It's the month of the D-Day invasion and, with World War II in full swing as far as America is concerned, 18 comic books, more than one-quarter (26.1 percent, in fact) of the the 69 issues on newsstands this month depict characters fighting Nazis (sometimes generic Germans lacking swastikas, other times in the form of Luftwaffe aircraft) and Japs (sometimes seen only as flying zeros, more often as bucktoothed, yellow menace stereotypes). Miss Fury, the lone female headliner this month — with Wonder Woman taking June off as a quarterly book at this point — even gets to kick around both Nazis AND Japs on her cover.
Meanwhile, 12 comics (17.4 percent), feature characters hawking war stamps (the Fawcett heroes), or war bonds (Disney characters), or at least have a cover blurb urging bond purchases (the Eastern Color Press books).
Meanwhile, over in Action Comics, Superman races a turtle. So, way to aid the war effort there, Boy Scout.
Yes, it was policy at DC to keep its characters out of the war as much as possible. But even Superman couldn't avoid war rationing. By 1944, page counts had mostly dropped to 48 pages from the 64-page standard
we saw in June 1939. Fawcett had a few titles at 40, and even 32 pages, while Quality and Street & Smith are pressing the curve at 56 pages.
On-sale in June 1944 (exact date not certain)
Heroic Comics #25
Eastern Color Press, 10¢, 48 pages
Eastern Color Press is primarily known for basically inventing the comic book, no small thing, and reprinting comic strips. It got out of publishing comics in 1955, stopped printing them for others in 1973, and finally folded in 2002. But the company did make brief forays into other avenues, including super-heroes. Heroic was the company's second ongoing title after Famous Funnies, and just as Eastern's earliest offerings going back to 1933 were promotional items, Heroic also had a promotional bent. Launched in 1940, this title began life as Reg'lar Fellers Heroic Comics and was "the official publication" of The Reg'lar Fellers of America. an organization founded by the director of health education at Long Island University to promote summer athletic programs for kids ages 12-15, with a name taken from a popular comic strip of the era. In January 1943 the title was truncated to just Heroic Comics, utilizing the patriotic logo seen here, while stories shifted from athletics and tales of everyday heroism to true war stories.
Heroic Comics added "New" to its title with the September 1946 issue, and continued to alternate everyday heroism and true war stories. Eastern canceled the book in June 1955 amid charges from the newly created
Comics Code Authority that its war stories contributed to juvenile delinquency by promoting violence, which was cool so long as Eastern was blowing up Nazi subs, as on this cover, but less so a decade later.
Oh, and as for super-heroes (recall that brief foray?), Hyrdoman by Bill Everett, creator of the Sub-Mariner, was the lead feature of this title when it started out. However,
by this issue he'd been relegated to the back of the book, as had Eastern's other super-heroes, Man o' Metal and Music Master. By the way, I dare you to click on the link above and behold both the costume of Hydroman's kid sidekick, Rainbow Boy, and his crazy flying style.
Jingle-Jangle Comics #10
Eastern Color Printing, 10¢, 48 pages
This title, a bi-monthly that ran 42 issues from 1942 to 1949, was largely the product of children's book illustrator George Carlson (the Comics Journal has an
excellent bio of him), who, apart from painting the image on the dust jacket of the first edition of Gone With the Wind, also ghosted the Reg'lar Fellers comic strip, a telling connection to the title above. This book had some funny animal features but was largely a collection of children's stories with better than average art.
Also on sale in June, date uncertain:
- The Katzenjammer Kids (aka Feature Book #41) (McKay, 10¢, 36 pages) was the usual collection of strip reprints.
On-sale Friday, June 2
Better Publications (Standard), 10¢, 48 pages
Publisher Ned Pines, active in churning out pulp magazines since 1928, and knowing a good thing when he saw it, got into comic books in 1939. His Standard Comics imprint soon split, for no good reason I have found, into sister-companies Nedor Publishing and Better Publications, before merging again under the Standard banner in 1949. It then closed out its life as Pines Comics from 1956-1959.
Pharmacist Bob Benton had been huffing "formic ethers" to gain super power and fight crime as The Black Terror since Issue #9 (on stands in February 1941), and had been giving noogies to Nazies and otherwise slapping Japs on every cover for more than a year before this issue came out. Popular enough to warrant his own mag six months after his debut, plus cover status on
America's Best Comics, the Terror's appeal was probably in his striking costume, with its skull and crossbones chest emblem, and not in the reader appeal of his similarly costumed sidekick, Tim. Yes, he used his first name, "Tim," and his crime-fighting moniker. So much for secret identities, I guess.
It's always amazed me that DC never went after Pines over the Terror, who gained Superman-like powers from a drug, in the way it went after Wonder Man (who gained them from a ring) and Captain Marvel (ibid, from a magic word), especially considering that in his civilian guise as Bob Benton, the Terror was a dead ringer for Clark Kent.
The Black Terror lasted into 1949 and later fell into public domain. Today, it's hard to throw a brick in any direction without hitting somebody publishing some version of the character. Less used today are the other super-heroes
from this issue, including The Liberator — who looked like an adult Star-Spangled Kid in short pants — and American Eagle, who, when bitten by a radioactive black ray gained the proportional powers of an bald eagle, including flight, strength and (what else would you expect?) patriotism! And you can forget trying to find the further adventures of Crash Carter - Air Cadet, Sergeant Bill King, or Larry North of the U.S. Navy.
Miss Fury #4
Timely (Marvel Comics), 10¢, 48 pages
Looking more like Catwoman than Catwoman did in these days, Miss Fury (originally known as The Black Fury) was a newspaper strip created in 1941 by female cartoonist Tarpé Mills. As Noted above, Fury — actually socialite Marla Drake — is the only hero fighting German AND Japanese soldiers on a comic book cover this month. There'd be somewhat less of that inside however. According to Albino Joe — best supporting character name, ever — Fury's Brazilian leopard skin costume could produce miracles, but also great misfortune for its wearer. So, naturally, Marla spent most of her time in ball gowns.
