A Month in the Life of the Comics 4 4

[Scrooge]

# 176

 

Prison Break! # 3 - Bought from Jim Payette

 

Content:

Cover by ?

IFC by Tex Blaisdell

Killers on the Loose! Francine O'Connor - The Empress of Crime by Tex Blaisdell 7 pgs

Sonny Terhune, Machine-gun Madman! by Goldfard and Baer 7 pgs

Lina Foyle ... Gunmoll! by ? 7 pgs

Cleveland's Butcher of Death! 1 pg text

Two-Dollar Murder! 1 pg text

Death Comes Laughing by [sid Greene] 4 pgs

 

We're back exploring the dark side of human nature and mired in broken dreams and shattered lives with Avon's Prison Break, a title companion to Famous Gangsters, Gangsters and Gun Molls, Murderous Gangsters, Parole Breakers and Police Lineup (which I all have ). Should I admit to have enjoy my foray into crime after a couple of Romance books? I found the cover feature, Killers on the Loose! to be enjoyable then Linda Foyle and bringing the rear were Sonny Terhune and Death Comes Laughing.

 

 

Our main feature today is Philip (Tex) Blaisdell [3/30/1920-3/14/1999].

 

Tex was born in Houston, Texas, and studied at the Art Student League and at the College of Hard Knocks. He was in the American Air Force for four years. For a period of thirteen years, he has cooperated on the strips by Stan Drake, Irwin Hasen, Wingert, Bud Sagendorf and Al Capp. By 1940, he had already drawn 'Dean Denton' for Centaur Publishing and worked extensively for Quality in the early 40's. He continued the 'Little Orphan Annie' strip after Harold Gray's death in 1968. As a member of Leonard Starr's studios, he was responsible for the backgrounds of 'On Stage'. He was also an inker on DC comic books like 'Green Lantern', 'Adam Strange', 'Superman', Flash' and 'Batman' throuhout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

 

Blaisdell assisted on so many strips that recently Hy Eisman (see the Popeye entry) who also did his share of uncredited strip work stated that: "Somehow, over the years, I had become known as the poor man's Tex Blaisdell. He always joked that he was known as the rich man's Hy Eisman! Blaisdell was incredible. He really stepped in on Annie when Gray passed away. He had been doing it for a while, but his work was great."

 

All told, Blaisdell worked on such well-known strips as such Apartment 3-G, Big Ben Bolt, Dondi, Flash Gordon, Heart of Juliet Jones, Li'l Abner, Little Orphan Annie, On Stage, Prince Valiant, Rip Kirby, The Spirit, Popeye! Wow! Eisman refers to Blaisdell longest run which was on Little Orphan Annie from 1968 to 1974. Later in life, Blaisdell continued to make his mark in the industry while training the next generation of artist, teaching at the Joe Kubert School of Comic Art. Blaisdell also won the 1976 National Cartoonist Society award for Best Story Comic Book Artist.

 

According to his obituary, he was survived by his wife of 57 years, Elaine French. Elaine French is the sister to French, another Quality artist best known for his work on Blackhawk and Lady Luck. Tex's sister was herself married to another artist: Bill Fraccio, best known for his work for Charlton.

 

The fourth story is signed in the splash simply as Sid. There are more than one possible Sid but I think it is Sid Greene who did some other work for Avon. You can see one of his signed pages for Atlas's Bible Tales for Young Folk # 5 (1954).

 

Tex Blaisdell's Inside Front Cover -

 

Killers on the Loose! Splash -

 

Killers on the Loose! Page - The top left panel is the one depicted on the cover.

 

Killers on the Loose! - She's really the Empress of Crime!

 

Sonny Terhune Splash - We've seen the Golfard / Baer team many times before -

 

Lina Foyle ... Gunmoll! Splash -

 

Lina Foyle ... Gunmoll! Page - Oww, catty!

 

Cleveland's Butcher of Death! 1 pg text -

 

I actually read this page and it sounded true and it is. Here's a picture of Frank Dolezal when he was arrested,

 

and an excerpt from a Time 1939 article about the arrest -

Monday, Jul. 17, 1939 - Cleveland's Butcher -

 

''The Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run" is a character with whom Cleveland newspapers have curdled their readers' blood since 1934, when the first of 13 dissected torsos was discovered in the city's purlieus. Neatly beheaded, arms and legs deftly removed, the grisly remains of seven men and six women suggested the work of a fiend acquainted with the meat-chopping profession. As one killing after another came to light periodically, Cleveland's harried sheriff hired a private detective named Lawrence J. ("Pat") Lyons to work on the case.

 

Last spring Pat Lyons found something. Having looked for but failed to discover a refrigerated slaughter chamber where the Butcher might have worked, he made friends with a circle of human scum in which two of the identified victims had moved: Mrs. Florence Polillo (No. 4), a prostitute, and Edward W. Andrassy (No. 2), a pervert. From their friends Pat Lyons learned that one Frank Dolezal knew them both, that he was with the Polillo woman the night police believed she was killed. Frank Dolezal drank a good deal, was fond of knives. Block-jawed, muscular, he used to be a butcher, now laid bricks.

 

In rooms formerly occupied by Dolezal, Pat Lyons found crumbs of human blood between the floor boards, behind the bathtub. Arrested, Dolezal withstood 40 hours of questioning before he blurted: "Yes, I cut her up."

 

Hopeful that he had the author of all 13 atrocities, Cleveland's Sheriff Martin L. O'Donnell breathed a long sigh of relief. Politically, his skin was saved. Professionally, he had triumphed over Sleuth Eliot Ness, famed G-Man who "got" Al Capone and is now Cleveland's Director of Public Safety."

 

Death Comes Laughing Splash -

 

Death Comes Laughing Final Page - Scientific explanation using Oxygen just for Jack -

[selegue]

Replying to an old write-up.

I just got a copy of Mutt & Jeff # 56 and realized that it fit your date set. On checking to see whether you already had it, I found this page. Thanks for pointing it out! now I have my very own copy.

