Number 535


Bob Powell's Good Bad Girls


Regular Pappy's readers know I can't go long without showing something by Bob Powell; in this case original art for two love stories.

Love comics were once the best selling comic books. Can you believe that? That meant that unlike today's testosterone-driven comic book market, girls and young women were buying a lot of comics. What the female readers got with these two stories are cautionary tales of girls with bad reputations. Everybody knows about the girl in school who goes "all the way," or at least has that reputation.

I found scans for the original art to these two 1950's Harvey Comics stories on the Internet, and you may have seen them here and there. They're worth looking at again, though.

"I Joined a Teen-age Sex Club," besides having the wildest title ever to appear in a comic book, is about a girl trying to fit in with the crowd. In this case she ends up with a group of teen swingers who hold regular make-out parties. Propriety and good breeding, also the idea of losing a straight-laced boyfriend, straighten Geri out.

"Anybody's Girl" is about a girl who does succumb to temptation. She's lucky to get out of one bad situation only to have created another when her bad rep costs her a boyfriend. Tsk tsk. You know about those nights in a ski lodge. I had a few fantasies like that myself. I love the line in panel two of page one: "You're even more fun than your sister!" I think I'll put that on a t-shirt or bumper sticker.

The artwork is Bob Powell at his big-lipped best. The kissing scenes are great. With those lips a guy could kiss two girls at once.

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Storytelling on a Budget

Modern comic writers frequently marvel (and sniff suspiciously) when they hear that old-time comics stories frequently ran 6-8 pages or less. Nowadays that wouldn't be enough space to establish a red herring in a subplot of a mega-crossover. So how did writers and artists manage to tell a story in such a brief period of time, especially in comics like the war books where (frequently) there weren't even continuing characters that the audience was familiar with?

The answer is that you had to push characterization hard in the early part of the story so that your plot is driven by that characterization. That sounds fairly complicated, but if we look at a couple stories, you'll see what I mean:



We get a very good sense of the story from those first three panels; Vic is frustrated by the need to wait around for phone calls, and yet he's forced to do so by circumstances. Sure enough, the story concerns Vic's being forced to wait behind the lines for a phone call, but when he sees an enemy surveillance vehicle he battles against the men inside and wins, but still gets chewed out for not waiting for the call. The next time, Vic brings the phone everywhere with him so he won't be punished for disobeying orders, but at the same time, he destroys an enemy machine-gun nest.

The second story in the same issue (All-American Men of War #24, October 1955) only requires two panels to set the stage:



You can tell that Andrews will find plenty of excitement in his new unit and that the ending will find him loyal to his new unit (which indeed turns out to be the story).



This one you could go several ways with, and the one chosen turns out to be pretty good: Hearn goes into the army, and teaches one of his fellow infantrymen how to film him with the camera. Hearn performs incredibly brave (not staged) feats, but something always happens that makes the film unusable. As it happens, though, another cameraman caught Hearn's heroics.

The next story can be seen through the following two panels, plus the title: False Alarm Pilot.



New Lt. Ben Burton has terrific ability but he keeps believing he's defeated enemy targets like a destroyer and a sub, when actually they have fooled him into believing they were sunk. So in the end he makes absolutely certain he defeats the sub by forcing it to tow him (with pontoons) to his base.

In each case the ending is suggested by the characterization presented.

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Number 534


Journeymanny


Manny Stallman was yet another of the journeyman comic book artists whose name usually provokes a "...Manny Who-man?" from comic book fans. Stallman was born in 1927, and was working in comics as a teen.

This "Young Robinhood" splash page from Boy Comics #13 (I showed you the Crimebuster story from the same issue last Sunday) is very crude. It was published in 1943. I estimate it was done when Stallman was 15 or 16 and it looks it.*

But Stallman went on to a career in comics and did a lot of them. He often worked as a team with John Giunta, who inked the really creepy "The King is Dead" in Witches Tales #50. This black and white version came from the 1991 reprint in Silver Scream #2. I'm not sure if Giunta helped Stallman on these other two stories. "Monkey Face" is from Astonishing #26. It's signed "S.L.", which probably doesn't mean Stan Lee, who would never miss a chance to put his full name on anything, but Stallman and an as yet unidentified inker whose name starts with "L." "Swap Shop" is from Marvel Tales #141. Stallman spent his last years in the field doing things like the giveaway Big Boy Comics, the circulation of which put his artwork in front of many more readers than the average comic book.

Stallman died in 1997.

*I can't show you the "Young Robinhood" story because I'm missing the last two pages.

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Stamp Day for Superman

Here's a new one on me; I found this bit of DC promotion in the pages of All-American Men of War #24 (August 1955). And yes, the special TV episode is on Google Video.