Mills' Miss Fury comic strip ran in newspapers from 1941 until 1952. Between 1942 and 1946, Timely put out eight issues collecting Sunday strips. IDW collected some of the latter day strips in 2011, while beginning in 2013 Dynamite Entertainment, which, I think, is legally obligated to produce at least series of every character in the public domain, has produced new adventures of the original character. As of April 2014, Dynamite's book has run one issue longer than Timely's original series, although it sells far less, just barely cracking the Top 300 on the sales charts, at about 5,200 copies per month.
Also on sale this date:
- Mutt and Jeff #14 from All-American/DC Comics (10¢, 48 pages) reprints a comic strip popular enough in its day that even into the 1980s my grandfather would often refer to me and my cousin as "Mutt and Jeff" whenever we caused havoc, which was often.
- National Comics #43 from Quality Comics (10¢, 56 pages) featuring the second appearance of long-running humor series The Barker about a carnival con man.
- Tip-Top Comics #97, which was United Features' collection of comics strip reprints (10¢, 48 pages).
On-sale Tuesday, June 6
Star-Spangled Comics #35
DC Comics, 10¢, 48 pages
Star-Spangled was the first DC comic to utilize the smaller cover logo, starting with Issue #7 in February 1942 when the Newsboy Legion took over the featured spot from the Star-Spangled Kid. DC's other titles would not follow suit until June 1946. In 1947, Star-Spangled would become home to the first solo-series starring Robin, the Boy Wonder, which lasted until the book was converted to a war comic in 1952, although Robin lost the cover to Tomahawk in 1949, who then gave way to generic mystery/horror covers a few issues before the conversion.
By this issue, Jack Kirby had long since left the Newsboys, leaving the art chores to
Arthur Cazeneuve, an Argentine artist who did his best to ape the king's style. Interestingly, Cazeneuve would go on to become art director of the overseas edition of Time magazine in the 1970s and '80s.
Rounding out this issue are the Star-Spangled Kid , Liberty Belle, and Robotman, the latter by t
he amazing and sadly forgotten Jimmy Thompson. Also in this issues was the surprisingly long-lasting humor strip
"Penniless Palmer," who, despite a six-year run didn't even merit a mention in 1985's
Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe index series.
The Newsboys got put out to sea with Issue #65 (in November 1946) when Robin showed up, and quite literally, too — check the
cover to #64. Liberty Belle would go into limbo with #69 (April 1947), replaced by Tomahawk, and would not to be seen again until
All-Star Squadron in 1981. The rest would last into 1948 with Penniless — "Pen" to his friends — getting the boot with #79. Robotman got replaced by "nautical detective" Captain Compass in #83, while the eponymous Kid managed to hold out until Merry, Girl of 1,000 Gimmicks showed up in #87.
On-sale Wednesday, June 7
Planet Comics #32
Fiction House, 10¢, 48 pages
Bi-monthly Planet Comics was, simply put, one of the best comics of the Golden Age, with some of the best artwork —especially if you happen to like cheesecake and "good girl" art. Interestingly, a lot of the artists were women, including Fran Hopper, the artist of this month's cover feature Gale Allen and her Girl Squadron. The feature is signed by the writer, Douglas McKee and there aren't a lot of squadron girls in this issue's story, but Gale spends most of
her seven page story running around in a skimpy baby doll, so it's all good. Wikipedia says Hopper's whereabouts are unknown after she dropped out of comics, but
she was alive and well and living in New Jersey at age 90 as late as 2012. She apparently spent most of her post-comics career raising three children and Arabian horses. You'll note at the above link that Ms. Hopper, quite the hottie in her day, looked a lot like Mysta of the Moon, one of the other regular features she drew for Planet in addition to Gale Allen.
This issue of Planet also features two stories by
another female artist, Lily Renee, on The Lost World and Norge Benson, an adventurer living on Pluto, who makes his last appearance in this issue. Rounding out this issue is Star Pirate, drawn by the incomparable Joe Kubert, a star of the industry right up until his death in 2012, and Space Rangers, by Lee Elias, perhaps most famous for his long run on Green Arrow, from 1959 to 1964.
Also on sale this date:
- The quarterly All-Flash from All-American/DC Comics (10¢, 48 pages) is in mid-run at #15 and it really is All-Flash, with only a two-page Fat and Slat strip and a Hop Harrigan text piece to accompany three Jay Garrick stories;
- Blackhawk is flying high in Military Comics #31 from Quality Comics (10¢, 56 pages), although second-in-command Stansilaus dies, which, fans of the feature know, was something of a habit for him;
- Smash Comics, another Quality title which made its debut five years earlier, in June 1939, is up to #54 (10¢, 56 pages). Of the characters from that first issue, only Black X remains, while Lou Fine's The Ray has also come and gone by this point. The lead feature here, and to the end of the title's run in 1949, is Spirit rip-off, Midnight;
- Wings Comics #48 from Fiction House (10¢, 48 pages), is all about airplanes, and, at this particular point in time, strafing Japanese soldiers.
On-sale Thursday, June 8
Sensation Comics #32
All-American (DC Comics), 10¢, 48 pages
Due to be revived soon as a digital-first title,
Sensation Comics was to Wonder Woman as
Action Comics and
Detective Comics were, respectively, to Superman and Batman. However, unlike her compatriots in what is now considered to be DC's iconic trinity, Wonder Woman was subject to a more co-ordinated roll-out. Something of a late entrant into the Golden Age pantheon, the Amazonian princess made her debut in
All-Star Comics #8 (on-sale Oct. 25, 1941). That story was then continued in
Sensation Comics #1 (on-sale Nov. 7, 1941). Some sources claim the All-Star debut was a try-out, resulting in Wonder Woman getting the lead feature in Sensation due to her popularity with readers, but that's not possible given just two week's between the two issues. Wonder Woman's own magazine hit stands eight months later, on July 22, 1942.
By this issue, the original line-up in Sensation had not changed, still consisting of WW, Wildcat, Mr. Terrific, Little Boy Blue and the Gay Ghost. Wildcat and Mr. Terrific are, of course, still around, having been revived in the 1970s on the strength of appearances alongside the Justice Society during a schism between DC and All-American that resulted in the former's heroes getting pulled from
All-Star Comics. Wildcat only appeared in All-Star twice, and Mr. Terrific just once. So, lucky them.
