Being an actual child of the 60′s (as in, I was a child, in the 60′s) I lived during the stone age of the action figure, back when they were ginormous. I’m guessing I must have had a G.I. Joe but the ones that I can still feel in my hands were (of course) Captain Action and Captain Lazer “the giant with superhuman lazer powers”, friend of Major Matt Mason. And though I’ve clung to cartoons all my life when I hit adolescence I succumbed to peer pressure and abandoned action figures. Until the 1990′s when grown men playing with toys became acceptable. But I’m clean again, thanks mostly to (a) a complete lack of money and (b) the realization that no matter how “cool” an action figure admittedly is once out of it’s packaging it’s just another piece of plastic destined to gather dust. And I already have more than enough plastic and dust.

Image by Zellaby

I have zero memories of Big Jim, Mattel’s slighter shorter version of G.I. Joe. So I was a little startled when I discovered this promotional comic from 1975 featuring artwork by John Buscema. In it Big Jim is the leader of a team of “Professional Agents — Crime Killers” — Torpedo! Warpath! The Whip! Dr. Steel! The P.A.C.K.!”

This comics is kind of interesting because it was done before 1979 when Marvel Comics got into toy comics in a serious way (Rom, Space Knight, Micronauts, etc.). Also at the same time Marvel did this comic a series of ads appeared in their comics for Big Jim’s main competitor who had his own pseudo super-team, G.I. Joe’s Adventure Team! More people seem to remember this oddball incarnation of G.I. Joe because it featured Mike Powers, The Amazing Atomic Man (and Six Million Dollar Man rip-off) and Bulletman the Human Bullet (no relation to the Fawcett Comics version of Bulletman). I’m always a little surprised that IDW hasn’t done an Adventure Team mini-series or one shot, considering just how many Joe collectors would undoubtedly buy one. I suppose they’re afraid they’d be accused of not taking the Joe franchise “seriously” enough.

So, believe it or not, Big Jim’s P.A.C.K.

We start today with our fellow I.T.C.H.er, J.J. Sedelmaier whose work on this past Saturday’s return of the Ambiguously Gay Duo to SNL-in live-action yet-is the talk of the Net!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/15/ambiguously-gay-duo_n_862111.html

Panel to Panel is a great comics blog and they’re raising funds through Kickstarter to help publish what will undoubtedly be a great comics book of interviews. Check ‘em out here.

http://paneltopanel.net/

Here’s a 1962 Gold Key issue of the Phantom, a character who amazes me by continuing to be one of the most popular comics characters in the world…but not here in his own country.

http://hairygreeneyeball3.blogspot.com/2011/05/phantom-1-1962-gold-key.html

With blogger out of order the past few days, there was no point linking to a lot of stuff since even those who could post were seeing their posts disappear and return seemingly at random. Seems to be fixed at long last so let’s see what’s new out there on this fine Saturday, shall we?

The Groovy Agent has come up with a Sergio Aragones/Steve Skeates piece from a seventies House of Mystery that seems to have been the inspiration for DC’s Plop.

http://diversionsofthegroovykind.blogspot.com/2011/05/grooves-faves-poster-plague-by-skeates.html

Rip Jagger is excited about the great Steranko coming to Cincinnati in September so he shares a ton of S.H.I.E.L.D. covers and such including my own very first exposure to Jim, seen above.

http://ripjaggerdojo.blogspot.com/2011/05/sterankos-shield.html

Nothing here but a typical seventies Batman story but, hey…that’s not a bad thing! Denny, Julie, E. Nelson, Irv Novick, Bob Wiacek and the Joker. What’s not to like?

http://grantbridgestreet.blogspot.com/2011/05/batman-jokers-playground-of-peril-by.html

Finally today, Gorilla Daze takes a look at one of my personal favorite of the silly Silver Age Jimmy Olsen stories, Planet of the Capes!

http://www.thefifthbranch.com/gorilladaze/?p=1649

As previously established certain types and tropes regularly reappear in British comics; robots and space aliens who invariably befriended British children and for some reason kids with cat powers (or who at least dress up a bit like cats). Not quite superheroes in the modern Marvel/ DC sense of the word but at the very least vigilante crime fighters with just a touch of the Gentleman Cracksman re-purposed for good trope like Cary Grant’s character from To Catch A Thief Paul Robie The Cat (dressed all in black, scampering across rooftops at night, etc.).

For years my chief argument against ‘realistic’ superheroes has always been that the only ones who would ever dress up and use their special powers to fight evil would be children. And there’s no better example of that than Billy the Cat from The Beano. Secretly William Grange, a seemingly normal schoolboy who somehow possessed superhuman strength and agility (no explanation was ever given) and used gadgets designed by his dead father to fight crime.

