Number 1250: The visible Invisibility Helmet

This episode of Star Pirate immediately got my attention with that startling splash panel. Girl with open shirt and white bra being crucified! Yow. That's eye-catching. But nothing of the sort happens in the story.

The next thing that got my attention was the Invisibility Helmet. The idea is for the user to put on the helmet and disappear from human eyes. The problem is the helmet stays visible, so the wearer can be easily spotted. If I were the inventor of this device I wouldn't think it was quite ready for marketing.

Despite those observations I like this strip; Star Pirate is a fun feature that appeared in Planet Comics, and other episodes I have seen have early work by Murphy Anderson. Here Maurice Whitman is credited with the art. Whitman was one of those top notch art talents that Fiction House was blessed with.* The art usually made the book, because as is shown with this example, some of the stories have holes big enough to fly a spaceship through.

From Planet Comics #53 (1948):

*Go back to Sunday's posting of Pappy's #1248 for some great Fiction House art by Joe Doolin.

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Number 1069


"Back, fiends!"


There's no writing like comic book writing. The title of this post comes from a panel in "Flee the Mad Furies" (a title that is itself pretty supercharged). You don't see the word "fiends" all that often except in comic books.

These are two stories from Ghost Comics #4, Fall 1952, both reprints, but I don't know from what issues of what comics they are reprinted. Drew Murdoch is the main character of "Ghost Gallery," usually found in Jumbo Comics. "Flee the Mad Furies" is drawn, according to the Grand Comics Database, by the Iger Shop. There is a lot of Matt Baker in there, although I wouldn't guarantee it's all Baker. The other story, "No world for me!" is drawn by Jack Kamen.

The cover, which was reproduced large size in the 2010 Fantagraphics book, Four Color Fear, is drawn by the very talented Maurice Whitman.

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Number 582


Ka'a'nga by Maurice Whi'i'tman


From Ka'a'nga #20, Summer, 1954, the last issue of that Fiction House title, we have the final Ka'a'nga story by one of the best and yet underrated artists in comics, Maurice Whitman. Whitman did covers for Fiction House in all the company's genres, did interior art, and was great at all of it. Why isn't there a Maurice Whitman cult following like there is for so many comic book artists? I don't know.

He was in the field a long time, from the 1940s until the 1970s at least. I see on his Lambiek bio that he did a Doc Savage in 1977, and that got my attention. I don't think I've ever seen it.

There's an interesting string on Collectors Society about Whitman, showing some of his outstanding covers. One correspondent said that Whitman's son is a tattoo artist and the fan thought of getting the son to do a tattoo as homage to his father, a cover like Ghost Comics #1. Only a comic book fan would think of that.

Ka'a'nga, with the unpronounceable name (I read it as Kah-ah-ahnga or a slight variation, and I avoid pronouncing it out loud) is yet another Tarzan type. Ka'a'nga starred in Jungle Comics from issue #1, and got his own title in 1949. He had his origins in Fiction House pulps under the name Ki-Gor,and why the name was changed to Ka'a'nga is anybody's guess. If you believe pulps and comic books there were about as many white jungle men and women as there were African natives. Personally, I always wondered how they kept from being eaten alive by bugs, or killing their bare feet running through jungles (calluses thick enough that spears would bounce off them, no doubt).

Ah, but I digress. Here's Ka'a'nga as drawn by the underappreciated but really fine comic artist, Maurice Whitman.

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