. These knobs end up taking over the book, relegating CB to one little 8 page backup. The lead stories with Iron Jaw and Sniffer are tedious "comedy" stories, while Crimebuster, stuck with just a few pages to work with, begins having more adventure-themed stories with less hard crime and less character work.

 

Issues #97-119 Crimebuster returns to the cover spot and starts getting longer stories again. The series becomes boy's adventure, with CB doing stuff like bullfighting, flying stunt airplanes and the like. #107 is a major turning point for the title. Biro was faced with the impending creation of the Comics Code, which would eventually prohibit him from even using the character's name - Crimebuster - because it had the word "crime" in it. So he came up with a typically realistic story to deal with this. Basically, the powers that be suddenly realize that an unlicensed, unregulated teenager is running rampant in their police department. Crimebuster is given an ultimatum: If he wants to keep fighting crime, he has to actually get a degree, then go to police academy and become an actual cop. Loover then gets Crimebuster a position at a school called Curtiss Tech, where he can get a diploma before heading to police academy. The rest of the series is CB under his real name of Chuck Chandler doing Hardy Boys style adventures while dealing with the reality of being in a high school environment, complete with an Archie-style cast of new teen supporting characters. It's a radical shift, but Biro still makes it work.

 

Great post!

[vaillant]

Indeed,.

 

Hey CB, did the story I tried to identify from that gentlemen’s memories was correct? I’d love to get in touch with him!

[Crimebuster]

Indeed,.

 

Hey CB, did the story I tried to identify from that gentlemen’s memories was correct? I’d love to get in touch with him!

 

I believe it was correct, but I haven't heard for sure. I passed the info on to Brian Cronin, the guy who runs the Comics Should Be Good website and who was heading the search. I will pm you Brian's contact info if you want to email him.