I’ve often wondered just how aware British comic creators were of American comics; allow me to present into evidence The Leopard of Lime St. from Buster. It was a strip about 13 year old Billy Farmer who gets scratched by an escaped leopard who was being treated with a radioactive serum and gains cat-like powers and became Leopardman. As to why the strip wasn’t just called “Leopardman” maybe the editors were a little nervous about just how big a direct knock-off of Spider-Man it was. The creators made the material their own; first off, it featured beautiful artwork by the late Mike Weston and Peter Parker was squarely middle class compared to Billy Farmer. Sure, Billy had a Aunt May stand-in sickly Aunt Joan, but he also had Uncle Charlie, an abusive perpetually unemployed creep who would have sold out his secret identity in a heartbeat. If the UK soap opera Eastenders had a superhero it would The Leopard From Lime St.

And finally there was Cat Girl from the girl’s comic Sally. She was Cathy, the daughter of a private detective who discovers a cat suit which imbues her with cat-like powers that she uses to secretly help out her father. I don’t know about any of you but I kind of wish that Spider-Girl was a little more like this.

The Heck you say! Don, that is. Here we have the often underappreciated Marvel Age artist Don Heck in his own words as pieced together from various sources.

http://ohdannyboy.blogspot.com/2011/05/original-art-stories-don-heck-in-his.html

All comics fans know that National Comics was “gorilla-centric” back in the day. Here we meet Congorilla, an attempt to actually create a regular simian hero out of old standby, Congo Bill!

http://www.thefifthbranch.com/gorilladaze/?p=1643

Here are a couple of Atlas quickie terror tales, well-drawn by Pete Morisi (PAM) and Allen Bellman, both of whom were at their peak in the fifties when these saw print.

http://thehorrorsofitall.blogspot.com/2011/05/madmans-music-storm.html

Finally today, here’s an adventure with Oswald, the Lucky Rabbit-Walter Lantz version-complete with a cameo from Woody Woodpecker.

http://comicrazys.com/2011/05/09/oswald-rabbit-new-funnies-70-artist-uncredited/

Aha! Fooled you, didn’t I? You thought I was done with Popeye. Not by a long shot! I’ve got Popeye songs to last until you can’t stand them anymore. (At least one more week.)

This one features shout-outs to some of the United States of America, including New Jersey, Mississippi, Rhode Island, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. But if your state wasn’t mentioned, don’t feel left out. Perhaps Popeye will get around to it in the weeks, months and years ahead.

Of course, all of this Popeye music is to commemorate the recent release of “Popeye: The Great Comic Book Tales of Bud Sagendorf” (available now on Amazon).

Ready for another song by Popeye? Click the link to listen.

Every State Is a Great State

If you are a regular reader of these things some of my preferences when it comes to Golden Age Comics should be becoming obvious. For instance there’s no question that I have a special place in my heart for anthologies with cool names and striking logos that feature a mix of comic strip reprints and original features. Like Dell’s Popular Comics.

It’s first issue was published in 1936 and lasted until 1948 publishing a total of 145 issues. Early issues are a treasure trove for fans of some of 1930′s comic strips that are still waiting to be collected such as The Gumps, Little Joe, Trippie, The Nebbs, Smitty, Moon Mullins, etc. The covers of the early issues focused on various comic strip characters in black out comedy bits, even a fairly obscure character that I love Herky by Clyde Lewis. He started out as a super strong (his given name was “Hercules”), articulate baby who quickly lost his strength and quickly grew into a mouthy five or six year old. I suppose if I sat down and gave it sufficient thought I could come up with a reason why I love Herky the way I do. But I’m not going to bother; I just love it — and that’s good enough for me.

In 1939 superhero comics exploded and the covers of Popular Comics switched to more action/adventure type subjects. For a while they had their own line-up of minor-key superheroes with names like The Masked Pilot, The Voice, Martan the Marvel Man and Supermind and Son. They were all pretty weird and/or interesting but apparently none of them was the break out hit the publisher was looking for because by 1942 the covers pretty much featured either Terry and the Pirates or Smilin’ Jack. But they didn’t give up on original material, as this issue proves.

First, let’s take a moment to appreciate this cover. The logo, the composition, the coloring…if you don’t like this cover I don’t even want to know you.

I honestly can’t say what, exactly, Cyclone was ‘about’, beyond the fact that it featured the present day, usually Western tinged, adventures of a some guy named Cyclone who mostly went around shirtless. His sidekick was a midget magician named Midge who constantly ran around in a tuxedo and top hat. I haven’t read even issue of Popular Comics and I’m hoping there’s an installment of the Cyclone that has an actual explanation for all of this.

