Number 1552: The man who milked spiders for gold

(You’re right if you think I showed another “SMACKO!” panel recently. It was in a Green Mask story I showed on February 21.)

Drawn by a teenaged Joe Kubert, this story uses the locale of Death Valley, California, which became a National Park in 1933. Death Valley, according to a little research on the Internet, was named by prospectors who crossed while traveling to the California gold fields in 1849, and yes, there was also gold in Death Valley, just as this story claims.

With a little more checking, I found the part of the story about using spiderwebs for crosshairs in bomb sights is true. You can read about it here. The story is entertaining as well as educational. And of course Joe’s artwork is always worth a look

From Harvey Comics’ All-New Comics #9 (1944):

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A story, with original artwork by Kubert, from another issue of All-New Comics:

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Number 1357: Boyoboy! The Boy Heroes

We’re beginning another theme week, “Boyoboy! Week,” where we’ll see some of the kid gangs of the Golden Age. I’ve got posts featuring Boy Commandos, the Newsboy Legion, and the Little Wise Guys following up today’s posting of a Boy Heroes strip from Harvey Comics' All-New Comics. A group I won’t be showing is Young Allies, because that bunch included Toro and Bucky, two superhero sidekicks. Our kid gangs are strictly from the streets, and while they might be heroes, they aren’t super.

The Boy Heroes were created by Louis Cazeneuve. The group mainly operated in Europe during the war years, making eight appearances in All-New. To begin this adventure in Transylvania they seem confident, boasting as they motor along, “Boy, we sure took care of them dratted Nazis back in Rumania, eh, kids?”

“Sure, we did! Dey’re duck soup!”

But of course the boys soon end up in the soup, and being in Transylvania they are fighting, of all things, a werewolf. I assume the idea behind having young boys behind enemy lines fighting Nazis was to feed into the fantasy of the young readers back home that even those too young to enlist could accomplish heroics during the war. In real life American kids were urged to collect scrap and buy savings stamps to aid in the war effort, but in the comics they could do what they really wanted to do — kick butt!

I’ve shown this story before back in the early days of this blog, but I’ve re-scanned the pages. Art attributed to Louis Cazeneuve, from All-New Comics #10 (1944):

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Number 1284: All-old Ed Wheelan in All-New Comics

Ed Wheelan is one of the old-time cartoonists who had a career before entering the comic book field in the Thirties and Forties. Wheelan had a successful daily comic strip, Minute Movies, for several years. He came into comic books with the same bigfoot style he had used years before, even though it was old-fashioned. It evoked another era. That is the charm for me.

These two stories are from Harvey Comics' All-New Comics #'s 3 and 4 (1943). At the time Wheelan was also providing funny filler stories for DC's Flash Comics, and later when Max Gaines was bought out by DC and then founded EC Comics, Wheelan had a home there, also.**

Wheelan was born in 1888, and died in 1966.

*Hairy Green Eyeball showed a two-part Minute Movies continuity. Part One, and Part Two.

**I have shown three of his excellent Comics McCormick features from EC's Fat and Slat Comics:
Pappy's #892, Pappy's #630 and Pappy's #547

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Number 1183: Caught with her panthers down

"Fangs of the Panther," from Harvey's All-New Comics #11, which is cover-dated Spring 1945, is probably at least partially inspired by the movie, Cat People, which was a big hit in 1942. Jerry Robinson, who had started his career assisting Bob Kane on Batman, is the artist. He was proud of this story, or appeared to be, since he signed it in both the splash and last panels. Signed comic book stories weren't unusual, but signed in two places was unusual.

Robinson died December 8, 2011, at age 89. He was active at that late stage in his life, based on this drawing of Robinson which appeared in The New Yorker magazine in May, 2011. Robinson was one of the pioneers of comic books, having joined Kane's studio as a teenager in those days when comics were finding their form.

Another pioneer, Bob Powell, was also represented in the same issue of All-New Comics, with a predecessor to the character, The Man in Black Called Fate*, the Man in Black Called Death, a name with a morbid air about it. It's the same character, though, with the gimmick of the Fate/Death character's face always in shadow.

*The Man in Black Called Fate is represented here by issues number 1 and 2 from 1957 in Pappy's #822, and Pappy's #1019. In 1947 the character appeared in Green Hornet Comics as The Man in Black, who introduced himself as Mr. Twilight! I showed a story in Pappy's #867.

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