More obscure today is
Little Boy Blue, a crime fighting kid who lasted seven years in the back pages of Sensation, to issue #82, and the
Gay Ghost, who was a real ghost, but not gay, at least as we understand the word today. His whole deal was that he came back from the dead due to having the hots for his 18th century girlfriend, naturally transferring that devotion to her 20th century descendant by re-animating the recently deceased body of said descendant's would-be paramour. Basically, if Facebook had been around in the '40s, the Gay Ghost's relationship status would have read, "It's complicated." This, however, was his antepenultimate appearance. The Ghost would haunt Issues 33 and 38, after which time the dead would stay dead.
Little Boy Blue, by the way, was originated by Batman co-creator Bill Finger, while Gardner Fox invented the Gay Ghost. Between them, Finger and Fox wrote just about every character worth considering at DC, making them a big part of the reason why you care about the company at all.
On-sale Friday, June 9
Batman #24
DC Comics, 10¢, 48 pages
The era of bug-eyed alien adversaries can't be far away as Batman has his first time-travel adventure, going to ancient Rome where he engages in a chariot race. Of course, he wound up in the past via hypnotism, so it's debatable how much actual time traveling he really did, although Robin managed to get hypnotized into the same adventure, so who knows. You can judge for yourself in 2010s
Batman: The Dark Knight Archives Vol. 6.
Other tales in this issue include a tale of Batman's butler, Alfred — although this is Golden Age fat Alfred, not Silver Age skinny Alfred — and what I believe was the last of three Golden Age appearances of Tweedledee and Tweedledum. The duo would begin showing up in the background of super-villain gatherings in the late '70s and finally return to starring, and more psychopathic roles, in the mid-1980s.
Feature Comics #80
Quality Comics, 10¢, 56 pages
Unquestionably Quality's most popular character, Doll Man is one of about a thousand characters you didn't realize was created by Will Eisner, known today primarily for The Spirit and his graphic novels.
Darrel Dane was the first super-hero to get into the shrinking game, in
Feature Comics #27 (on-sale November 1939), beating Shrinking Violet (May 1961), The Atom (October 1961) and Ant-Man (January 1962) by decades. He proved enduring enough to hold out in Feature until #139 (on stands August 1949) and in his own magazine until #47 (on-sale in July 1953), well after most other super-heroes bit the dust and just three years short (
short, get it?) of the Silver Age with the debut of The Flash in
Showcase #4.
Although more celebrated artists such as Eisner, Lou Fine and Reed Crandall worked on Doll Man first, the art in this issue by
the unheralded Al Bryant, who later had a nervous breakdown and allegedly tried to commit suicide Princess Di style, is quite good, even Crandallesque.
The rest of the features in Feature, however, are quite forgettable, at least compared to Doll Man fighting a villain who wears nothing but a tea cloth. Also in the book are bandleader Swing Sisson, aviator Spin Shaw, and humor characters Perky, Lala Palooza, Poison Ivy and Blimpy the Bungling Buddah, as well as non-powered crime buster Rusty Ryan and his Boyville Brigade, who wore costumes that, but for jodhpurs and the lack of a mask, were almost direct rip-offs of Captain America.
Gene Autry (aka Four Color #47)
Dell, 10¢, 56 pages
Now, a kid reading the indicia of this comic and seeing "Gene Autry No. 47" might have thought to himself, assuming he liked the work of the uncredited, and to this day unknown artist, "Gee-willikers (something I think kids actually said back then), I'll have to track down the previous 46 issues!" But, alas, such would be a futile search. This issue is from Dell's series of sequentially-numbered one-shots, which collectors now refer to as Four Color, by virtue of the words "Four Color Comic" appearing in small print on the cover of this issue, just below the cover price, as it did on most, but not all issues in the series.
Four Color ran for 23 years, grouped by collectors in a 25-issue run from 1939 to 1942, and the main series, which was on stands from 1942 until 1962. The final issue number was #1,332, although some issue numbers, especially later in the run, were either never published, or remain undiscovered by fans. From what I can tell, Dell assigned issue numbers in-house but shipped product out the door as each package was finished. Thus, we see Nos. 47 and 49 on this day, while #48, featuring Porky Pig, won't wind up on sale until June 16. You see that kind of thing all through the run, which must have been maddening for collectors of the 1960s and 1970s, who were building the first comic catalogs, price guides and indexes. Also, whenever Dell decided a character (including tv and movie adaptations) was popular enough to warrant its own series, it would often begin the numbering based on how many Four Color one-shots it had previously published. Thus, when Porky Pig was awarded his own comic in 1952, it starts with #25, given 24 previous headlining turns on Four Color. So, again, imagine being a collector in 1968 and not known if #25 is actually #1, or how many and which numbers of Four Color Porky might have starred in before his own title. And, making patterns impossible to detect, Dell sometimes ignored the Four Color issues and started a series at #1, as it did when it finally gave Gene Autry his own comic in 1946, following seven Four Color appearances.
Mystery Comics #1
Wm. H. Wise Co. (Standard), 10¢, 48 pages
A short-lived series from Standard comics, which publisher Ned Pines had credited to Wm. H. Wise & Co. for whatever reason, Mystery featured Brad Spencer, Wonderman. Made super-strong by "the sizzling voltage of a secret current," Spencer was apparently free to stomp bad guys because, by this point, DC was done filing lawsuits against super-strong Wonder Men, so long as they didn't outsell the man of steel.
This Wonder Man first appeared in a jumboliath 132-page comic book called
The Complete Book of Comics and Funnies, which retailed for a whopping 25¢. That's $3.38 in 2014 dollars, so nothing to you and I, but it must have been an eye-popper to kids in 1944! One has to wonder how well the Complete Book, also published by Wise & Co., did in sales. After all, Mike's Amazing World of Comics doesn't list it at all, and Mike lists
everything.
Mystery Comics lasted just four issues through October 1944. Then, in 1946, Wonderman (by this point one word, instead of two) showed up again, naturally enough, in
Wonder Comics, starting with #9. He stayed for the rest of that title's run, through #20 in 1948, although he'd lose the cover to Tara the Space Pirate with #16. I have no idea why, but on the covers to
Mystery Comics #1 and
Wonder Comics #9, Wonderman saves the same girl from the same purple-snouted aliens, albeit having green hair in the earlier depiction. Maybe it's because Alex Schomburg drew both? Two years had passed and it is a different layout, but still, one wonders at these startlingly similar depictions.
