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 who who all know from his work on such American comics as Tomahawk and Sky Sheriff,

It wouldn’t be Mother’s Day, without an R.F. Outcault comic strip of Buster Brown tormenting his mom! Above, “Buster Brown Kidnapped”, scanned from the 1905 promotional giveaway magazine, “Mr. Melville B. Raymond’s Buster Brown”, used to advertise upcoming performances of the touring musical stage play.

Click on the above & below pictures, to view the pages in detail, and be able to read the text.

Beneath, two pages of photos from the play.

Doug Wheeler

Richard Felton Outcault

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 from November 1954. If nothing else, it gives us a chance to admire the strong, dynamic work of John Sikela, a sadly forgotten DC artist who was also the artist on Siegel and Shuster’s Funnyman comic strip (which I’m going to continue to hope that someone will eventually collect and finally put it in print; it was a failure, but it was an interesting one). If his artwork here looks a little strange to you it’s because he preferred to drawn Superboy/Clark Kent as being younger with a more rounded head; it’s definitely not the Superboy I knew from the 1960′s Legion stories.

Written by Otto Binder “The Impossible Creatures” has Superboy temporarily putting his never ending battle against evil on hold so he can travel across the galaxy to help Lana Lang’s archeologist father. He’s been made a public laughing stock for uncovering fossils of unearthly creatures which are deemed fakes. And while this seems a little out of character for Superboy (not to mention beyond his power limits at the time), it’s exactly the sort of thing Otto Binder had Captain Marvel doing only a couple years earlier, And while there are some nice moments once Superboy gets to outer space it’s essentially a story completely lacking anything like drama. Plus there’s the fact the story of his adventure makes the papers and somehow the news that (a) alien life actually exists and (b) a “space ark visited earth a million years ago” doesn’t completely unhinge human civilization.

And here’s some nice one-pagers from the always wonderful Henry Boltinoff…

…and some pretty amateurish one-pagers from an unknown artist.

For this year’s Cinco de Mayo, we have a number of cartoons that appeared in first half of 1913, in various newspapers, and from there were reprinted in Cartoons Magazine.

In the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920, February & March 1913 were particularly volatile. The occupants of the National Palace changed hands several times, inspiring the James H. Donahey cartoon that appeared below, on the front cover of the April 1913 edition of Cartoons Magazine.

Above, the May 1913 issue reprints cartoonist Ole May‘s prediction of the end of President Franciso Madero.

Click on the above & below pictures, to view the cartoons in detail, and read the text.

The U.S. had supported dictator Porfirio Diaz, whome Madero had overthrown. The above cartoon by Harry J. Westerman, suggests a return to power by Diaz.

U.S. cartoons in general — such as the one by Charles “Doc” Winner below — reflected the racist attitude of white America, which viewed all of Latin America as inferior, requiring their Uncle Sam to tell them how to behave.

Above, and in the three double-page scans that follow, we have the article “Cartoons and Cartoonists of Mexico”, written by Harry H. Dunn, formerly the news editor of the publications La Prensa, and The Daily Mexican.

Dunn’s opening paragraph about Mexican cartooning having died with the destruction of the Aztec Empire by Spanish Conquistadors (implying that their codices were merely cartoons, rather than the written language that they were), and that Mexican cartoons do not begin again until 1910, is pure hogwash (in addition to being off by at least a century — click here to view a Mexican comic book from 1801.)

However, in his description of the then-“current” situation in Mexico, and of four of its then-prominent cartoonists — S.R. de la Vega, Telas Allendez, L.R. Noriega, and F. Ariza — the article is worth reading. So long as you also keep in mind that Dunn himself, was not Mexican, anymore than Mitt Romney’s ancestors, who lived in Mexico in flight from U.S. Law, were. Dunn’s article, thus, also carries a U.S. point-of-view.

Above & below — all from April 1913 — more U.S. cartoons concerning the Mexican Revolution, including several with patronizing attitude on full display.

Above, cartoons by Lynch, James E. Murphy, and Taylor.