 

Jack

 

# 154

 

Mutt & Jeff # 56 - eBay purchase

 

Mutt & Jeff Page - This one's for Jack -

 

[Scrooge]

# 177

 

Prize Comics Western # 92 - Bought from Ted at Wonderworld Comics

 

 

Contents:

Cover by John Severin and Will Elder

American Eagle in Renegades in YellowStone by Severin / Elder 9 pgs

American Eagle in Flight of the Eagle by Severin / Elder 7 pgs

Jeff Baker in Buffalo Stampede by Moe Markus and Rocco Mastroserio 7 pgs

American Eagle in Flames of Treachery by Severin / Elder 6 pgs

 

Prize Comics Western is part of the small Prize output for the Month. Prize put out only a total of 6 books: Frankenstein, Headline, Justice Traps the Guilty, Prize Comics Western and their companion Romance titles: Young Love and Young Romance. As posted elsewhere, it's evident I do like this series -

 

The attractiveness of this series is truly the saga of American Eagle. This is the rare 1950's character with some continuity in terms of both adventures / stories and of a recurring characters cast. The credit for this success is mainly Severin's. As John Garcia and John Benson state in Squa Tront # 11,

 

"One might say that John Severin’s mature career started at a very specific moment – with two comics cover-dated January-February 1951: Prize Comics Western 85, which featured the first appearance of American Eagle, and Two-Fisted Tales 19, which featured his first work for Harvey Kurtzman at EC. After serving an apprenticeship at Prize and the Timely bullpen, and developing a more sophisticated style at several companies, notably with The Lazo Kid and the Black Bull in Prize Comics Western, Severin was finally given material worthy of his talents. American Eagle was a novelty – a lead feature starring a Crow Indian chief (not a half-breed, not a white man raised among Indians). The initial concept was not Severin’s, but he quickly made the series his, installing his own writer, Colin Dawkins, and assisting in the plotting of the stories and the development of the characters. The strip wasn’t completely authentic – American Eagle always wore his full red, white and blue headdress – but Severin’s love of Indian and Western lore and customs found the perfect outlet, and horses, clothing, scenery and especially the people all had the feel of authenticity. Typical of Severin’s interest in character is his and Dawkins’ creation of Eagle’s humorous homicidal sidekick, Laughing Dog, whom they developed into a major personality. Severin himself has a cameo in PCW 95 as Blackjack Powers, gun runner and whiskey trader to the Blackfeet. When the Blackfoot chief speaks of white men’s gree, Powers just scratches his head and says, “Aw, Chief!” with a sheepish expression. Powers is both embarrassed and villainous, a subtle combination rarely seen in comic book villains."

 

 

"Because Severin controlled and shaped American Eagle from beginning to end the series quickly became as densely realized an illustrated world as Foster’s Prince Valiant – and a lot less anachronistic!”

 

All told, American Eagle appeared in 63 stories or 438 pages of which Severin illustrated 304 or about 70%.

 

The cover to issue # 100 features the cast of characters -

 

Writer Colin Dawkins remembers that:

 

"Laughing Dog was a character I invented; we needed a foil. Buck Dolan I inherited, he was in the first stories. But he was kind of a too-good-to-be-true character, and I felt that we needed a little bit of a counterfoil. So we established the little dramatic confrontations between American Eagle and Laughing Dog. And I tried to make something a little sharper out of the Kansas Hawk; he’d been a little bit of a Gabby Hayes-type character. Then I felt that, among other things, because the kids were getting so interested in the character, we ought to show them where he came from, and that’s why I wrote “The Coming of the Eagle.”

 

The Coming of the Eagle Splash -

 

The Coming of the Eagle Final Page -

 

Before showcasing this issue's stories, let me show an example of the additional care Severin took when putting this book together such as this illustrated page about Indian culture -

 

and the fact that this cover to issue # 96 -

 

is an homage to this Charles Russell's painting -

 

Renegades in YellowStone Splash -

 

Renegades in YellowStone Page -

 

Flight of the Eagle Splash -

 

Flight of the Eagle Page -

 

Buffalo Stampede Splash -

 

Flames of Treachery Splash -

 

The magazine also contained this general public announcement -

 

Severin's work in the pages of Prize Comics Western goes back to issue # 72. Here are some examples from his work on the Black Bull and the Lazo Kid series -

 

Black Bull Splash -

 

Lazo Kid Splash -

 

P.S.: Of course, the American Eagle name had already been used in the pages of Nedor's publications:

 

"The American Eagle (with his sidekick Eaglet) was in reality a young scientist named Tom Standish who worked for the government. A mysterious black ray endowed both him and his young pal Bud Pierce with the flying and fighting qualities of America's national bird. They used their power to battle Nazi or Japanese saboteurs and invaders.

 

The American Eagle appeared in Exciting Comics nos. 22-27, 29-38, 40-47, and 49-50; The Fighting Yank no. 18; and America's Best Comics nos. 2, 6, 7, 10-12, and 14. The American Eagle's first appearance and origin was in America's Best Comics no. 2. Eaglet's first appearance and origin was in Exciting Comics no. 22."

 

American Eagle Splash -

 

American Eagle Panel peddling War Bonds -

 

and, of course, Marvel had its own version of American Eagle, Jason Strongbow in the 80's -

[EdMann-migration]

These posts are great! It's always nice to see a new update. Keep up the great work!

[Scrooge]

# 178

 

Rangers Comics # 63 - Bought from Doug Sulipa

 

 

Contents:

Cover by ?

Firehair by Ken Battlefield 10 pgs

Space Rangers in The Quest for Lost Atlantis by Murphy Anderson 3 pgs

Desperado Feature - Billy the Kid by ? 1 pg

Jan of the Jungle by Enrico Bagnoli 6 pgs

Cowboy Bob by ? 6 pgs

 

Ahh, back to a Big 6 title from Fiction House. It is always nice for me to come to a book I have had for a while but never had / took the time to read and actually enjoy the comic. The art in this issue is appealing as you'll see.

