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Novelty Press was one of those Golden Age publishers who only published a handful of titles. But those they did were memorable, long-running and among my very favorites, especially Blue Bolt Comics and Target Comics.

Target Comics started out full of weird characters and ideas and was distinctive, eccentric and fun, but that all started to change in Vol. 2 #1 (one of the things that made Novelty Press comics unique was they didn’t use the sequential numbering most comic publishers did). On the cover Uncle Sam himself drafted all of its comics characters to do their part for the war effort.

Although most Golden Age comic book characters were in one way or another involved in the war this kind of funny book mobilization was unprecedented. Especially since this happened a year before America’s entry into WWII.

I’m sure it was well intentioned but it had the unexpected consequence of steamrolling flat just about everything that was unique about Target Comics. Take, for example, what happened to Manowar, The White Streak, written and drawn by Carl Burgos, creator of both The Human Torch and The Iron Skull. The White Streak was yet another one of his android heroes, super strong, invulnerable and able to emit devastating eye beams, the creation of an advanced lost civilization destroyed by war. Upon revival in modern times he swore to make war upon the warmongers and made good by regularly smashing greedy arms merchants.

In spite of him having not one but two not particularly impressive superhero names he might have been a contender, then he got his draft notice. To better fit with humanity he got plastic surgery (on his presumably plastic face) and started fighting America’s enemies in the civilian garb of FBI agent Dan Sanders. Apparently this direction didn’t satisfy the editors so he went back to busting spies and saboteurs in his old outfit and wearing a mask that looked like his old face.

When he continued to under perform with readers he got teamed with another costumed hero with a primary color in his name, The Red Seal. He numbered among that select group of costumed vigilantes brave enough to fight crime bare legged and was a genuine rarity in Golden Age comics; a mystery man who remained an absolute mystery. The only thing we actually knew about the guy was he sported a mustache.

The partnership didn’t last long, however; both The White Streak and the Red Seal made their final appearance in Target Comics Vol. 2 #10 Here’s The White Streak story from Vol. 1 #5, the only time the character was cover featured.

The White Streak even appeared in one of those two page text stories that existed solely because of obscure postal regulations.

Calling 2R was without question one of the weirdest features to ever appear in Golden Age comics. A oddball blend of the movies Boystown and The Shape of Things To Come as well as the comic strips Buck Rogers and, I know this might be a stretch, Radio Patrol. If you’ve never heard of it it’s not surprising as its a completely forgotten strip from a time when a radio equipped police squad car was bleeding edge technology).

It revolved around Boystate, a Utopian super science city-state created to be a safe haven for at-risk boys (like the real Boystown) by the mysterious Skipper, an old guy who looked more than a little like Buffalo Bill Cody. With his teen aide Captain John Johnson they ran The Rangers, peace-keepers who rode high-tech “cosmocycles” and protected Boystate’s citizens and secrets from sinister outsiders.

That all changed with Target Comics Vol. 2 #1 when the formerly unaligned Boystate became one huge war plant for the United States. The feature limped along for another two issues after which it was replaced by The Cadet, a fairly anemic imitation of the publisher’s much more interesting military cadet character Dick Cole from Blue Bolt Comics.

In spite of all it’s obvious influences Calling 2r was a remarkably original strip so I can understand if kids in 1941 weren’t exactly into it (the fact that it wasn’t popular with readers was confirmed in an answer to a letter published in Blue Bolt Comics #12). And I really can’t blame them. OK, sure, the strip had a bucketful of really wild ideas (I mean, the very idea of a independent Utopian city-state in the heart of an America still in the throws of the Great Depression is still kind of mind blowing), but it could have used both a much better title and a lead character stronger than The Skipper.

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Golden Age comics were awash in ‘spacemen’ strips who were just as often influenced by the SF pulps as they were direct imitators of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. But Basil Wolverton’s Spacehawk, with it’s dark tone, unsettling other worlds and downright disturbing aliens was head and shoulders above them all. Spacehawk was an incredibly powerful, super creepy proctor of the spaceways in the far future who went in heavy and often didn’t take prisoners. Sure, there was a Dirk Squarejaw type white guy underneath that helmet but in this, his first appearance not only does he keeps it on but gives no indication he’s in any way human.

When he got called up he came to present day earth where he battled America’s enemies and became involved in stories that were frankly beneath him (I found the one about rubber rationing to be particularly humiliating). Supposedly these changes were also made in the strip to make it more “relatable” to the kids and just generally “less fantastic”. Wolverton made them under protest, certain they’d kill the strip which it did because apparently even a watered down, weak tea version of the character was too “fantastic” for Target Comics readership.

