Above, the 1%, demonstrating against the 99%, denouncing the working class as “Paupers”. Titled Are Honest Laborers Paupers?, from front cover of the March 9th, 1889 issue of San Francisco’s humor weekly, the Wasp.

Click on the above picture, to view it in full detail.

To find prior episodes of this series,click on Wall Street Frauds Make Wonderful Cartoons. And, to find earlier posts concerning financial reforms in general, click here.

Doug Wheeler

financial reform WaspMag

It’s out and the reviews are in! Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance has everyone talking. Here’s what the critics are saying: “This is a boring movie,” “confusing mess,” “another step downward in the spiral to the bottom of Nicolas Cage’s film career,” “isn’t any fun,” “sucks on a level I can scarcely describe,” “Cage chews more scenery than a pack of hungry termites,” “a movie about a man who is frequently on fire SHOULD NOT BE BORING!” Wow! Nothing but rave reviews! This film is a bona fide smash!

I wonder if Gary Friedrich still wants his name on it?

Yet the audience response is 46% positive, so maybe critics don’t know everything. And here at D.J. David B. Studios, all we care about is music anyway, so on with the tunes!

Today, we present the German take on Ghost Rider, courtesy of Ensemble Petticoat & Schickedance. I don’t speak German but as far as I can tell, the song is about a BMW. I have to assume it’s a BMW motorcycle they’re talking about. After all, that’s how the Ghost Rider rolls.

Click the links below to listen.

BMW 501 – Ensemble Petticoat & Schickedance

I hadn’t given thought to just how few Tuesdays are free of Presidential Primaries or Holidays the first half of this year. It’s been a month since the previous Tigwissel Tuesday, and will be a month again until the next.

Anyway, we’ll continue to sporadically present other scientists, inventors, and explorer parodies, between actual Prof. Tigwissel episodes, until we get back to a large succession of open Tuesdays.

Above, from the front page of the April 8th, 1878 issue of the (New York) Daily Graphic, The Humors of the Howgate Colonization Plan. Some Cool Reflections., by Prof. Tigwissel‘s creator, comic artist Livingston Hopkins. This parodies the plans of Captain Howard Howgate — who, lead a polar expedition in 1878, and who yes, indeed, had the goal of colonizing the Arctic…

Click on the above comic to view it in detail, and read its text.

Below, Hopkins had previously touched on the subject of Arctic exploration, in Prof. Tigwissel‘s third comic strip appearance, of July 28th, 1875. Click on the below comic, to be taken to a description of it, and find link to high resolution version.

Doug Wheeler

NYDailyGraphic

Continuing our coverage of Presidential Campaign 1912 (and Cartoons Magazine‘s Centennial Year), we have above a set of cartoons from the February 1912 issue, devoted to incumbent president Howard Taft (Republican), whose presidency is most remembered for his being so fat, he got stuck in his bath tub! Unfortunately, that event happened on his Inauguration Day in 1909 — if it had been in 1912, I can only imagine the glorious page-after-page of cartoons, that Cartoons Magazine might then have gathered! (This does get me to thinking, though, if I might not have such 1909 cartoons, elsewhere…)

Anyway, the above set of cartoons largely deal with calls the sitting President Taft, to drop out of the race — and his refusal to do so.

Click on the above picture, to view the cartoons in detail, and read their texts.

Doug Wheeler

ElectionComics

Thanks to the Steranko History of Comics Airboy became one of my favorite Golden Age characters long before I ever got a chance to read his comics.  It’s easy to understand why kids in the 40′s felt the same way; he was a teenager who did what most of them wanted to do; fly a super cool plane and get into the fighting.   A creation of Charles Biro he made his first appearance in the second issue of Air Fighter Comics, a comic dedicated to pilots with gimmick planes who fought WWII as independent contractors.  But Airboy broke out of a herd of also-rans like Iron Ace and Sky Wolf thanks in large part to Birdie, a sort of alive plane that flew by flapping it’s wings.

And, speaking of things that 40′s kids wanted to do, there was Airboy’s frenemy femme fatale Valkyrie (a.k.a. The Girl Who Had Trouble Keeping Her Blouse Buttoned; I had no idea 1940′s breast management technology was so advanced).  Man, Airboy got a lot of action for a fourteen year old.

With the 23rd issue it became Airboy and the comic had a back-up featuring The Heap, a supporting player swamp monster from the old Air Fighter Comics days.