 

 

We're catching Rangers towards the end of its run as the title ended with issue # 69. As Michele Nolan states:

 

"Rangers Comics was the last of Fiction House's much-advertised "Big Six of the Comics." Rangers was never monthly and was the first of the "Big Six" to be canceled, with #69 (Winter 1952–53). The title was filled with war-themed stories through 1945, then became an intriguing anthology title. The title came full-circle when the last four issues (#66–69) featured a Korean War version of Commando Rangers.

 

Rangers #1–5 covers featured a kid costume hero group, the Rangers of Freedom, although the strip became a Marine hero story with #5 (the cover to #5 was a mistaken carryover of the kid group). One of the first attempts at a horror theme, Werewolf Hunter, began in #8 (Dec. 1943). A quasi-costume hero, Commando Ranger, appeared in #13–20.

 

Rangers is best known for featuring one of the finest of the Western heroines—Firehair, Queen of the Sagebrush Frontier. She debuted in #21 (Feb. 1945) and ran through #65 (June 1952) while serving as the cover feature for #40–65 with many of the best Fiction House covers of the 1948–52 period. A good horror strip, The Secret Files of Dr. Drew, ran in #47–60, with art by Jerry Grandenetti. As the Overstreet Guide indicates, his work in #47–56 strongly shows the influence of Will Eisner and has long been a favorite with collectors.

 

Like Planet, the post-war issues of Rangers often offer attractive artists' work, including work by John Celardo, Matt Baker, Bob Lubbers, Ruben Moreira and Maurice Whitman. Again though, it's important to leaf through each issue. Fiction House comics tended to be produced in an assembly line manner and the result was anything but consistent."

 

As for an in-depth look at the artist line-up, even though Ken Battlefield in his days did ton of works for many publishers, I know little about him as he died in 1963. Murphy Anderson of course has had an extended career of several decades but I will reserve that coverage for the Strange Adventures entry. This leaves us with the very interesting case of Enrico Bagnoli. The following is taken from Alberto Becattini's information given to Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr. and printed in AE # 32 (January 2004) -

 

 

"Born in Milan on August 21, 1925, Enrico Bagnoli drew his first comic strip at 15. By the mid-‘40s his style was very developed, modeled after such American masters as Alex Raymond and Hal Foster. In 1945, Bagnoli drew a science-fiction story entitled “Il terrore di Allagalla” (“The Terror of Allagalla”), which might have been his passport to American comic books. In late 1947, Bagnoli was approached by an Italian-American who happened to be in touch with American publishers. Perhaps he had seen Bagnoli’s art in Allagalla, and thought that the young artist could draw sf stories for American comic books, as well. As Bagnoli himself recalls, “This guy whose name I can no longer remember, had a double nationality, so that he would spend six months in Italy and six months in the States every year. He asked me if I was interested in drawing comics for American publishers. You can bet I was! He was not a professional agent, but got me the job, acting as an intermediary with the publishers.” It is not certain whether the Italian-American agent was dealing directly with Fiction House or with the Iger Studio (indications favor the former), but what counts is that the 23-year-old Bagnoli was now drawing for American comic books on a regular basis.

 

Besides tackling “Futura” in Planet Comics, Bagnoli illustrated the adventures of the Mowgli-inspired “Jan of the Jungle” in Rangers Comics, beginning with issue # 42 until the series’ demise in Rangers # 63. In Jungle Comics, Bagnoli succeeded Maurice Whitman as the regular artist on “Tabu.” He drew the adventures of this young and handsome jungle magician from # 116 until the strip ended in # 137.

 

[…] In 1950 Bagnoli decided to take a trip to the States, and he stayed in New York for six months. This was the perfect opportunity to fire his Italian-American agent (“He got the checks from the publishers, but I soon found out that his percentages were far too high”) and to personally explore potential employers. At 480 Lexington Avenue, he talked with the National / DC editors (“For DC, I drew a couple of covers and possibly a western story, but I’m not sure.”) Then he went to St. John, whose offices were on the eighth floor at 545 Fifth Avenue. In both case he introduced himself by his own name, but “they couldn’t pronounce my surname. They kept saying “Bag-no-li” instead of Bañoli (bahn-yo-lee). That’s when I decided to be called “Martin,” which was easier for all to say and remember.”

 

Thus it happened that, with that pen name, or simply with an “M.,” Bagnoli signed the first few stories he drew for St. John Publishing, the very first of which appeared in Authentic Police Cases # 15. For that title, Bagnoli would draw most of his comic book stories during the next three years. “I was my own agent now,” the artist recalls. “St. John would send me the typewritten scripts on yellow sheets, and I would draw them at home in Milan. When I was finished with a story, I would go to the airport and ship the art to the U.S. by registered mail.”

 

[…] The contributions of Enrico Bagnoli and his associates to U.S. comic books ended in late 1953, as the last stories drawn by Bagnoli and Canale for St. John appeared in Authentic Police Cases # 33 (May 1954). […] By the way- at 75 years old, Enrico Bagnoli is still working full time at the drawing board. After illustrating comics and books for Italy, Germany, France, and Great Britain, since 1985 he has been one of the regular artists on the Martin Mystère strip. He signs his works with the pen name – “Henry Martin”!

 

Firehair Splash -

 

similar to Firehair # 6 's cover -

 

Firehair Page -

 

Space Rangers in The Quest for Lost Atlantis Complete Story -

 

Jan of the Jungle Splash -

 

Jan of the Jungle Page -

 

Cowboy Bob Splash -

 

P.S.: Thanks for the kind words. I know you guys are reading and I hope you're still enjoying the posts. I know the PCW one was more image-heavy than usual.

[selegue]

# 178

 

Rangers Comics # 63 - Bought from Doug Sulipa....