Cartoons above, by Nelson Harding, Bronstrup, Shonkwiler, Barnett, and Donahey, Shonkwiler & Barnett (not incorrectly, and not for their first time) suggesting that the (at thi spoint) oft-threatened U.S. intervention in the Mexican Civil War, was motivated more by protecting the investments of U.S. millionaires, than by protecting anyone or anything else.

Below, by Ben Franklin Hammond, Charles Henry Sykes, W.A. Ireland, James H. Donahey, and Robert Minor, Jr..

Doug Wheeler

Billy Ireland Focus on Cartoonists

Here’s a brief look at the two TV-inspired Catwoman looks of sixties Batman comics.

http://kidr77.blogspot.com/2013/05/whos-got-whip-hand-now.html

You can view more super team-ups that could never be (including Devil Dinosaur with Calvin and Hobbes) here.

http://braveandboldlost.blogspot.com

Here’s a timely look at Iron Man’s most traditional arch-foe, The Manadarin, via his comics covers.

http://diversionsofthegroovykind.blogspot.com/2013/05/grooviest-covers-of-all-time-beware.html

Finally, as promised, we will always link toBasil Wolverton around here-especially Powerhouse Pepper!

http://pappysgoldenage.blogspot.com/2013/05/number-1361-funky-funnies-powerhouse.html

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 Comics #11 is a pretty good example of what I’m talking about.

The lead Captain Marvel story is infamous among funny book scholars such as myself because of Pg. 2, panel 6 where needing the answers to an examination Billy called upon Captain Marvel’s wisdom of Solomon by whispering the magic word “Shazam!” and a ghostly (and strangely capeless) Marvel manifests himself hovering over Billy’s shoulder to help him cheat.

This was of course during the early days of the strip when the creators weren’t sure what the exact relationship between Billy and Marvel and while certainly odd, I’d prefer to focus on the fact Mr. Morris sends Billy, a twelve year old, to enroll in a college to get a scoop and no one thinks this is in any way strange. And once rerolled Billy is hazed literally within an inch of his life by the captain of the football team/psychopath Ben Strang for the crime of being, you know, smart. Not to mention this story really has nothing to do with Captain Marvel’s supposed mission statement (i.e. fighting evil) and in the end the villain, corrupt Coach Slug Samson isn’t arrested and is allowed to just resign. To which I can only say What The Hell?!?

Here’s Dr. Voodoo a sadly forgotten, fairly original take on the jungle man trope even if he was an actual licensed medical doctor. In later installments he discovered lost civilizations in his jungle including a group of European knights who sent him on a quest through time to recover an artifact called the Golden Flask. It was also a surprisingly violent strip for Fawcett, as we can see from this panel.

And finally, here’s an adventure of Ibis the Invincible during his early days when his adventures were frequently continued and more often than not actually interesting. Here’s a humdinger which starts with a convict stealing Ibis’s all-powerful Ibistick and includes unwanted sexual advances, the Sphinx coming to life and the beautiful Princes Talia stabbing the convict in the heart. That’s hardcore, Talia.

After Ibis sidesteps the question of why he just doesn’t take over modern Egypt, seeing as show he’s an ancient Egyptian prince and all, Ibis magically checks in on Tommy. He’s the boy he and Talia “adopted” back in America (though one assumes not legally, seeing as how they’re not married and aren’t US citizens, Christian and by the racist standards of 1940′s America, non-white) on a whim then tossed into a military academy when they got bored with him. Tommy is involved in a pedestrian plot about cheating and the story ends with one wayward cigarette causeing the entire academy to explode. This is wild stuff.

Well, hi there! Been about a month since we did one of these supposedly daily things. In the meantime, the campaign to crowdfund a new computer so I could keep working and blogging was arousing success so now that everything is up to speed there…I’m back! Let’s go to press!