Let’s start today with some cool, pulpy Men’s Mag illustrations from one of my favorite Golden Age Timely artists, Syd Shores, a man who ended up working on more Captain America stories than Jack Kirby.

http://www.menspulpmags.com/?zx=7a6597a7cd610547

NSFW but here’s a nifty look at some Penthouse comic strip illustrations from Ron Embleton, one of the great UK comics artists of all time.

http://cloud-109.blogspot.com/2011/06/ron-embleton-penthouse-years.html

Steve Does Comics offers up that rare thing-a list I completely agree with! In this case, it’s the top Avengers covers by the late John Buscema.

http://stevedoescomics.blogspot.com/2011/06/john-buscemas-all-time-top-ten-avengers.html

Finally today, while we’re over at Marvel, here’s a brief tribute to Marvel’s Bronze-Age super-heroines.

http://mightyworldofbronzeagemarvel.blogspot.com/2011/06/jungle-queens-to-spider-women-five.html

Let’s start today with a fun look at one of my personal nostalgic favorites, the first, Gil Kane-drawn issue of National’s 1960′s Plastic Man revival.

http://sacomics.blogspot.com/2011/06/plastic-man-1.html

Al Williamson, Roy Krenkel and maybe a bit of Frazetta. What are you waiting for? Head over to Pappy’s to see how it was done back in the day.

http://pappysgoldenage.blogspot.com/2011/06/number-962-dying-to-be-loved-al.html

Some of the most important documents you will ever see on the history of comics are these letters to and from Jerry Siegel in the early days of Superman. Fascinating stuff!

http://ohdannyboy.blogspot.com/2011/06/joanne-siegel-and-laura-siegel-larson-v.html

Finally today, here’s some very early-and very short-Ditko, with the artist in full Kubert mode since he was at St John at the time.

http://atomic-surgery.blogspot.com/2011/06/man-who-crashed-into-another-era-by.html

Francisco Solano Lopez

I devoted one of my very first Comic Book Compulsive blogs to Galaxus, The Thing From Another World and he remains one of my all-time favorite British comic characters. It was drawn by the Argentinean artist Francisco Solano Lopez who with his studio produced an amazing amount of material for the British publisher Fleetway. His strips included The Drowned World, Toys of Doom, The Wizard of Football, World Wide Wheelers, Murphy’s Magic Mauler, Gargan, Stringbean and Hambone, The Fugitive from Planet Scor, Britain AD 2170, Sweeper Sam, Janus Stark, Master of the Marsh, Tri-Man, Adam Eterno and Raven on the Wing.

The funny (funny weird) thing is the first time I had ever seen Lopez’s artwork it was in the Eros Comics Adults Only series Young Witches. So when I saw his same signature idiosyncratic style being used on kid’s material, well, it was kind of unsettling to say the least.

With xis (well, he is a seemingly gender neutral xenoform so a gender neutral seems appropriate) only friends the young British twins Jim and Danny Jones. In spite of xis considerable size and strength advantages unless directly threatened Galaxus usually shied away from a fight. In fact it was frequently up to the Jones Boys to save Galaxus who had the unfortunate habit of getting captured by cruel humans while shrunk down to doll size.

So along with the American locales one of the things about this story done for Buster Book 1977 is the fact that it gives Galaxus the opportunity to runamuck at bit while at giant size. You have to commend the quick thinking of the local authorities; when faced with a rampaging giant monster they don’t expect Washington to solve their problems for them. No sir, they solve things at the local level. But while certainly cost effective I do have to question their plan, i.e. tossing the giant monster into a “swamp pit” without doing due diligence as to whether it is in fact dead.

I checked; South Dakota (home of Mt. Rushmore0 does in fact have swamps. However I’ve never heard of a “swamp pit” and every time I Binged it all I got back was something about pit bulls.

Early on while on a bus Jim and Danny receive some grief from would-be toughs for actually knowing something about Mount Rushmore. I would declare this improbably unlikely existing only as a contrivance to further the plot if at the age of fifteen I hadn’t been savagely mocked by similar types for the offense of reading a newspaper while on a bus.