Interestingly enough, Wonderman shared Wonder Comics with a character called the Grim Reaper, who had the cover spot until he showed up. Decades later, when Marvel introduced its own Wonder Man, he'd end up being the brother of a villain called the Grim Reaper.
Three of the characters in
Mystery Comics made the move with Wonder Man from TCBOCAF, including The Silver Knight, super-hero The Magnet, and Zudo the Jungle Boy. Some sources claim
Mystery Comics was canceled due to World War II paper shortages. At any rate, Zudo and The Magnet died with it. The Silver Knight would eventually pop up in the final three issues of
Wonder Comics. However, he and Zudo have remained in comic book limbo. The Magnet, who didn't have magnetic powers, finally gained them when revived as a member of SMASH in Alan Moore's Terra Obscura storyline in
Tom Strong. Standard had another character called Mystico the Wonder Man, whom Moore revived as part of Terra Obscrua. I don't think the Brad Spencer version was ever used, but I don't know my Terra Obscura timeline by heart.
Fawcett, 10¢, 40 pages
Like all of the Fawcett heroes, Mary Marvel uses her June 1944 cover to urge kids to buy war stamps.
For those who don't know, war stamps was one method used by the U.S. government to pay for its participation in World War II, just as it had done in the first World War. You don't see such things today to fund our adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan because the American people have become pretty complacent about being taxed to death, given that most barely notice the loss due to regular payroll deductions. Clever government, confiscating cash at the source means no begging. But back in the day, war stamps, like the Minuteman version Mary is holding here, were sold in denominations ranging from 10¢ to $5. They earned no interest, but collected into a booklet, they could be redeemed for Series E war bonds. So, for example, a full booklet of 75 stamps purchased for 25¢, each, could be traded for a war bond costing $18.75, which matured at $25 a decade later, earning you the equivalent of between $64 and $98 in interest, depending on how we look back and calculate the inflation rate. The Fawcett pitch for war stamps was apparently part of the fifth war bond drive, conducted from June 12 to July 8, 1944.
Anyway, enough with the history lesson.
This issue has Mary Marvel confronting a wacky town who's wacky "leap year experiment," lets a woman fill every job properly held by a man. Lady firefighters, lady policemen, even a lady mayor! How wacky!! Who'd ever believe such a thing?! The issue is rounded out with fairly forgettable tales of the Phantom Eagle and Commando Yank, as well as Fawcett's take on Batman and Robin — Mr. Scarlet and Pinky. I've always thought the thing on top of Mr. Scarlet's cowl looked like a rooster's comb, but I guess if Bruce Wayne can dress up as a bat to fight crime, Mr. Scarlet can be a rooster if he wants.
Also on sale this date:
- Funny Animals #20 from Fawcett (10¢, 32 pages) continues the company's foray into anthropomorphism, led by Hoppy the Marvel Bunny, who, like his human counterparts in the Marvel Family, pitches war stamps on the cover.
- Magic Comics #60 is more strip reprint tradition of McKay Publishing (10¢, 48 pages), with hapless Dagwood Bumstead on the cover.
- Master Comics #52, from Fawcett (10¢, 40 pages) has Captain Marvel Jr. hawking war stamps alongside Radar — not O'Reilly, but an "international policeman" and Captain Marvel lookalike, also with a "radar sense" — who'd made his debut in the title two issues earlier.
- Thrilling Comics #43 Standard (10¢, 48 pages) is thrilling enough, with kid hang the Commando Cubs clobbering Nazi's from inside their own submarine.
- Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs get a one-shot in what we know today as Four Color #49 from Dell (10¢, 48 pages), with a cover that is very evocative of the Little Golden Books put out by Dell's comic book partner, Western Publishing. With art presumed to be by Walt Kelly, this issue has been reprinted a few times, most recently by Gladstone in 1987 and Marvel in 1995.
On-sale Sunday, June 11
Captain America Comics #41
Timely (Marvel Comics), 10¢, 56 pages
With most comics down to 48 pages, Cap's title boasts "60 Pages of Action in Full Color." Of course, that total counts the cover. It's really a 56-page book, but that's still a sizable difference for the dime entry price from other comics out at the time.
Beneath the great Alex Schomburg cover — Bucky's actually frying a Japanese soldier alive with his flamethrower. See, the kid was a bloodthirsty little bastard even then — we have three Cap stories and a short 7-page Human Torch feature.
The lead story has Cap squaring off against Nazis who take lunatics from a local asylum and dress them up as gargoyles to terrorize the citizens of Paris, even slabbering human blood on the talons of the gargoyles of Notre Dame to heighten the illusion. Eerie stuff. But you'll have to find the original to read this tale. As far as I know, Marvel's "Masterworks" series of Golden Age Captain American reprints ran only for as far as Vol. 4, covering issues of this title up to #16.
On-sale Monday, June 12
Jungle Comics #56
Fiction House, 10¢, 48 pages
Here we have an early example of what
Dr. Fredric Wertham will later assure us is referred to by sex-crazed adolescents as "headlights." That's "boobies," in case you didn't get it. And there they are, on prominent display under a thin layer of leopard skin in all their titillating glory. And in bondage to boot!
Jungle
featured Kaanga the Jungle Lord, who being blond, was not at all like Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle. There's also Simba, King of the Beasts, who is not at all like a later Disney lion, also named Simba. And we have jungle boys in the form of Tabu and Wambi who are not at all like . . . well, okay, all jungle boys are pretty much the same. But hey, Camilla differs from Sheena in that her fur bikini is made of zebra skin!
Still, despite the seeming sameness of its features, those frequent flashings of the headlights would keep Jungle going for another decade, until Issue 163, in 1954. One good thing about Jungle is that it depicted blacks realistically, rather than as the gross caricatures found in other comics of the era.
Also on sale this date
- Jumbo Comics #66, another Fiction House title (10¢, 48 pages) has Sheena doing her Sheena thing, giving readers two jungle covers on this day in comic book history.