Fans of the Great Detective (no, the OTHER one) will appreciate this new and up-to-date repository of Dick Tracy info and minutiae.

http://dicktracy.info

Speaking of classic strip heroes, if you’re a Phantom fan, look no further than Scary Terry’s World for all your current Ghost Who Walks needs!

http://terrybeatty.blogspot.com

Here’s a look at one of the great one-shot oddities of the Silver Age, America’s Best TV Comics, a Marvel book advertising a DC character (see above)!

http://nick-caputo.blogspot.com/2013/04/a-marvel-oddity-americas-best-tv-comics.html

And finally for the first day back, one of the things I’ve been up to is creating a whole new blog, The World’s Finest Blog in fact!

http://wfcomicsblog.blogspot.com

To Close out this year’s April Fools’ Month, we bring our focus not on fools, but on some of the orchestrators of fun — the cartoonists. Above and below are the pages concentrated on cartoonists, from the April 1913 issue of Cartoons Magazine.

Above, a brief auto bio written by artist Billy DeBeck, along with an Income Tax cartoon appropriate for this month.

Click on the above & below pages, to enlarge them enough to read the text.

Beneath, short bits involving cartoonists William Kemp Starrett, Harry Murphy, Homer Davenport, and B.F. Hammond.

Above, nostalgia from 1910, about the good old days of the 1890′s, by artist Frank Wing, known for his series of cartoons — Yesterdays — which looked back to that past (and I suspect, from a 1920′s published collection I have, came across as dated, even then)…

In the fourth entry of Henry C. Williamson‘s articles about 19th century cartoonists, below, he writes about artist Bernhard Gillam‘s “Tattooed Man” series, depicting 1884 G.O.P. Presidential nominee James G. Blaine, as a man whose sins are written on his body, head-to-toe (and ran in Puck magazine, during that campaign). Clicking on the above links will take you to our postings of those same cartoons, last year.

Above, a short bio on cartoonist Karl K. Knecht.

Beneath, commentary about some of the cartoon subjects appearing in the April 1913 issue (which I’ve been gathering with cartoons from other months, into theme-based postings). Subjects include the ongoing Mexican Revolution (we’ll see many of those this coming Sunday); Cubist & Futurist Art, and the Women’s Suffrage Movement.

Finally, we have an article on “The Influence of Cartooning”, written by cartoonist J.E. Whiting.

Doug Wheeler

NYPuck Tattooed-Man James Blaine

We have one more cartoonist-illustrated theater giveaway for April Fools’ Month, advertising the travelling comedic play Turn to the Right, showing at Garrick Theatre in Philadelphia during the Christmas Season. (An internet search shows this play was at that theater during Christmas 1916, so unless it played there in other years on Christmas as well, we can deduce that this pamphlet was distributed in 1916.)

The advertising angle here, was to show big name cartoonists and their characters, sitting enjoying the play, sitting in a theater box and enjoying the play, as drawn by the cartoonists themselves. (Who drew the play scenes they are watching, is not given.)

Above, we have the back & front covers of the pamphlet, with photos of the five cartoonists who depicted themselves within.

Click on the above & below pictures, to enlarge them and read the text.

Beneath, Rube Goldberg‘s self-portrait, of himself with some of the characters from his Boob McNutt strip.

Next, we have Clare Briggs (left page), known for his cartoons featuring kids.

On the right page, we have Richard Felton Outcault, seated with his creations, Buster Brown & Tige.

Beneath, left page, is T.E. Powers with his Joys & Glooms characters.

Right page, George McManus, with his characters from Bringing Up Father.

For prior postings of cartoons involved with theater, click here.

Doug Wheeler

TheatricalCartoons AdvertisingStrips Focus on Cartoonists R.F. Outcault

We reach the end of our April Fools’ Month presentation of Box Set 1 of the Rube Goldberg‘s “Foolish Questions” card game, published in 1919 by the Wallie Dorr Company. Beneath, the final twelve cards of the 52-card set.

Click on the above & below pictures, to view them in greater detail, and be able to read their texts.

Below, the last page of the list of cards in Set 1:

Doug Wheeler