Update: That's actually a pretty terrific episode. Since we're on the topic of Superman doing good works, I thought I would mention Superman's extraordinary speech from the Christmas, 1945 episode of the radio show. The first time I heard it (about ten years ago) I was overwhelmed:



A lot of people don't know that this is what's meant by "truth, justice and the American Way"; the last part is often interpreted as some sort of slam at the Soviets (and indeed in the 1950s the phrase was often used to contrast the USA with the USSR). But in the Superman radio show it was a reference to America as the melting pot, and a plea to listeners to treat each other with dignity and respect, without regard to race, creed or color. The radio show went on to present many famed episodes in those early postwar years where Superman not only battled against crooks and conmen, but against merchants of hatred and intolerance, in stories like Clan of the Fiery Cross, or Knights of the White Carnation.

Update: The Beat Down also has a well-worth reading post on the TV Superman.

My first experience with Superman was via the TV show "Adventures of Superman". George Reeves introduced Superman to me and will always be indelibly inked on my brain as the definitive personification of the character.

That was my first experience with Superman as well, although I confess that over the years I've really come to appreciate how much we know of the Superman legend came from the radio show: Jimmy Olsen and Perry White, the Daily Planet and Kryptonite. "Up, up and away!" originated as a verbal cue to listeners that Superman was going to fly. And when Bud Collyer had to go on vacation, they often worked in a story or two featuring Batman and Robin. :)

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Cool And Early Easter Egg Found!

Jacque Nodell locates a 1971 Easter Egg in DC 100-Page Super Spectacular #5. Very cool stuff; it's not the earliest Easter Egg I've seen but it's certainly subtler than most.

As it happens Gorilla Daze just recently posted a slightly earlier (1970), but much more obvious, Easter Egg.

Update: Some more modern ones.

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Iron Man Run Part 5

Picking back up again with Tales of Suspense #79, Tony Stark is wanted by the police for failing to appear before Senator Byrd's committee (because he was teleported to the Mandarin's palace instead). Now that he's back he's weak and needs a recharge, but neither Pepper nor Happy are at their homes. But in the meantime, Warlord Krang and Lady Dorma (who have lost their blue skin) appear in a nearby submarine.



Iron Man manages to drive them away, but ironically this enrages the Sub-Mariner, who had been trailing them but is unable to catch up with Warlord Krang's ship. So they have the obligatory Marvel hero fight:



Fortunately for Iron Man, Subby never read any of the Br'er Rabbit stories. Iron Man beats the Sub-Mariner for now, but the latter goes back to water to recharge his powers and:



Say what? A crossover into the Sub-Mariner feature in TTA? Arrgggghhh! Okay, I'm going to assume that they had some more battling to do but eventually kissed and made up.

In TOS #81, Tony is prepared to go to Washington to appear before Senator Byrd's committee and reveal his secret identity. Here's a reminder how much things have changed since 9-11:



I can remember showing up at airports with ten minutes to spare and still making the flight. Anyway, Tony decides to fly to Washington as Iron Man, rather than taking a plane. Meanwhile, in the Soviet Union, the communists have modified the Titanium Man's armor to make it stronger and more powerful. So TM decides to take this opportunity to attack Iron Man. He is sent to the US in a missile that arrives just as Iron Man reaches DC and:



The battle takes place in the next two issues. At first Titanium Man has the upper hand but when Pepper and Happy arrive in Washington, TM realizes that Pepper means something to him, and threatens her:



Well, that ticks Iron Man off royally and (after rescuing Pepper), he fights with renewed determination. Meanwhile, elsewhere, folks are watching on TV:



Reading from Left to Right, President Lyndon Baines Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara. Oddball tidbit: McNamara's middle name was "Strange" (his mother's maiden name). Iron Man defeats the Titanium Man, who hopes to get away in a Soviet sub, but learns there is no room for second place among the commies:



Happy recovers his memory during the battle, but Pepper apparently loses hers:



Say what? Tony's absence during the first Titanium Man's battle with Iron Man was a big part of what turned Pepper off on him, and there's been no reconciliation since, but he misses the second battle and suddenly Pepper's all lovey-dovey towards him? What happened to her affection for Iron Man?

Comments: A solid series of issues with only a few missteps. I do wish that Stan had been more consistent with the Pepper/Tony relationship.

Next: Tony Stark testifies before Congress!

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Number 533


Monsteroids of the underworld!


Captain Rocket returns in the second story from his one and only appearance, Captain Rocket #1, from 1951.

In this story we have a villain named Gorgo, a gas that turns humans into monsters (or monsteroids, as they're known here), a primitive version of the Internet where Captain Rocket references the story on Gorgo, an earth-boring machine, art swipes from Flash Gordon...this is fast-paced and goofy, just how I like my comic book science fiction.

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