On-sale Tuesday, June 13
Flash Comics #56
All-American (DC Comics), 10¢, 48 pages
The Flash punches out an African hoodoo chief on the cover, which seems odd, given that the story is set in the Pacific islands. Sadly, I don't know my Golden Age Flash supporting players well enough to know if that's Winky, Blinky, or Nod being made into sidekick soup. The shady-looking fellow in the foreground is some gangster Flash is racing to uncover a "priceless substitute for quinine," apparently with an eye toward cornering the gin and tonic market. Rounding out this fairly standard issue is Johnny Thunder, The Ghost Patrol, and Hawkman, who battles the perfectly named Tantrum O'Hanlon.
Also on sale this date:
- In The Black Terror #7 from Standard Comics (10¢, 48 pages), the Terror Twins make swiss cheese mid-air of a buck-toothed, slanty-eyed Zero pilot, courtesy of Alex Schomburg. The art inside is pretty weak however.
Another Standard title, albeit credited in the indicia to Great Comics Publications, is the aforementioned Wonder Comics #2 (10¢, 48 pages), with the Grim Reaper making short work of a nest of Nazis.
On-sale Wednesday, June 14
Comic Cavalcade #7
All-American (DC Comics), 15¢, 80 pages
Recall that Wonder Woman belonged to the All-American line. So, back in the Golden Age, she paled around with Green Lantern and The Flash, NOT Superman and Batman.
Comic Cavalcade was Max Gaines' answer to DC's
World's Finest Comics, which he started a couple of years later, but also as a quarterly book featuring 80 pages of the line's top characters at 15¢ a pop. Both titles also featured the same inane "let's play" covers. Imagine walking into a comic book store today and seeing a cover with two heroes pushing Wonder Woman on a swing — the floor would be littered with dead fanboys who'd snapped their own necks from the violence of the head spinning, "WTF?!" reaction.
Sadly, All-American's top trio did not have the staying power of Superman and Batman. The rumor is that Wonder Woman only survived into the Silver Age because a contract with her creator, William Moulton Marston, stipulated that rights would revert to him if DC ever stopped publishing her adventures. As the luster wore of super-heroes,
Comics Cavalcade was converted to funny animals with Issue 30 in 1948.
This issue featured AA's big three, along with Hop Harrigan, The Black Pirate and military buds Red, White and Blue, who tended to hop between the All-American and DC lines, along with Scribbly, a short Etta Candy solo story and some Mutt and Jeff strip reprints. DC did put out one volume of
Comic Cavalcade reprints in its hardcover Archive line back in 2005, but that only collected the first three issues. To my knowledge, no story from the title's remaining run has been reprinted since the 1940s, even though they mostly featured the regular creative teams.
Prize Comics #44
Prize Publications (Crestwood), 10¢, 48 pages
In much the same way that Standard and Fiction House added comic books to their pulp mag stables in order to cash in on the latest craze, Prize Publications, knowing a good thing when it saw one, also jumped on the bandwagon. Its first title,
Prize Comics, hit the stands Jan. 2, 1940, with its take on Batman, "K the Unknown," making his debut just 10 months after the Caped Crusader. With his second appearance, K changed his name to The Black Owl. That's him on this cover and by this point the dude under the mask, Doug Danville, had joined the Army and gone off to fight Nazis. He was replaced by Walt Walters, who was the father of Prize's boy-heroes Yank and Doodle, who are not to be confused in any way with Hanna-Barbera's Yakky Doodle. In reality, the switch was a way to merge the two features as page counts decreased and for a few years Black Owl served alongside Yank and Doodle as comics' only father and sons crime-fighting team. That lasted until Issue 64 in 1947, when the Owl got shot and pussed out. Five issues later, Prize became a western comic and Yank and Doodle retired as well.
Prize Publications actually enjoyed its greatest success in the post-war years after super-heroes faded from the scene, in large part because its comics were packaged by the Simon and Kirby shop, who, among other things invented the romance comic (
Young Romance), the horror comics (
Black Magic) and the satirical super-hero (
Fighting American). By then better known as Crestwood, Prize took a hit from the "
Great 10¢ Plague" of the mid-1950s, but managed to publish comics as late as 1963, when it sold its few remaining romance titles to DC Comics. It continued to publish humor magazines into the 1970s, about the time DC canceled by-then geriatric
Young Romance.
Prize's super-heroes are even less well known that Standard's, and while presumably also in the public domain, are less often revived. Black Owl, Yank, and Doodle (boy heroes of the 1940s had the WORST code names) made a cameo or two in Dynamite Entertainment's Superpowers line, but have not been used since. Although I have not read the book, I believe Dynamite's current series,
The Owl, is based on the Dell character, not Prize's Black Owl.
Anyway, back to this issue. The boxer championed on the cover by the Black Owl is
Boom Boom Brannigan, who makes his debut
in this issue, which also features Dick Briefer's fondly remembered Frankenstein. A history professor who believed a man could use math and science to win any fight, Brannigan began training as a boxer. So, you know, physical conditioning helps, too. He naturally became world champion and traveled the world, defending his title in the ring and fighting evil outside of it, at least until Issue 66, when his feature ended and he presumably went back to teaching.
Also on sale this date:
Headline Comics #9 was another title from Prize Comics (10¢, 48 pages), this one featuring kid gang the Junior Rangers, who hung on for another couple of years until Simon and Kirby arrived and, despite their affinity for kid gangs, changed the subtitle of the book from "For the American Boy," to "Crime Never Pays," a rip on Crime Does Not Pay, seen below, whose stories were "ripped from the headlines."
- Plastic Man is up to his usual antics as superbly illustrated by Jack Cole in Police Comics #33 from Quality Comics (10¢, 48 pages). Also in the book are Manhunter by Al Bryant and The Human Bomb by Paul Gustavson.
On-sale Thursday, June 15
Kid Komics #5
Timely (Marvel Comics), 10¢, 48 pages
Marvel's own kid gang, the Young Allies, are in the middle of this book's 10-issue run, which ended with the world war, when the title was converted to funny animals as
Kid Movie Komics for one final issue.
Originally known as the Sentinels of Liberty, the Young Allies appeared as early as
Captain American Comics #4, with Bucky leading his pals Irish stereotype Knuckles, brainy stereotype Jeff, fat kid stereotype Tubby and black stereotypical Whitewash Jones. Toro joined with the name change and the team aided the war effort in 20 issues of their own mag, from 1941 to 1946, in addition to these
Kid Komics appearances.
