Number 1339: Captain Marvel Jr and the disturbing dreams

Mr. Morpheus works for the Nazis. Mr. Morpheus brings nightmares, which he promises to stop if the distraught dreamer gives up defense secrets. Mr. Morpheus has discovered some sort of hallucinogen. A couple of days ago we had a marijuana story, today a hallucinogenic story. This is not a trend, just a coincidence.

There is also a formula given up to Captain Marvel Jr by the inventor of a rubber substitute. (Although what Junior will do with a formula that is simply put as “X56Y43” escapes me).

This whole crazy story,with some good hallucination artwork by an unidentified artist, is from Fawcett’s America’s Greatest Comics #8 (1943), which was the last issue. The story reminds me of another story of dreams from Ibis the Invincible #1, which I showed in Pappy's #1032.

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Number 1233: Captain Marvel Jr exposes the real candidates!

This is number two of four postings this week from Fawcett Publications.

Only a few more weeks to go, fellow Americans, and the torture of a presidential election will be over for another cycle (hang in there!) Going back a few elections (think 1952), candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower was running on the Republican ticket against Democrat Adlai Stevenson. So it seemed appropriate to reference elections in comic books, but one of the few election stories I've been able to find is this Captain Marvel Jr tale.

It addresses a situation many voters face when going to the polls. Do they really know a candidate? Is he really who he is portrayed to be? In this case the candidate made it through the process to the nomination, and he's definitely not what he pretends to be.

The second story has a misleading title. “Vampira, Queen of Terror” doesn't even bite anyone. But, she’s got a gorilla, and that's enough for me.

“The Space Voters” is credited by the Grand Comics Database as being drawn by Joe Certa, and “Vampira” is drawn by Bud Thompson. Both are from Captain Marvel Jr #116 (1952).

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Number 1194: The springboard from space

If you have the magazine page in front of you, as I do, it's easy to see where the idea for the cover story of Captain Marvel Jr #114 (1952) came from.

An illustration for the Association of American Railroads provided the inspiration. My copy of the ad is from the April 28, 1947 issue of Life magazine.Ideas have to come from somewhere. I think this ad, which might have come from a stack of magazines at the writer's house, was a springboard for a story.

The Grand Comics Database credits Bud Thompson with the cover, and Joe Certa with pencils and inks on “The Train That Traveled Through Space.”

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Number 455


"Dey say it's hanuted!"


Emmanuel "Mac" Raboy was a top cartoonist, drawing Captain Marvel Jr. and Green Lama. He drew the Flash Gordon Sunday strips from 1946 until he died in 1967. At Fawcett he worked with Jack Binder, who ran a shop that provided artwork for comics. I talked with Jack in 1970 and he told me that "Raboy was talented, just slow." Apparently a perfectionist, he was also temperamental and could tear up a job he didn't like. Another story I heard about Raboy many years ago is that he moonlighted drawing comics while in the Navy during World War II. He had very little space on ship to draw, so drew his comic book pages the same size as the printed page. That looks like what happened with "The Punching Polties" from Master Comics #40, July 1943.

There's no telling why the speech balloon was changed on page 9, panel 3, to a crude paste-up misspelling "haunted" as "hanuted." You've got to wonder where in the production phase this happened, but it might have been done by poltergeists.

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