Number 1571: Captain Marvel goes Mad...then Nuts

A couple of things caught my eye when I read this Captain Marvel-King Kull tale in Captain Marvel Adventures #141 (1953). First, it has walking dead. That’s good. Second, it is told in the second person, which isn’t good or bad, just different than the usual third person that Captain Marvel stories were written in by chief scripter Otto Binder.

Then there is the so-so, which is a satire on Captain Marvel, “Captain Marble Flies Again,” done for Premier’s Nuts!#5 (1954), after Captain Marvel was cancelled. The story has its moments, but it depends on your tolerance for this type of satirical treatment. (It has a hooker under a street light putting the moves on Captain Marble; that’s interesting and solidly pre-Comics Code).

You remember another story done for Mad #4, “Superduperman” (below) featuring Captain Marbles and Superduperman in battle. It was a reference to the lawsuit against Fawcett by DC for copyright infringement, which which was ultimately decided in favor of DC. Go to Apocolyte’s World of Comics for the Mad story and some bonuses.

Ross Andru drew “Captain Marble Flies Again.” He and partner Mike Esposito published their own short-lived satire comic, Get Lost!. I wonder if this story was originally something they had prepared for that book.

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Number 1298: Going Nuts

This is posting number two of our Funky Funnies week, highlighting some oddball humor comics.

Nuts, which came from the small publisher, Premier Magazines, is actually one of the better Mad imitations. I say that with qualifications. In my opinion no comic ever really came that close to Mad, calling Nuts a better imitation is faint praise. But John Benson, in his excellent compilation from Mad imitators, The Sincerest Form of Parody, gives some space to Nuts. (I'm showing different stories than Benson.) I recommend his book if you're into this type of comic book which, with the success of Mad, sprang up like toadstools after a rainstorm.

The penciler of “Tick Dracy” is unknown, but Hy Fleishman is credited by comic art expert Jim Vadeboncoeur Jr. with the inks, and John Belcastro, using his pseudonym Johnny Bell, did “Prince Valuable.” Fleishman and Belcastro both became known in comics during this era of the early 1950s, and did work in various genres. Fleishman is especially well known for his work, pencils and inks, in horror comics. (Check out the search engine using his name in Karwell's The Horrors Of It All blog for some great examples of his work.)

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