In 2010, during the time when a revived Bucky served as Captain America, Marvel would reveal the final fates of his old teammates in the four-issue limited series,
Captain America: Forever Allies.
Also on sale this date:
- Famous Funnies from Eastern Color hits issue #120 (10¢, 48 pages) with the usual mix of comic strip reprints.
On-sale Friday, June 16
Daredevil Comics #26
Lev Gleason Publications, 10¢, 48 pages
Way back when, I was dating a girl whose father, when he found out I collected comic books, went on and on about his love as a kid for Plastic Man and Daredevil. Well, Plas I knew well enough, but we were really talking at crossed purposes until I finally figured out he wasn't referring to Matt Murdock, but this fella.
This Daredevil was Bart Hill, raised by aborigines in the Australian outback after his father was murdered. Luckily, the dingos did not eat this baby and he grew up to fight crime at the Golden Age Captain Boomerang. Interestingly, Plastic Man creator Jack Cole played a large role in popularizing this Daredevil, pitting him against yellow menace The Claw in
Silver Streak Comics for a five-part battle. Now the norm, continued stories were a rarity those days, but the tale proved popular enough to earn Daredevil his own book. His first issue, titled
Daredevil Battles Hitler, was reportedly a jam issue created over a single weekend. Like Captain America, who socked Der Fuehrer on the chin on the cover of his first issue,
Daredevil Battles Hitler anticipated America's entry into World War II, appearing on newsstands April 15, 1941, nearly eight months before Pearl Harbor.
By this issue, Daredevil was teamed with the kid gang known as the Little Wise Guys, a la the Guardian and the Newsboy Legion, who came first by about six months. Although my almost father-in-law (it really was a close call!) recalled him fondly, the Little Wise Guys had pushed Daredevil off the cover, except for a logo pose, by Issue 49 (on sale April 1948) and out of his own book entirely by #70 (on-sale November 1950). The book would continue as a humor/adventure mag starring the Little Wise Guys until #134, which hit stands in July, 1956, making them, if less well known today, the longest-lasting of all the kid gangs.
Daredevil was lucky to last as long as he did, however, having gone through three publishers early in his career. Both his title and
Silver Streak Comics were founded by a short-lived outfit called Your Guide Publications. After a little more than a year, it sold out to the even-shorter lived New Friday Publications. When the owner of that company bailed, his business manager Lev Gleason, a former advertising director who had worked at both Eastern Color and United Features in the early days of comics, inherited the outfit. Gleason, known for moving comics in a more "adult" direction with
Crime Does Not Pay (see below), took a huge hit as a result of the Kefauver hearings, when the U.S. Senate, spurred on my Dr. Wertham, took it upon itself to decide if comic books caused juvenile delinquency. Gleason got out comics in 1956, at about the time the self-censoring Comics Code Authority came into being.
Daredevil, meanwhile, has fallen in to the public domain and has been used a number of times, albeit with limited results, given that he can no longer fight crime under his own name. Dynamite cast him as "The Death-Defying Devil" which sounds more like a tightrope walker than anything else.
Funny Stuff #1
All-American (DC Comics), 10¢, 48 pages
By this point, Max Gaines' All-American line was already moving out of the super-hero genre, looking to funny animals as the next big thing. This title would survive the formal merger with DC in 1946 and last until Issue 79 (on-sale in May 1954), when its numbering would continue another 13 issues into 1957 as
Dodo and the Frog. In addition to the Three Mousketeers,
Funny Stuff starred McSnurtle the Turtle, who turned into super-fast super-hero
The Terrific Whatzit, in a feature drawn by Flash artist Martin Naydel.
Also on sale this date:
- Porky Pig takes the reins as "Porky of the Mounties" in Dell's Four Color #48 (10¢, 48 pages).
- Red Ryder Comics #20 has the western hero riding high from Dell, (10¢, 48 pages).
- Sparkler Comics #34 from United Features (10¢, 48 pages) is a collection of newspaper strip reprints underneath a pretty nifty Burne Hogarth Tarzan cover.
- Super Comics #74 from Dell (10¢, 48 pages) also features newspaper strip reprints, including Dick Tracy, Moon Mullins, and Little Orphan Annie, with the characters hawking war bonds on the cover.
- Terry-Toons Comics #23 from Timely/Marvel Comics (10¢, 48 pages) featured adaptations of characters in the Paul Terry animation stable. Frankly, there wasn't much worth reading until Mighty Mouse showed up with Issue 38.
- Walt Disney's Comics & Stories #46 from Dell (10¢, 48 pages), has a Walt Kelly cover of Donald Duck in Uncle Sam garb entice to get the kiddies to buy $100 war bonds ($1,352 in 2014 dollars, so, good luck with that), while the highlight inside is Carl Barks' oft-reprinted Duck tale, "Camera Crazy."
- Captain Marvel says, "Buy one of these war stamps today!" on the cover of Whiz Comics #56 from Fawcett (10¢, 48 pages), while inside he's joined by Golden Arrow, Spy Smasher and Ibis the Invincible.
On-sale Tuesday, June 20
Action Comics #75
DC Comics, 10¢, 48 pages
And, speaking of turtles, there's Superman racing one, just as we mentioned above, while every other hero and comic book character is participating in this month's fifth war bond drive. Apart from Superman, only Zatara survives from
when we last looked in on Action Comics, in 1939, with Tex Thompson, aka The Whip, having been consigned to comic book limbo with this issue and the truncation from 56 to 48 pages. Making the cut are late-comers Congo Bill, the original Vigilante, and, beginning this issue and lasting though #118 (on sale in January 1948), the "humorous" adventures of rhyming policeman Hayfoot Henry. YES, I said rhyming policeman! Not surprisingly, only Henry has yet to make a modern appearance.
Also on sale this date:
- All Surprise Comics #4 from Timely/Marvel (10¢, 48 pages) is a funny-animal comic featuring Super Rabbit and a menagerie of alliterative anthropomorphisms, including Touchy Tomcat, Chester Chipmunk, Billy Bear and Silly Seal.