Things got pretty weird for Airboy after the war.  Oh, sure there was some crime fighting but for the most part he faced an assortment of would-be world conquerors, monsters, aliens and supernatural menaces.  I place into evidence this issue of Airboy Vol. 7, #8.

When The Heap was revived he was colored moss green, pretty much the color scheme we’d expected a swamp monster to sport from years of seeing Swamp Thing and Man-Thing.  But as you can see in the 50′s he was depicted as being Abominable Snowman white.  Frankly, I kind of prefer him this way.

Let’s start off your week with a rare look at Blast Blair, a little-known early sixties astronaut-themed newspaper strip.

http://allthingsger.blogspot.com/2012/02/we-have-blast-off-saturday-letover-day.html

Here’s a fascinating piece on the historical and mythological origins of heroes.

http://www.comicscube.com/2012/02/she-is-screaming-in-shower-superheroes.html#more

Here’s a promising new blog devoted to Ace Comics, a nearly forgotten also-ran comics publisher of the 1950′s.

http://aces-of-ace.de/

Finally today, here’s a whole big bunch of Steve Ditko splash pages from the pre-Spidey days.

http://ferrandelgado.blogspot.com/2012/02/seleccion-de-splashes-de-steve-ditko-y.html

April 23rd, 1884 — one week following the first Blaine Tattooed-Man cartoon — Puck magazine featured the above centerspread cartoon, by Puck founder Joseph Keppler, Sr. This cartoon — titled Blaine O’Maine — concentrates on the Mulligan Letters, which involved James G. Blaine‘s corruption involving railroad stock and land rights, and is one of the tattoes always found on him, in the Tattooed-Man cartoon series. This one is obviously not one of the Tattooed-Man cartoons, but I thought it would be good to show something involving what the tattooes are about, before getting back into them (next week).

Click on the above cartoon, to both view it in detail, and read the captions.

Below, commentary from the same issue of Puck.

Doug Wheeler

ElectionComics NYPuck KepplerSr

Here’s a look at the dense, stylized covers writer-artist Jack Katz gave his FIRST KINGDOM, a pioneering independent comic book begun in the seventies.

http://ripjaggerdojo.blogspot.com/2012/02/first-kingdom.html

Have you seen the Golden Age Doctor Strange? Well..not exactly but here’s Doc Strange, by George Tuska.

http://allthingsger.blogspot.com/2012/02/no-lazybone-friday-comic-book-day.html

Oh, this is fun–dozens of caricatured self-portraits by leading cartoonists and comic book artists of 1970.

http://sekvenskonst.blogspot.com/2012/02/ncs-1970.html

Finally today, a look back at the early spot illustrations of Jack Cole, presaging his days as the ultimate Playboy cartoonist.

http://colescomics.blogspot.com/2012/02/evolution-of-cole-female-jack-coles.html

WARNING: Many of the below cartoons contain racist imagery and slurs.

Continuing both African American History Month, and the centennial year of Cartoons Magazine, with our second successive month of cartoons — these from the February 1912 issue of Cartoons Magazine — involving the first African American World Heavyweight Boxing Champion, Jack Johnson. The last cartoon of those shown, goes to the heart of the racial jealousy that whites felt, at having their sense of assumed superiority, shattered by the reality of a black boxing champion. The year would be filled with numerous failed “White Hopes”, with whites occasionally rioting when Jack Johnson would again defeat their hoped for champion.

Click on the above pictures to view the cartoons in detail, and read their texts.

Doug Wheeler

BlackHistory

R.I.P. the great John Severin.

Here are a couple of Western stories done by John Severin for Atlas in the 1950′s.

http://pappysgoldenage.blogspot.com/2012/02/number-1106-savorin-severin-news-is.html

Still at Atlas, here’s an entire issue of Western Outlaws spotlighting Severin alongside Sinnott, Crandall and Maneely.

http://goldenagecomicbookstories.blogspot.com/2011/02/western-outlaws-19-march1957-artwork-by.html

Here we see the complete 1999 interview with John from The Comics Journal.

http://www.tcj.com/the-john-severin-interview-parts-i-ii/

Finally, here’s yet another western from Severin, only this one from his early association with Mad.

http://conversazionisulfumetto.wordpress.com/2012/02/15/rip-john-severin-1921-2012/