Number 1558: “What in ding-dong goes on here?” Wonder Woman’s costume ruse

I love the crazy, kinky and cool Wonder Woman tales by the original crazy-kinky-cool crew who created her. They would be William Moulton Marston, writing as Charles Moulton, and Harry G. Peter, signing his artwork as H. G. Peter.

Here is a story of switched identities, an exotic spy, and tying up girls. It would hardly be a Wonder Woman story worth reading if it didn’t include the latter.


From Sensation Comics #40 (1945).

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Here are two more Wonder Woman stories, including the last issue H. G. Peter drew, and a Wonder Woman story unpublished until it appeared in The Amazing World of DC Comics #2 in 1974. Just click on the thumbnails.

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Number 1188: Celebrating the 8th of July!

This is the Pappy's fourth annual* July 8 celebration of flying saucers. Sixty-five years ago today the Roswell (New Mexico) Daily Record published its historic headline:

To commemorate the date I have a couple of flying saucer/UFO stories.

I was inspired to get out my copy of Dynamo #1 (1966) and scan the lead story by Dan Adkins and Wallace Wood based on this wonderful splash panel from Heritage Auctions. I lifted the scan from their website.

My favorite panel is Dynamo saying, "I bet I'm the first guy in history to knock down a space ship with a rock!" The story is full of action and the art is great.

The story, "Landing of the Flying Saucers!" is another zany story from Wonder Woman. Although the whole thing is wild—aliens shaped like skinny Michelin men with lollipop heads and antennae who use expressions like "Heee! Hooo!"—I give writer/editor Robert Kanigher and artist Harry G. Peter credit for originality. I even like the flying saucer, which, unlike most depictions of UFOs in those days doesn't look like it's made of sheet metal, and in fact doesn't look like anything mechanical.

It's an oddball story, something we've come to expect from this title. From Wonder Woman #68 (1954):

*Previous postings are from Pappy's #554, Pappy's #768, and Pappy's #978.

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Number 1092


H.G. Peter's last Wonder Woman


Harry G. Peter was born in 1880. At age 61 he began drawing Wonder Woman, from her first appearance in Sensation Comics, continuing with the feature far into the 1950s. Wonder Woman #97, cover dated April, 1958, was Peter's last issue. He retired at the end of 1957, and died in 1958.

His last issue is just as screwball as most of the issues he drew. Wonder Woman was much cleaned up from the era before her creator, William Moulton Marston (writing as Charles Moulton) was writing the strip. No kinky and bizarre bondage themes, for example. Well, they dropped kinky and kept bizarre. In this issue Wonder Woman goes hopping through time, encountering a dinosaur mingling with cavemen, a society where numbers stand for thoughts, and a crazy Olympic-style games.

That type of story, which came from editor Robert Kanigher, would be the norm even during the era of artists Ross Andru and Mike Esposito, who took over the book and would draw Wonder Woman for the next several years, based on the familiar depiction created by H. G. Peter

The cover is credited by the Grand Comics Database to Irwin Hasen and Bernard Sachs.

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