- Street & Smith didn't publish many comics besides The Shadow, but the oddly-titled Super-Magician Comics #28 (10¢, 56 pages) was one. I can't really tell you what the book was about — a super magician I presume — because Conde Nast bought the company in 1959 and has since renewed copyrights, so no full issue is printed online.
On-sale Wednesday, June 21
All-Select Comics #4
Timely (Marvel Comics), 10¢, 48 pages
It's The Invaders (although not called that for another 30 years) giving hell to the Huns on another great Schomburg cover. Inside it's all solo stories, however, as Timely would not think to team their heroes Justice Society-style for another couple of years, and not until the last couple of issues of
All Winners Comics, by which time this title had been taken over by Stan Lee's The Blond Phantom, who, as he'd do decades later, decided to take a chance with the last issue of a soon-to-be-canceled series. As with Spider-Man, the gambit worked and with #12 the numbering of this series would continue under her name. That lasted through Issue 22 (on-sale December 1948) when Blondie got the boot and the title become
Lovers, a romance comic that stayed steamy though Issue 86, when it got caught in the Great Atlas Purge of 1957. That's when publisher Martin Goodman, having closed his own distribution arm the previous year, was waylaid by the dissolution of his new distributor, American News Company, and was forced to go hat-in-hand to DC's Independent News, which limited him to just eight titles.
Getting back to this issue, inside we have solo stories of Cap, Namor, the Torch, and The Whizzer, who for some reason never merited a spot on the cover. I wonder if "the whizzer" was as scatological-sounding a code name then as it is now?
Also on sale this day:
- Captain Marvel Jr. #21 from Fawcett (10¢, 40 pages) continues the war stamp push.
- Captain Midnight #22, also from Fawcett, but in a smaller package (10¢, 32 pages), does the same.
- King Comics becomes just the third comic book to reach #100. As usual, it's King Features strip reprints led by Popeye from McKay Publishing (10¢, 48 pages).
On-sale Thursday, June 22
Detective Comics #90
DC Comics, 10¢, 48 pages
This books was very similar to Action in that one character from five years earlier survives in addition to our cover feature, while one got cut with the page-count reduction. In this case, Slam Bradley fights on while the Crimson Avenger will have to be happy with a few more appearances with the Seven Soldiers over in
Leading Comics. Also, as with Action, the balance of the line-up here consists of two features with which you probably have at least a passing familiarity, the Boy Commandos and Air Wave, and one you've likely never heard of, Three-Ring Binks, a humor strip about a booking agent and "ace talent scout."
On-sale Friday, June 23
Crime Does Not Pay #35
Lev Gleason, 10¢, 48 pages
So, kicking somebody off a roof . . . that's something you didn't see on many comics back in the day. Again, if we haven't mentioned it, Superman was busy this month racing a turtle.
This book, according to Gerard Jones, author of the fantastic
Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth of the Comic Book, was the first non-humor comic to challenge the sales superiority of super-heroes. In fact, at one point it claimed on its cover to have "more than six million readers." That counts the so-called pass-along effect, however, and sales were actually closer to one million. Still not bad. CDNP was still fairly new at this point, having taken over the numbering from
Silver Streak Comics with #22. With this book, Gleason was clearly making a play for the 'tween market, as in, teenage boys between the age of most comic book readers and adults who read pulp magazines for their escapist fantasies in the days before television, the internet, and first-person shooter video games.
Unfortunately, neither Comic Book Plus nor the Digital Comics Museum has this issue archived. Instead, here's a Dick Briefer story from the previous number to give you some idea what the title was like at the time. Of course, on #34's cover, a guy gets pushed down an elevator shaft, not kicked off a building, so there are some differences. Want more?
Here's Issue 38, with a guy bleeding from the ear during a shootout with police. Golly, maybe comics DID cause juvenile delinquency?
On-sale Tuesday, June 27
Adventure Comics #93
DC Comics, 10¢, 48 pages
Since making his debut this month five years earlier, in June 1939, Sandman has long-since gained a sidekick and joined the long underwear set. However, he's not much longer for this world. He's got just nine more bi-monthly issues until #103, on-sale in February 1946, when he, Starman, Genius Jones and guerrilla warrior Mike Gibbs will get shunted aside for a trio of refugees from
More Fun Comics, in the form of Superboy, Green Arrow and Aquaman. Genius Jones would swap place with Superboy in More Fun, but it was the end of the line, for now, for Sandman and Starman, and forever for Mike Gibbs. Some have said the change was due to Mort Weisinger wanting to keep his co-creations Green Arrow and Aquaman going over the presumably better-selling Adventure heroes they replaced. However, Weisinger was in the U.S. Army at the time and it was Jack Schiff, then the editor of both Adventure and More Fun, who made the switch.
On-sale Wednesday, June 28
Green Lantern #12
All-American (DC Comics), 10¢, 48 pages
DC's Big Three was really a Big Five back in the day, with both Green Lantern and The Flash meriting their own series in addition to headlining an anthology title. Here, GL faces frequent foe and Injustice Gang founder The Gambler for the first time. This story also establishes that Alan Scott works at WMCG, which on modern-day Earth Prime is located in Georgia, not Gotham City.
On-sale Thursday, June 29
Fight Comics #34
Fiction House, 10¢, 48 pages
One of the titles Fiction House touted as its "Big 6," alongside
Jumbo,
Jungle,
Wings,
Planet and
Rangers Comics, Fight similarly took its name from an eponymous Fiction House pulp mag,
Fight Stories, which laid down arms in 1952. This comic book counterpart survived another two years, dying with Issue #86 in 1954.
This issue features more work by Lily Renee, whom we mentioned earlier, as well as some fine stuff on both the Rip Carson and Tiger Girl features by Robert Webb, largely unknown today despite a long run on Sheena over in
Jumbo Comics from #28-127. The Rip Carson feature here is inked by another female cartoonist of the era,
Ann Brewster.
Also on sale this day:
- It's a second issue this month for Wings Comics as #49, which soars to stands from Fiction House (10¢, 48 pages).
On-sale Friday, June 30
The Fighting Yank #9
Nedor Publishing (Standard), 10¢, 48 pages
Apart from The Black Terror, mentioned w-a-a-a-a-y back at the beginning of this post, Standard's most popular character was The Fighting Yank.