P.S.: Thanks for the kind words. I know you guys are reading and I hope you're still enjoying the posts. I know the PCW one was more image-heavy than usual.

 

Fantastic articles this week. How can you crank these out at the end of the semester? I don't even have time to finish reading them this week!

Like your women in flowered sarongs fetish or the women in tubes fetish over at BangZoom's place, you've found mine. Voluptous red-haired heroines front and center. If I were to get hooked on Golden Age collecting, Firehair and Rangers would probably be my starting point. Unfortunately, that would mean competing with hoards of GGA and Fiction House collectors.

 

That Murphy Anderson story is gorgeous!

 

More comments later, I hope.

 

Jack

[Scrooge]

Fantastic articles this week. How can you crank these out at the end of the semester? I don't even have time to finish reading them this week!

 

Grading procrastination and a (next) Friday final and my wife has concert series this week and next so I have my evenings free.

[Point Five]

P.S.: Thanks for the kind words. I know you guys are reading and I hope you're still enjoying the posts.

 

[Scrooge]

# 179

 

Real Clue Crime Stories v.7 # 1 - eBay Purchase

 

Content:

Black Day in June by ? 7 pgs

His Father's House by ? 6 pgs

The Rusty Graveyard by ? 6 pgs

The Crown in the Mud by Mike Roy 6 pgs

 

This is the companion Crime title to Hillman's Crime Detective Comics. This is actually a long-running title: 72 issues after the series switched from Clue Comics after the first 15 issues in June 1947. Considering that the last Clue issues were also in fact Crime comics, the run should be considered about 77 issues long. The title stopped in 1953, presumably due to the increasing investigation in comics and juvenile deliquency.

 

 

At this point, I was contemplating comparing its longevity to others in the genre but, of course, The Crime Boss website is well ahead of me and offers this analysis about Crime comic tenure:

 

"How many anthology crime comics--that is, those not devoted to a primary character, such as Tracy or Mr. District Attorney--ran as many as 25 issues?

 

Crime Does Not Pay from Lev Gleason, which had the anthology crime comic genre to itself from 1942-46, had the longest run from #22 in 1942 through #147 in 1955. Gleason’s other crime title, Crime and Punishment, ran 74 issues from 1948-55.

 

Prize/Crestwood published the second-longest running title, Justice Traps the Guilty, with #1-92 from 1947-58. The company also published a companion crime title, Headline Comics, #23-77.

 

The other long-running crime titles were: Marvel’s All-True Crime (Official True Crime for its first two issues) #24-52 and Justice Comics (Tales of Justice for the last 16 issues) #7-67.

 

Hillman’s Real Clue Crime Stories and Crime Detective, which ran 72 and 32 issues, respectively, in volume numbers.

 

Our Publishing’s Wanted Comics #9-53; St. John’s Authentic Police Cases #1-38; Ace’s Crime Must Pay the Penalty (just Penalty for its last two issues) #33 and #2-48.

 

DC’s Detective Comics (26 issues before Batman) and Gang Busters #1-67.

 

EC’s 27 issues of Crime SuspenStories.

 

Quality’s Police Comics #103-127 (following the abandonment of Plastic Man and other heroes).

 

Cross’s Perfect Crime #1-33.

 

No single comic book publisher ever really succeeded with more than two crime titles!

 

To be sure, there were many short-lived crime comics. The only major reference work on the subject, Benton’s Crime Comics from Taylor Publishing, lists some 115 anthology titles published from 1947-59. But their combined output was less than 700 issues! In other words, most crime comics were dismal financial failures.

 

As far as crime comics devoted to a single character, they were generally a flop. Benton lists some 44 of these through the 1950s, the vast majority of them based on characters first introduced in other media including the comic strips.

 

The only long-running single-character crime comic in history was Tracy, which ran #1-145 from Dell (#1-24) and Harvey (#25 on) from 1948-61, following several earlier one-shot appearances. [...] I wouldn’t be surprised if Tracy might have been one of those comic books read as often by adults as by children.

 

Ironically, DC Comics (then known as National Comics) published the No. 2 and 3 longest-running characters, both of them based on radio and television shows: Mr. District Attorney #1-67 from 1948-59 and Big Town #1-50 from 1950-58.

 

DC’s crime comics rarely departed from good taste, although a few of the early issues of Gang Busters were pretty gamy by DC standards. I can’t imagine too many parents objecting to them.

 

Mr. District Attorney and Big Town (starring the adventures of Illustrated Press editor Steve Wilson) are two of the most underrated of all comics in any genre. Their plot-heavy stories were always filled with gimmicks rather than violence and are still a joy to read. They are also among the few comics from the 1950s that still seem fresh today.

 

Only one other single character, newspaper strip detective Kerry Drake from Magazine Enterprises and Harvey, ran as many as 33 issues--unless you want to count that wonderful plague of spies and saboteurs in T-Man from Quality Comics.

 

The T-Man, Pete Trask, starred in 38 issues of his own title, running from 1950 until Quality folded at the end of 1956. He also starred in Police Comics. He was one of the characters not picked up by DC when it bought the rights to Quality, with his time apparently having passed with the diminished feeling about the Red Scare in the United States.

 

T-Man was the longest-running series based on an entirely original comic book character. Another such outstanding character from Quality, Ken Shannon, ran in Police Comics #103-127 and in 10 issues of his own title."

 

Before talking about the creative crew, let me also dredge up my taxonomy of Crime series:

 

In a parallel to a study of OTR Crime content by MacDonald, I assigned Crime comics to 3 sub-genres according to “[…] three strategic criteria which appeared in all detective shows: 1) the attitude of the program toward crime and its solution; 2) the function of the central character’s personality; and 3) the view of life and society presented in the story."

