Number 1212: Black Ace, Archie O. and Bozo

These stories from Smash Comics #4 (1939) have a rigid panel arrangement. It goes throughout the book. I wonder if it was to make the comic book originals look more like they came from newspaper comics, which had a set format, not the relative freedom of a comic book page. Will Eisner, who did the “Espionage starring Black Ace” strip could still set a mood, as he did later with the Spirit, but the page layout is ultimately self-limiting. It's no wonder other artists like Jack Kirby decided to use the whole page divided in a way to maximize the effect of the individual drawings.

To go along with this story, I've included a two-page humor strip by Eisner, "Archie O'Toole," which is immediately recognizable as being Eisner's by the beautiful dancing girl. Archie asks of her, "Can she shag?" which should cause you to chortle gleefully over the modern sexual implication. I looked it up, and the Shag was a popular swing dance from the 1920s to the 1940s. You can see a couple shagging if you go to this video,

Sandwiched between the two Will Eisner jobs is a George Brenner story, using the pseudonym Wayne Reid, of my favorite metal man, Bozo the Robot.

There's a racial caricature in this story. I apologize to readers who may be offended.

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Number 1077


The Clock strikes!


Happy day after Christmas. I trust you had a nice one. I did. Today I'm being lazy, hanging around the house, my Christmas feast a pleasant memory, and the spirits imbibed now fading (the thumping in my brain is almost gone), my bloodshot eye looks to the wall behind my monitor. There is my vintage 1960 GE wall clock, and like me, still ticking. Let's hope for one more year of taking it one second at a time.

It reminds me of the stories I'm presenting on this Monday morning: the Clock by George E. Brenner. The Clock, as told in this article in Don Markstein's Toonopedia, is one of the oldest comic book heroes. He appeared in comics in 1936, before there was a real comic book industry. Here he is, early in his career, cover-featured on Detective Picture Stories #5, from 1937.

The two stories I'm showing today are two of the Clock's appearances in Crack Comics. They share some things in common: Brenner's static page layouts (common in comic books at the time), and despite being only nine issues apart, they use similar villains, gang leaders wearing hoods (common in pulp fiction, movie serials and at Ku Klux Klan rallies), and corrupt politicians (too common, even today).

George Brenner became editor of Quality Comics, which published Crack Comics, and the Clock stopped ticking in 1944.

From Crack Comics #1, 1940:







From Crack Comics #9, 1941:

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Number 805

Bozo the 'bot

It's hard to take a robot named Bozo serious, but readers of Smash Comics did that from the first issue to #41, when he clanked off for the last time.

Bozo probably got his name from the West African Bozo tribe of Mali. The robot preceded Bozo the Clown. George Brenner, one of the first comic book men, created Bozo and his owner, Hugh Hazzard, using the pseudonym Wayne Reid. Brenner created the first masked comic book hero, the Clock, in 1936.

This is the origin story of Bozo, such as it is. It has stock elements like a mad scientist (driven mad by his "need for funds" as the newspaper headline says), Dr. Von Thorp, creator of Bozo. The hero who gets Bozo after the mad doctor is taken down is rich guy Hugh Hazzard, who fights crime on the side. I guess the idea of rich people in the 1930s--at least in comics and pulps--was that they were idle playboys who needed secret identities to be able to work.

Bozo is believed to be the first robot to be featured on the cover of a comic book, and who am I to argue? It also preceded the 1941 Fleischer Superman cartoon, "The Mechanical Monsters," flying robots, manipulated by remote control and used to steal jewels. Bozo was preceded by Adam Link, the artificial intelligence robot from the series by Eando Binder. Adam Link first appeared in Amazing Stories, dated January 1939.

From Smash Comics #1, 1939:

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Number 239

"Can I choose waterboarding instead?"

I read that the Clock is considered the first masked character to appear in comic books. There were costumed and disguised characters in the pulps; the Shadow and Zorro spring to mind, but apparently before the Clock there weren't any characters in comic books who wore masks.

Well, how 'bout that for trivia?

I can't say a lot about the Clock's mask, though, since it is just a piece of black cloth with an odd little flounce at the bottom. It doesn't look like it would inspire terror in any criminals.

This story is from Feature Comics #26, November 1939. The drawing, by Clock creator George Brenner, is 1930s-styled comic book artwork: static figures, strict eight panel pages. The story is straightforward: The Clock is being framed and he goes right at the villain. The coloring, as in a lot of old comics from the Quality Comics line, is primary, and leads to interesting color choices, like a bright red car with yellow fenders. The colorist, obviously blinded by his or her colors, has completely screwed up the coloring in the last three panels, where Captain Kane and Fingers Holts switch colors, and then Captain Kane's suit changes again in the last panel to bright green.

There's one bit that struck me when the Clock threatens Fingers to make him confess. He tells him he's starved a rat, and what if he puts the rat on Fingers' belly under a metal bowl, and then heats the bowl? The rat can't chew the bowl to get out, so what does he chew? Bwooowaaahahahaa. Don't show this to the CIA. They might drop waterboarding in favor of this tasty torture.

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