To be honest I was never really all that crazy about The Owl when he appeared in Crackajack Comics. But after he moved over to Popular Comics cartoonist Frank Thomas took the art up a notch and it became a fairly handsome feature that looked like a little like a prettier version of Dick Tracy. Thomas was definitely better than Chester Gould at drawing pretty girls, as can be seen in this sequence featuring a half naked faux princess/priestess.

This installment of The Hurricane Kids is credited to “Albert Hartie & Will Ely” but was actually co-writed by Oskar Lebeck and Gaylord DuBois. Lebeck was an editor at Dell and is probably best known for his 1960′s science fiction comic strip Twin Earths. DuBois is considered to be the most prolific writer of comics ever, having written over 3,000 scripts and along with writing the Tarzan comic strip for twenty five years created both Turok, Son of Stone and Brothers of the Spear.

Interestingly enough The Hurricane Kids found their way into an juvenile adventure novel, The Hurricane Kids on the Lost Islands as did a couple of other Popular Comics characters like Stratosphere Jim and His Flying Fortress and Rex, King of the Deep. This entry in the series is pretty standard boys adventure stuff but if readers stuck around they would eventually find themselves on the afore mentioned “Lost Islands” where they would encounter monsters, lost civilizations and the like.

I warn you that it isn’t all safe for work but let’s start today with some absolutely stunning art by the great Jean Giraud in his more famous guise as the one and only Moebius!

http://grantbridgestreet.blogspot.com/2011/05/moebius.html

Kirby, Trimpe, Robbins and Ditko are all highlighted (along with the wacky sci-fi Green Hornet seen here) in the latest of Waffyjon’s regular collections of original art spotted on the Net.

http://waffyjon.blogspot.com/2011/05/original-comic-art_09.html#more

Wally Wood and Dan Adkins did the classic issues of Gold Key’s M.A.R.S. Patrol but here’s a quick, fun look at one of the later, non Wood issues.

http://my-retrospace.blogspot.com/2011/05/comic-books-28-mars-patrol.html

Finally today, here’s a classic Archie Goodwin/Al Williamson story from an early issue of Eerie about a cartoonist. For years, readers have speculated on who this was based on.

http://thewarriorscomicbookden.blogspot.com/2011/04/eerie-13-success-story-al-williamson.html

Hey kids! Now that you’ve (assumably) done something nice for Mom this morning, and lulled her into a state of contentment, expecting nothing but good from her angels for at least the current 24 hours - this is the best time to surprise her with how spectacularly creative you can be with your pranks!

To aid you in this noble enterprise, below are a few suggestions from the master of pranks, Buster Brown! These are extracted from the miniaturized version of the book Buster Brown’s Pranks by Richard Felton Outcault, given away in 1905 by the New York City clothing store, Ivan Frank & Company.

(The black & white Ivan Frank-published version, which reprints the cover art plus numerous strips from the larger-sized color 1905 Frederick A. Stokes-published version, is only 3 inches tall by 5 inches wide, versus Stokes’ 11-1/4″ by 16-7/8″. Both reprint Buster Brown comic strips which had appeared yet earlier in Sunday newspapers.) Ivan Frank & Company was the manufacturer of Buster Brown licensed clothing, as hyped in this 1905 issue of Men’s Wear.

Click on any picture, to view a larger, readable version.

Kids! If you can’t use the next prank right away, try to remember it for your summer vacations later this year! Or better yet, why not do it now, and give your whole family a wonderful surprise later? When your Mom asks who did it, you might be able to honestly say you don’t know, because by then, even you may have forgotten about it!

Have a Happy Mother’s Day!

Doug Wheeler

Back to Kirby today on this Mothers’ Day with some original art pinup pages of both heroes and villains from an early Fantastic Four Annual originally published in the early sixties.

http://ferrandelgado.blogspot.com/2011/05/originales-de-varios-pinup-incluidos-en.html

Here’s a full issue of Skywald’s Creepy imitation, Nightmare-this one featuring a bunch of Marvel expatriates including Bill Everett, Dick Ayers, Tom Sutton and Tom Palmer…all under the worst Boris Vallejo cover ever.

http://comicreadinglibrary.blogspot.com/2011/05/nightmare-4.html

Classic Tootsie Roll shill, Captain Tootsie, drawn most of the time by C.C. Beck, actually merited his own comic book at one point (not by Beck) and here’s an issue right now.

http://cartoonsnap.blogspot.com/2009/02/captain-tootsie-full-length-comic-book.html

Finally today, here’s a funny survey of illustrated comical postcards from the mid-twentieth century, found over at Uncle Eddie’s Theory Corner.

http://uncleeddiestheorycorner.blogspot.com/2011/05/funny-postcards.html