COMIC BOOK COMPULSIVE — The Gumps #3
The Gumps is another one of those once incredibly well known, loved and influential comic strips that have almost completely disappeared. Joseph Patterson, editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribute, the guy who, or so the story goes, turned Little Orphan Otto into Little Orphan Annie, had an idea for a comic strip soap opera about “regular people” which [...]
COMIC BOOK COMPULSIVE — Large Feature #8: Bugs Bunny
For reasons unknown the publisher Dell not once but twice tried comics in the “Large Feature” in an oversized (8 1/2 inches wide x 11 3/8 inches tall) black and white format. They published 30 issues between 1939 and 1942 and then an additional 13 all of which for the most part featured reprints of [...]
COMIC BOOK COMPULSIVE — Hit Comics #50
Another Golden Age character that I never really “got”? Quality’s Kid Eternity. Oh I’m not blind, for kids in the 1940′s he must have been chock full of wish fulfillment; he had all the advantages of being dead with none of the disadvantages, could boss around his supposed adult supervisor Mr. Keeper and by saying the [...]
COMIC BOOK COMPULSIVE — Weird Comics #12
If nothing else, Victor Fox’s Weird Comics lives up to it’s name, It’s pretty much equally divided between a couple of sensationally lame superheroes and some just plain weird features. Headlining, for some reason, this issue is The Dart and of course his partner Ace the Amazing Boy. When I saw Ace on the cover wielding a baseball [...]
COMIC BOOK COMPULSIVE — Better Comics #7
It’s ‘Canada Week” here at Comic Book Compulsive, apparently, and while, as previously established, I know precious little about Canadian comics and have read precious few Canadian comics. Oh, I appreciate them like all heck, but I am no expert. So I don’t really know what to say, or think for that matter, about Better Comics #7. [...]
COMIC BOOK COMPULSIVE — Dime Comics #1: Rex Baxter
I’ve already done a post featuring the Johnny Canuck story from Dime Comics, but here’s another story from that issue, “Rex Baxter and the Island of Doom”. It features, naturally, Rex Baxter, a two-fisted adventurer type who invariably was getting in fantastic situations who was another long-running feature of the comic. It was very nicely written and drawn by Edmond Good [...]
COMIC BOOK COMPULSIVE — Superboy #74
As you all know I have an over fondness for foreign reprints of US comics; there’s just something about seeing good art in stark black and white that just makes it better, in my eyes anyway. Which is why today I’m offering up Superboy #74 UK, from April, 1955 featuring “The Impossible Creatures”, a reprint from Adventure Comics [...]
COMIC BOOK COMPULSIVE — Whiz Comics #11
I like to say that Golden Age comic books were at their best when the people producing them had no idea what they were doing. When it was all new and nothing was set in stone and the people behind the scenes were desperately flailing about trying to figure things out on the fly. Whiz [...]
COMIC BOOK COMPULSIVE — Lion and Champion, April 15, 1967
One of my all-time favorite comics would have to be the UK’s Lion, home to one of my all-time favorite characters, Robot Archie. Yet it has occurred to me as much as I’ve written about it, I’ve never presented an entire issue of the publication. Well, almost complete. I have helpfully edited out both the WWII series Treleaway of [...]
COMIC BOOK COMPULSIVE — Space Detective #4
”Space Week” concludes with Space Detective #4. the fourth and final issue of a short-lived quarterly series from the publisher Avon. Although the covers stressed that our hero was named “Rod Hathaway” inside he learn that was the name of the main characters secret identity, a wealthy far future philanthropist who secretly fought evil as Avenger. [...]