 

Under those criteria, the taxonomy spreads the following genres: 1) Realistic Detective, 2) Glamorous Detective and 3) Neo-Realistic Detective. I've in the past classified Real Clue Crime Stories under the Realistic Detective sub-genre where the stories "are traditional, conservative, and ploddingly rational in their approach to solving crimes. The stress of the series is upon the logical process by which crime is solved. In these programs crime is an undesirable dimension of social reality. Everything in such programs, from the personality of the detective to the perspective it presented on life and society, is peripheral and without strategic value to the more realistic goal of finding the villain and thereby carrying out justice.”

 

Re-reading this comic solidified the classification choice. While there is no detective in this story, you will see that the "villain" always gets its due in the end and quite harshly in this title. For that reason, I have scanned both the Splash page and the Final page for each story. The endings are the pages you need to read to understand the approach taken in these stories and there is the definite feeling that this was no accident but done under the order of the editor for the Crime line at Hillman.

 

As far as who worked on these stories, while the artist on the third story looks familiar from his work for other publishers, I don't know who he is and for the first two stories, these are usual artists for Hillman as I've seen their work repeatedly in the back-up pages of Airboy and The Heap in Airboy comics. Fortunately, Mike Roy signed his story so we will focus on him:

 

Mike Roy, of his birth name Joseph Michael Roy, studied at the High School of Industrial Art, as well as the Pratt Institute. He began his career in the 1940s, assisting Bill Everett, the creator of the original 'Sub-mariner' at Atlas Comics. He worked through the Funnies Inc. shop, and contributed to comic books by Holyoke Publications ('Hammerhead Hawley'), Archie Comics (funny titles), Hillman Periodical (crime, war and western) and various early DC books. He also appeared in Lev Gleason titles like 'Crime Does Not Pay', 'Crime and Punishment', 'Daredevil' and 'Desperado'. During the first half of the 1950s, Roy produced a large amount of artwork for the romance titles of Better Publications. He later also contributed to many Dell/Western titles.

 

Here's an excellent splash by Roy for a Heap story in Airboy Comics (1948) -

 

Despite the impressive resume above in the page of comic books, Roy's name is probably more interestingly associated with the comic strip universe for several reasons:

 

1) In 1947, Roy produced a "Mike Hammer" comic strip with Mickey Spillane. Spillane grew up in Brooklyn and Elizabeth, New Jersey and graduated from high school in Brooklyn right at the height of the Depression. A natural storyteller, he managed to sell a story or two to various magazines, but mostly he worked odd jobs (including a stint as a lifeguard) before enrolling at Fort Hays State College in Kansas, where he played football and swam competively.

 

He never graduated, though, and by 1940, he was working part-time in a New York department store during the Christmas rush. There he met another Brooklyn-born youth who introduced Spillane to his brother, Ray Gill, an editor in need of someone to churn out short pieces for his Timely Comics line (including prose in their comics allowed publishers to qualify for cheaper postal rates). Spillane proved up to the task, but left to join the U.S. Army Air Force in the wake of Pearl Harbor. He served his time as a flight instructor in Mississippi, where he met his first wife, Mary Ann Pearce. After the war, the couple returned to Brooklyn, with dreams of buying a house and some land. Spillane hooked up with the Gill brothers again, this time in a new comic-book freelancing venture. He came up with the idea for new comic, based around a tough, hard-boiled private eye called Mike Danger. "I wanted to get away from the flying heroes, and I had the prototype cop," Spillane explained.

 

Unfortunately,Danger failed to sell. Spillane then tried to sell it as a comic strip. According to Mike Benton in his The Illustrated History of Crime Comics, "In 1947, Spillane wrote a "Mike Danger"comic strip for the newspapers. Drawn by Mike Roy and offered by Jerry Iger's syndicate, the comic strip appeared briefly in New York area newspapers and disappeared. Spillane decided to leave the world of comics to become a mystery writer."

 

He retooled Danger, re-named him Mike Hammer and supposedly cranked out I, the Jury in three weeks. With the help of Ray Gill, he sold it to E. P. Dutton & Co, whose editors weren't apparently all that impressed with Spillane's writing, but nonetheless thought there might be a market for it. So they gave it a shot." The rest is history.

 

Later, some Mike Danger stories by Mike Roy and Spillane were published in Crime Detector # 3 and 4.

 

Here's a Mike Roy page from a CrimeBuster story -

 

2) Then, between 1948 and 1951, Roy did the 'The Saint' daily and Sunday strip for the New York Herald Tribune. It is in that capacity that he gave Jack Davis one of his first steady assignment as an artist: "Arriving in New York City, Jack Davis was accepted by the prestigious Art Students League where he studied by night and helped pay his expenses by inking and doing backgrounds for "The Saint" comic strip, which was illustrated by Mike Roy and contained serializations of the famed Saint stories by Leslie Charteris. Perhaps inspired by working on other syndicated cartoon strips, he created his own daily strip, "Beauregard," which was a Sad Sack-type character, set during the Civil War days.

 

"Beauregard" was picked up by the McClure Newspapers Syndicate and although it only ran a short while, it did catch the attention of William Gaines, Harvey Kurtzman and the staff at EC comics."

 

3) In the 1950s, he made the newspaper strips 'Ken Weston' and 'Nero Wolfe', and assisted on 'Flash Gordon'. In the 1960s followed the acclaimed Native American Sunday strip 'Akwas', and the 'Hoss Laffs' daily and the 'Indian Lore and Crafts' Sunday page.

 

Mike Roy was active until the 1990s, working mainly on educational comics for Custom Comic Services. His final work was 'Screaming Eagle', a hardcover graphic novel for Discovery Comics. The sweeping epic chronicles the lifelong journey of a Native American warrior with the guiding spirit of an eagle. Roy's lifetime of experience was allowed to blossom in "Screaming Eagle." Beautiful vistas are given many full and double page spreads. "We let Mike's artwork take over the book," said Deschaine.