Although one of many patriotic heroes borne of World War II, in this case sporting a cloak that bestowed super-strength and invulnerability, the Yank survived in his own title until 1949, long after the war ended. That he should have proved so endearing is, to me, somewhat surprising, given that the artwork
in this issue is, to be charitable, not so hot.
In the public domain, the Yank lives on, having played a large role in Dynamite's Superpowers line, while his daughter Carol, a lipstick lesbian if ever there was one, battles on as The Fighting Spirit in the Terra Obscura stories of Tom Strong.
Gay Comics #18
Timely (Marvel Comics), 10¢, 48 pages
If you saw a comic book titled "Gay Comics" today, it would be something very different. Yes, sir, very different, indeed!
This is actually the second issue. Timely had #1 on the stands May 15. Then, this issue came out on this date sporting #18. Today, comic archivists have no idea what prompted the numbering jump. Generally, numbering was continued with a title change in order to avoid having to apply for a new second-class mailing permit, but Timely does not appear to have had a #17 of anything concurrent with this time frame to continue from. At any rate, the content in #1 and #18 is largely the same, led by working girl Tessie the Typist and Basil Wolverton's dim-witted boxer Powerhouse Pepper. Gay would keep a spring in its step until #40, on-sale July 1949, when it would become a romance comic for a single issue, titled Honeymoon.
Also on sale this date:
MONTHLY INDEX
67 Titles from 13 publishers
Publishers
DC Comics/ All American (12 titles - 17.4% of the market), Dell (9 - 13%), Timely/Marvel Comics (8 - 12%), Standard (7 - 10.1%), Fawcett (6 - 8.7%), Fiction House (5* - 7.2%), Quality (5 - 7.2%), McKay (4 - 5.8%), Eastern Color (3), Lev Gleason (3), Prize (2), Street&Smith (2), United Features (2*)
* plus one title double shipped, percentages based on 69 comics.
Note: Two titles, Tip-Top Comics and Wings Comics, shipped twice in June 1944, for 69 comics on stands this month. All-American Publications could be counted as a 14th publisher, but its comics are branded as DC and, while technically a separate company, it shared practically everything but office space.
Cover Price
68 comics at 10¢ ($1.35 in 2014 dollars), one at 15¢ ($2.02)
Average: 10.1¢
Median: 10¢
Total retail value all comics: $6.95 ($93.62)
Page Count
two at 32 pages, one at 36 pages, three at 48 pages, 53 (76.8%) at 48 pages, eight (11.6%) at 56 pages, one at 64 pages, one at 80 pages
Average: 48.4 pages
Median: 48 pages
Total pages (not counting covers): 3,340
Genres (by cover feature)
Super-hero (30 - 43.5%), comic strip characters (9 - 13%), funny animal (8 - 11.6%), war (8 - 11.6%), jungle (4 - 5.7%), kid gang (4 - 5.7%), humor (2), crime (1), movie/tv (1), sci-fi (1), teen humor (1)
Launched in May 1941 and featuring the debut of Blackhawk, Military, as the name would imply, featured "stories of the army and navy," as Quality, like much of the comics industry, went to war long before Pearl Harbor. Even so, while many of Blackhawk's early adversaries were unmistakably German, Military did not clearly identify an enemy combatant on the cover until stereotypical Japs show up with their rising sun flag on Issue No. 15, on -sale Nov. 11, 1942, nearly a full year after America officially entered World War II.
As Modern Comics, the title would continue to feature Blackhawk on the cover until cancellation, five years later, with Issue No. 102 (Aug. 9, 1950). And, while Blackhawk's mission becomes somewhat less overt by the change of title, he does land his own title starting next month (one previous issue had been published back in 1943). Blackhawk would be picked up by DC Comics in 1956 when Quality folded, which would keep the air ace flying until 1968, with frequent revivals ever after.
September is also the last month in which super-heroes — here in the form of the recently introduced Superboy — would grace the cover of More Fun Comics. Sept. 1945 marked just the fourth appearance of Superman when he was a boy. The cover to this month's issue, No. 106 (Sept. 26), would also feature comedy twins Dover and Clover, who would take over the top spot with No. 107 (Nov. 23), alternating covers with Genius Jones, until Jimminy and his Magic Book claimed front billing for the final seven outings leading up to the series' cancellation with No. 127 (Sept. 26, 1947). Meanwhile, the end was near at this point for Sandman and Starman over in the bi-monthly Adventure Comics, which skips this month. They'd only have two more outings until Superboy, Aquaman, Green Arrow and Johnny Quick, all recently ousted from More Fun, would take over Adventure with No. 103 (Feb. 27, 1946).
Standard is beginning to flail about for sales, however. It's still churning out pretty forgettable tales of The Black Terror, with No. 12 of his titular title (on-sale Sept. 11), as well as The Fighting Yank in Startling Comics No. 36 (Sept. 4). But the company has largely left super-heroes behind for funny animals — in the form of Coo-Coo Comics No. 20 (Sept. 7), Goofy Comics No. 11 (Sept. 14) — and non-fiction stories, including the origin of the U.S. Marine Corps in Real Life Comics No. 26 (Sept. 4). But it's still all about super-heroes at Fox Features which has recently recovered from bankruptcy and reclaimed its characters. This month it gives us Blue Beetle No. 40 (Sept. 5), and The Green Mask No. 13 (Sept. 14). In the case of the latter, the gap of two-plus years between issues No. 9 and 10 is explained by having the mask pass from father to son.
Of the publishers who had entered the field since 1940, Lev Gleason Publications, founded by a former advertising manager at Eastern Color, gave us Boy Comics No. 25 (Sept. 11). Launched June 24, 194, amid the patriotic hero craze as Captain Battle Comics, Boy became Boy with No. 3 (Jan. 19, 1942) and starred Crimebuster among its stable of "boy heroes." Despite a genuine long-underwear costume that featured boxer shorts over a letterman's sweater and matching long johns, Crimebuster got by on the strength of covers by the great Charles Biro. Eventually, Gleason would try to mature the title by changing it from Boy Comics to Boy Illustories, and by putting Crimebuster in plain cloths garb including jeans and sneakers. Boy lasted to No. 119 (Jan. 1, 1956).
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