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We start today with some classic Spider-Man-an early team-up with the Human Torch from the middle Ditko period, villain the Beetle, dialogue by Smilin’ Stan.

http://grantbridgestreet.blogspot.com/2011/06/spider-man-in-where-flies-beetle-by.html

From that same era, here’s Harvey’s legendary 1966 Fighting American one-shot with some less than serious Simon and Kirby fifties reprints.

http://comicreadinglibrary.blogspot.com/2011/06/fighting-american-v2-1.html

How about some ultra-rare comics that never were from Buz Sawyer and Wash Tubbs creator Roy Crane?

http://hairygreeneyeball3.blogspot.com/2011/06/roy-cranes-art-techniques-and-his-lost.html

Finally today, here’s a nice selection of summer fun-in-the-sun Archie covers. Have we mentioned that Craig has published the definitive history of Archie Comics, orderable on this very page??

http://mailittoteamup.blogspot.com/2011/06/archie-and-fun-in-sun.html

As the cover indicates Buster was one of those British boys weeklies where the emphasis was on humor but which also featured a surprising amount of straight adventure material. And while the weeklies were all well past their prime by the late 70′s there’s a lot of really good material in Buster Book 1977.

Pete’s Pocket Army is yet another strip with a high concept premise (boys collection of action figures are in actuality extraterrestrial refugees) involving miniaturization, a theme that pops up repeatedly in British boys comics. Most notably Peter’s Pocket Grandpa which ran in The Dandy published by Fleetway’s main rival D.C. Thompson. I couldn’t tell you which strip came first.

I originally made the mistake of assuming that Pete’s Pocket Army was drawn by the great Argentinian artist Francisco Solano Lopez but Dave Gibbons assures me that it was actually drawn by Eric Bradbury. Although Bradbury was known for developing a style similar to Lopez’s I particularly feel the fool for making the mistake because the artist drew two of my favorite strips, The Leopard From Lime St. and Mytek the Mighty.

And just because I’m admittedly over fascinated with British robots here’s an episode of Uncle Ironsides. Before I ever read the strip I was intrigued by what I imagined it was about; a kid waking up one morning to hear “Your father’s brother is coming to live with us, and, oh, by the way he’s a robot; he’s sensitive so don’t say anything”. Someone could turn that into a Disney Channel show in about a half hour. Of course the actual strip is nowhere as interesting as my imaginings; it’s a pretty standard sit-com of the hilarious consequences variety that follows the perfectly ordinary British Carter family who “as an experiment” has sent to them (by who exactly I have no clue) the robot named Uncle Ironsides,

Naturally stodgy old Dad can’t stand the miraculous machine or his inventions which include, interestingly enough, Tinhead, a robot boy that Uncle builds to be a pal to young Joey. That’s right, Uncle Ironsides can reproduce at will, which nobody seems to think is at all unusual.

My friend Bob called the other day to say that I, D.J. David B., was invited over to look through the worthless old junk he was cleaning out of his damp, disgusting basement. For some reason people just naturally assume that I want all the crummy books and records they are throwing in the garbage. And they are right.

Bob had all the usual rock ‘n’ roll albums people always keep carefully stored next to the furnace or under a leaky pipe. There were plenty of those familiar records by Fats Domino and Chubby Checker – you know, fat guys with last names the same as games. But Bob had a few that even I had never heard of, and I’ve been in a lot of damp, disgusting basements, let me tell you.

Right under the creaky stairs he had worn-out albums by Pudgy Backgammon, Lumpy Chess and a guy named Tiny Tiddlywinks, who wasn’t really that tiny if you catch my drift.

There was a cracked record from Hefty Scrabble, another by Plump Parcheesi, and two by a group called Fatso and the Chutes & Ladders, hidden under some mildewed blankets.

Two soiled singles by Portly Pinochle, a crusty 12-inch dance mix by Flabby Horseshoes and a greasy box set from a guy named Corpulent Mumblety-Peg were found behind the water heater.

Inside a moist, moldy trunk – sealed since the Fifties – were some amazing scratchy 78’s by Bulky Bagatelle, Overweight Othello and Plump Shuffleboard.

And you won’t believe what was in a cruddy cardboard box along with some oily rags and two inches of vintage filth – worn out 45’s by Stout Ping-Pong, Obese Bingo and Heavyweight Hopscotch, that’s what!

Next to the sump pump was a real find, a soggy box filled with R&B records by a large woman named Big Milles Bornes!

Behind the washing machine, in a flurry of dust bunnies, was the mother lode: records by Beefy Skittles, Blubbery Solitaire and Flabby Mah-Jongg. I was in fat game-guy heaven!

Needless to say, I brought all these records home and promptly stored them in my own musty cellar, along with my collection of Chubby Checker and Fats Domino disks.

Speaking of which, here’s one by Chubby himself and it’s all about Popeye!

Click the link to listen.