 

Black Day in June Splash -

 

Black Day in June Final Page -

 

His Father's House Splash -

 

His Father's House Final Page -

 

The Rusty Graveyard Splash -

 

The Rusty Graveyard Final Page -

 

The Crown in the Mud by Mike Roy Splash -

 

The Crown in the Mud by Mike Roy Final Page -

[selegue]

# 178

 

Rangers Comics # 63 - Bought from Doug Sulipa

 

 

Contents:

Cover by ?

 

Gotta be Maurice Whitman, right?

Funny how much less respect he gets than Matt Baker. Great cover artist.

 

Jack

[Scrooge]

# 180

 

Real Love # 45 - eBay Purchase

 

 

Content:

Price-Tag Husband by ? 8 pgs

Not Good for Her by ? 7 pgs

Showdown for Rosemary by ? 8 pgs

The Charm Corner 2 pg Advice Column

Warned Against Him by ? 7 pgs

 

I have said before that Ace is probably my least favorite of the publishers on the newsstands during this time period. This book proves this again. While I will grant them that the art is above Ace's average, the stories are as insipid as ever. One aspect I did notice is that this book delivered a lot of story pages for your dime. Out of the 36 pages, a full 30 are story pages. I guess that should count for something

 

Price-Tag Husband Splash -

 

Not Good for Her Splash -

 

Showdown for Rosemary Splash -

 

Warned Against Him Splash -

 

Not to make this post exceedingly short, I am posting another item of interest. Last week, I was read Peter Haining's The Classic Era of Crime Fiction and the following item caught my eyes -

 

First, let me type the lead-in info from the previous page:

 

"The outlaw James boys had captured the imagination of Young Americans in a way that no other robbers, murderers or gunmen had done, and they were still very much alive when the dime novel was in its prime. What more natural thing than to turn the pair and their exploits into stories?

 

 

[...] The stories proved immensely popular with readers - but also drew the attention of Anthony Comstock (1844-1915), the self-appointed scourge of the dime novel."

 

Read on in this page -

 

There you have it: the 19th Century predecessor of Wertham using pretty much the same tactics including the threat to allow US Postal service to those publications. The world changes and stays the same!

[selegue]

# 180

 

Real Love # 45 - eBay Purchase

 

...

 

 

I have said before that Ace is probably my least favorite of the publishers on the newsstands during this time period. This book proves this again. While I will grant them that the art is above Ace's average, the stories are as insipid as ever. One aspect I did notice is that this book delivered a lot of story pages for your dime. Out of the 36 pages, a full 30 are story pages. I guess that should count for something

 

Does it prove that advertisers agreed with you and couldn't be persuaded to buy ads in Ace romance books?

 

Another good, if brief, review -- shows that you wear no rose-colored glasses about the late Golden/ Atomic Age.

 

Interesting interlude about Comstock!

 

Jack

[Scrooge]

Does it prove that advertisers agreed with you and couldn't be persuaded to buy ads in Ace romance books?

 

Excellent observation! What kills the Ace books for me also is the horrendous lettering. Check out the doozies of titles in these stories. Arrrgghh.

 

Interesting interlude about Comstock!

 

What was striking were the many parallels: US Postal no delivery threat but also such language as: "corrupted the young by glamorizing criminal behaviour" and the "fearful increase of youthful criminals in our cities", replace youthful criminals with juvenile delinquent and I would swear it was Wertham writing!

[selegue]

 

Interesting interlude about Comstock!

 

What was striking were the many parallels: US Postal no delivery threat but also such language as: "corrupted the young by glamorizing criminal behaviour" and the "fearful increase of youthful criminals...

 

"...right here in River City!" It could also have Meredith Willson!

 

in our cities", replace youthful criminals with juvenile delinquent and I would swear it was Wertham writing!

 

Jack, a bum with a capital "B" and jokes memorized from Capt. Billy's Whiz Bang

[HouseofComics.Com]

Scrooge, awesome page of updates! Of course I love westerns and Fiction House, but I especially liked the crime stuff this time around. Couldn't decide which was my favorite, the landlady being described as slatternly in the text story or the description that the private eye "made friends with a circle of human scum." Then I saw the winner, "Don't these cops ever miss??!!"

[HouseofComics.Com]

The post about the longest running crime comics makes me think of FrankMiller's comment that all he wanted to do was write subversive crime comics,which he did clothed in Daredevil's skin-tight costume. One could make an argument that Batman and Daredevil are often crime comics. I'm thinking of some of the Gene Colan inner-city issues on DD, an awful lot of the GA Batman comics, the 1970s Detective Comics which featured a lot of mysteries for Batman to solve.

[HouseofComics.Com]

By the way, any suggestions for help in identifying a coverless issue of Crime Does Not Pay? Apparently the GCD has huge gaps still waiting to be indexed. (Katy Keene is worse. )

[Scrooge]

# 181

 

Real Screen Comics # 48 - Bought from A-1 Comics

 

 

Content:

The Fox and The Crow by ? 6 pgs

Tito and His Burrito by ? 6 pgs

The Fox and The Crow by ? 4 pgs

Flippity and Flop by ? 6 pgs

The Fox and The Crow by ? 2 pgs

The Fox and The Crow by ? 6 pgs

 

I'm probably going to show myself in the foot with coverage here since info on The Fox and The Crow should be needed for not only this book but also Comic Cavalcade and their own title The Fox and the Crow. Yes, as mentioned somewhere else, this makes this dynamic duo as important as Batman and Superman to the DC line!

 

 

Let's start from the beginning and the cartoon origins of Fauntleroy Fox and Crawford Crow, as per the Toonopedia which I'll complement from excerpts from Leonard Maltin and Michael Barrier:

 

"Never mind Batman & Robin, Ren & Stimpy, Tom & Jerry, the best-matched pair of characters in all cartoondom is Fauntleroy Fox and Crawford Crow. Not only did these two hold down a regular series from DC Comics for over 20 years (appearing in more than one title during the majority of those years) — not only did they manage that feat without a single regular supporting character — in most stories, they managed it without even a walk-on by a third character. Hundreds and hundreds of stories were about absolutely nothing except the interaction between The Fox and The Crow — and through all those years, the stories stayed fresh and funny.

 

Artist Jim Davis (no relation to the Jim Davis who writes and draws Garfield) is most closely associated with those hundreds and hundreds of stories (though he had help from writers Hubie Karp and Cecil Beard). Davis started out as a moonlighting animator (like many funny animal artists of the time), with credits at Warner Bros., Disney and elsewhere, but wound up making a career in comic books.

 

Crow as he appeared in The Fox and the Grapes

 

The characters, too, started out in animation. They first appeared in The Fox & the Grapes, a cartoon released Dec. 5, 1941, by Columbia Pictures' Screen Gems Studio. It was the first Columbia cartoon directed by Frank Tashlin, then in the process of revamping the outfit from the ground up. The cartoon consisted of a dimwitted Fox trying one strategem after another to reach a bunch of grapes, thwarted time after time by an obnoxious Crow. Its narrative style — quickly setting up the characters and motivations, then proceeding with a long series of very short "blackout" gags — anticipated Chuck Jones's Road Runner and Coyote by almost eight years, and has been freely acknowledged by Jones as an inspiration for his series.

 

Leonard Maltin adds that: "In fact, some of the specific gags - such as the Fox hurtling a boulder in the air to propel himself off a teeterboard, but having the rock come crashing down on his head, or tying himself to a tree and bending back for a catapult, but being snapped from side to side instead - became standard jokes in the Coyote repertoire." Maltin adds that "Oddly enough, when the Screen Gems staff fashioned a series using the Fox and the Crow, they did not use this format."

 

 

The cartoon was well received, and another with the same characters was produced, for release six months after the first. In fact, they became the studio's biggest stars ever, easily eclipsing Scrappy. But by then, Tashlin had departed for greener pastures — he was working at Warner Bros., and making a name for himself with such characters as Daffy Duck and Porky Pig. This one was directed by Bob Wickersham, who used the characters in a completely different way. His Fox just wanted to be left alone, but The Crow wouldn't let him; and the gags were done in a more traditional style than the earlier blackouts. Innocent Fox paired with agressive Crow became the formula for the series, most of which was directed by Wickersham.

 

Before I go to the UPA era, I'd like to tell more about the circumstances of Tashlin coming over to Screen Gems. First, one has to know that Screen Gems used to be Charles Mintz's outfit through which he produced most notably in the early 30's Krazy Kat cartoons. When Mintz died in 1939, his brother in law, George Winkler, became Columbia's representative at the studio (Columbia had become majority owner in 1937) and affected some deep cost-cutting measures. Barrier, in his The Disney Diaspora 1942 - 1950 chapter, continues:

 

"Someone, it's not clear who, made an offer to Frank Tashlin, by then a writer at the Disney studio. He accepted it in March 1941 after Walt Disney refused to give him a raise (understandably enough, given the Disney studio's difficulties at the time). Tashlin went to Screen Gems as a writer, he said: "They didn't have a story department. Then there was a reorganization over there, and Columbia sent a new man in. He fired everyone in the place except me, and he said, 'You're going to be in charge of the studio'." That was October 1941. When Columbia swept away, if not "everyone in the place," at least the remnants of the Mintz-period management, George Winkler lost his job as general manager - he soon wound up at the Schlesinger studio as head of its ink and pain department - and was replaced by Ben Schwalb, who had been producing the live-action short subjects that Columbia made in New York. Tashlin assumed the day-to-day production responsibilities; he directed The Fox and the Grapes - the first cartoon with the characters the Fox and the Crow - "and from there on," he said, "I wasn't doing any directing, I was working on stories and running the place."

 

This shows that The Fox and The Crow really were created in the middle of a complete creative and personel chaos at Columbia / Screen Gems!

 

The Toonopedia continues: "In 1948, producer Steven Bosustow, head of UPA, approached Columbia with a proposal that they out-source their cartoons — that is, buy cartoons from his studio instead of producing them in-house. Columbia, which was having trouble maintaining a stable work force in the animation department, ordered a couple of Fox & Crow cartoons from the fledgling studio. These cartoons (Robin Hoodlum (1948) and The Magic Fluke (1949), both directed by John Hubley) were made in what was then an avant-garde graphic style, and Columbia executives were a bit leery — until both cartoons were nominated for Oscars, something no Fox & Crow cartoon had ever achieved before. The Screen Gems Studio was soon shut down; thenceforth, Columbia Pictures' cartoons were produced by UPA.

 

But UPA was apparently not interested in hand-me-downs from a defunct studio, and concentrated on their own characters (the first of which, Mr. Magoo, is the one they're best remembered for today). Their third use of the characters, Punchy de Leon (1950, also directed by Hubley) was the last Fox & Crow cartoon ever made.

 

By then, the characters were well established in comic books. DC had licensed the Columbia cartoon characters in 1945, and launched a new title, Real Screen Comics, for them to star in. The other series in Real Screen were Tito & His Burrito (containing stereotyped characters which, while not ill-intended, would not be used today) and Flippity & Flop (a cat-and-bird series strongly reminiscent of Tweety & Sylvester). The latter two series appeared in only one story each per issue, while The Fox & the Crow filled most of the book.

 

The comic book version was only slightly different from Wickersham's cartoons. Fauntleroy Fox and Crawford Crow had no neighbors except each other, Crow's disreputable, multi-story hollow tree standing only a few paces from Fox's nicely-maintained, comfortable house. Most stories started with Crow, a charming low-life, trying to trick the wealthy, establishment-type, but insufferably smug Fox out of something — but not all, as many were driven by Fox's desire to harm Crow in some way, or just to get away from Crow. Stories could end with either character triumphant, or both, or neither. Both used disguises frequently — painfully transparent ones to the reader, but seen through by the other character only when the plot required it.

 

Extraneous characters occasionally appeared, but were mostly used as props — a delivery man, policeman, or other functionary might show up for a few panels, only to be shuffled off-stage as quickly as possible. The title characters were so right for each other, their fit could be seen even in their physical appearance — when (as often happened) they confronted each other eyeball-to-eyeball, Crow's convex beak dovetailed perfectly with Fox's concave snout.

 

 

Someone else commented on the characters' conflicting personalities" [Fox and Crow] are, in my opinion, one of the greatest animated duos to ever grace the silver screen. The Fox is a refined, haughty, upper-class character who tries to salvage his belongings from a certain "chiseling" crow. His name is never fully revealed in the actual cartoons, but in the comics his first name is revealed to be Fauntleroy. The name is a direct reference to the classic 19th century children's book "Little Lord Fauntleroy," featuring a rich boy hero who was excessively well-mannered and dressed by his parents in a lacy, stylized sailor suit and hat. In the years after the book's release, the character's name came to symbolize pampered little kids, then sissified ones, and finally sissy types in general (even though the Fauntleroy in the book was indeed no sissy). The Crow on the other hand, is everything that the Fox is not. The Crow is a fast-talking, street-wise chiseler who just happens to live next door to the world's greatest sucker, the Fox. In the Screen Gems films, the Crow's name is not fully revealed (usually it's E.S. Crow or Joe Crow), but in the comics it's simply Crawford S. Crow, or occasionally C. Crawford Crow. Both the Fox and Crow call each other "Foxie" and "Crowy" as nicknames."

 

I recall reading somewhere that Crow was very popular with African-American children as they perceived him as a character of color who would always put one over Fox, making Crow that much more appealing.

 

The Toonopedia continues: "In 1948, DC converted Comic Cavalcade, where The Flash, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman had been sharing the covers, from superheroes to funny animals. The Fox & the Crow were among the new stars, sharing covers with Nutsy Squirrel (star of Funny Folks) and The Dodo & the Frog (from Funny Stuff). The Fox & the Crow got their own comic in 1951, over a year after their last cartoon appeared. From then until 1954, when Comic Cavalcade folded, they were cover-featured in three DC titles.

 

Real Screen Comics changed its title to TV Screen Cartoons in 1959, and folded in '61, leaving The Fox & the Crow starring only in their own comic. The 1960s were hard years for funny animals in comic books, especially those no longer supported by regular appearances in other media. In 1965, the comic's long-running back-up series, "The Hounds & the Hare", was dropped, and DC started experimenting with new concepts. "Stanley & His Monster", by Arnold Drake and Winslow Mortimer, which started in the 95th issue (Dec-Jan, 1965-66), was a little different from the others, in that it debuted in the lead position. All of a sudden, The Fox & the Crow had become back-ups in their own comic. The former stars soon started getting crowded off the cover, as well. As of #109 (May, 1968), the comic's title was officially changed to Stanley & His Monster, and The Fox & the Crow were gone for good.

 

Today, the two dozen or so Fox & Crow cartoons are seldom seen, even in out-of-the-way TV slots. Because of issues concerning ownership of the characters, the comic book stories are seldom if ever reprinted. But for collectors and connoisseurs of old comic books, those hundreds and hundreds of stories still provide ample laughs."

 

 

I'll leave bio info about Jim Davis for another entry but will add these comments from the Toonopedia again about the other cover featured feature: Tito and his Burrito -

 

"The "Tito & His Burrito" series wasn't a very prominent one in either animated cartoons, where it started, or comics, where it found its final home. But it ran a long time in comic book back pages, and it's still remembered by a couple of generations of readers.

 

The pair started out in a cartoon short titled Tito's Guitar, which was released October 30, 1942, by Columbia Pictures' Screen Gems Studio. Tito's Guitar was directed by Bob Wickersham, who had worked at the studio for years, first as an animator and then as director, and who also did some artwork in comic books

 

The creator of the series was producer Dave Fleischer, who had recently joined Screen Gems after the acquisition of his brother Max's studio by Paramount Pictures. Unlike some of Fleischer's earlier work (he'd directed a great number of Betty Boop and Popeye cartoons during the '30s), this pair appeared in only three cartoons. The last of them came out in 1947.

 

But they were a going concern when the Screen Gems characters were licensed by DC Comics, and therefore became a back-up feature starting in the first issue of DC's Real Screen Comics (Spring, 1945).

 

Tito & His Burrito would probably not make it in comics or cartoons nowadays, because young Tito and his family were common folks living in a rural part of Mexico, and they looked, talked and acted like exactly what they were. Tho stereotyped by today's standards, they weren't treated as objects of scorn, but just as ordinary people in a slightly exotic setting. In fact, they were no more offensive than Gus Arriola's Gordo, which garnered great praise for exposing English-speaking Americans to Mexican culture. Readers who didn't have the benefit of living in a city where Gordo was available often learned about frijoles, tortillas and other elements of daily life in that area from the footnotes in DC's "Tito & His Burrito" series.

 

Burrito was Tito's pet. His name didn't refer to a savory delight made from beans, cheese, shredded beef, etc., but to the fact that he was a burro by species, and a small specimen of his kind — thus exposing readers to Spanish word construction."

 

The Fox and The Crow Splash -

 

Tito and His Burrito Splash -

 

Tito and His Burrito Page - Notice how the reflection of Burrito mentions that he is the "Smart You" which you've guessed it makes him the Smart-@$$ and he act as such throughout the story. Way to go for whomever was the writer of this story -

 

Here's the most elaborate / bizarre activity page I've yet seen in a DC comics! -

 

Flippity and Flop Page -

 

The Fox and The Crow Page -

 

The Fox and The Crow Next Page -

[adamstrange]

Fox and Crow and Flippity and Flop together in the same comic!

[adamstrange]

These posts are great! It's always nice to see a new update. Keep up the great work!

 

Agreed! Severin also became the editor for Prize Western and he did very much enjoy the series.