Chubby Checker - Popeye The Hitchhiker

No stranger to caricature himself, the irrepressible Drew Friedman celebrates artist Jack Davis’s amusing and spot-on contributions to TV Guide over the decades.

http://drewfriedman.blogspot.com/2011/06/jack-davis-covering-tv-guide.html

Here’s some more in-depth coverage of the Jerry Siegel family’s current-and in this case historical-legal differences with DC comics over…well…you know who.

http://ohdannyboy.blogspot.com/2011/06/jerome-siegel-joseph-shuster-against.html

Speaking of legal issues, here’s a Comics Journal archival piece from 2002 on Jack Kirby’s legal issues with Marvel.

http://www.tcj.com/kirby-and-goliath-the-fight-for-jack-kirbys-marvel-artwork/

Finally today, the ever-popular Jim Shooter recounts some quips and quotes from comics creators that may say as much or more about him than they do anything else.

http://www.jimshooter.com/2011/06/10-best-comics-creators-quips-and.html

I’ve repeatedly written how most British comics were anthology weeklies published by either one of two major publishers, Fleetway or D.C. Thomson, and were sorely lacking in standard issue American style superheroes. And while that’s certainly true there were definitely exceptions to those rules like Super Thriller, a monthly from a publisher called World Distributors featuring Ace Hart the Atom Man, a actual superhero.

Surprisingly there were quite a few American style superheroes from the late 1940′s to the late 1950′s in British comics.

Image via Wikipedia continues to swear up and down they

You’ve no doubt already know about Marvelman (and how Marvel continues to swear up and down they plan on doing more with the character beyond the recent reprints). But there were plenty more and to literally name a few there was Mr. Apollo, Masterman, Captain Might, Captain Crash and Captain Magnet. Then there was Miracle Man who was actually related to Marvelman in an incredibly roundabout way. Supposedly MM creator Mick Anglo ‘created’ the character Super Hombre for the Spanish market by redrawing some of his old Marvelman stories. Then he resold the strips in English to the British market as Miracle Man.

World Distributors had more of a track record publishing Annuals like the one for the weekly comic TV Tornado that featured comic strip versions of American TV shows currently on British TV as well as American comic book and strip characters. Which is how we got a cover scene that had Flash Gordon, The Phantom, The Green Hornet Tarzan charging at the reader with, you’re not hallucinating, Magnus Robot Fighter out in front. Boy, I’d sure like to have that Annual for Christmas.

But in 1948 they published Super Thriller who’s regular cover feature was Ace Hart, a scientist who’s thanks to an atomic elixir could fly and had super strength. And though he usually didn’t need it he also packed heat in the form of his trusty atomic pistol. There wasn’t anything either innately British or original about Ace; he stuck close to the American superhero template and both he and his adventures were both fairly dull. But along with being a cultural curiosity I have to admit at least part of my interest in Ace is due to the fact that I’ve always had an inexplicable fondness for superheroes who were brave enough to go by their proper names (Stormy Foster, The Great Defender, Brad Spencer, Wonderman, etc.).

The character had a fairly lengthy run, lasting until #34 until the publisher jumped on the then current Western bandwagon and the title becameWestern Super Thriller.

But he something of a second life; in the late 50′s he appeared in three Annuals which contained not comics but text adventures with illustrations by artist Edgar Hodges. He also painted the cover to the 1959 Annual which is, I believe we can all agree, just beautiful. Credit where credit is due compels me to inform you I got the above image and information about the Annuals from this website: http://comicbitsonline.multiply.com/tag/acehart

Super Thrillers #12 also had a couple interesting back-ups, well, they’re interesting to me anyway. Like the apparent one-off story Evil Island, about Bob and Jack, a pair of boys who get shipwrecked on a mad scientist’s island. In a mere four pages it manages to squeeze in them being captured by costumed henchmen (who are actually referred to as such), rescue a beautiful girl, escape the island in a futuristic plane then turn back at the last possible second to destroy both the island and the mad scientist’s death ray.

There’s a Western, The Adventures of Stevie Callahan which seems really, really, really influenced by Milton Caniff’s Steve Canyon. If the logo isn’t enough to make you suspicious…

…I present into evidence a profile shot of our hero.

And finally The Secret City which in a mere five pages tells the story of Jack and Peter Strong who while minding their own business exploring South America are captured by the Marva, sentient robots and taken to the super science lost city and placed in their zoo. In most respects it’s your standard ‘boys own’ type adventure that’s almost identical to Evil Island (there’s also an extremely convenient beautiful girl to be rescued and an escape to engineer), but the fact that there’s a super science lost city run by robots makes it just interesting enough to get posted here.

On my A Geek’s Journal 1976 blog, I often write about what comic books I purchased and read in the Bicentennial year. Here, the Groovy Agent shares a bunch of Marvel covers from that memorable summer!

http://diversionsofthegroovykind.blogspot.com/2011/06/summer-of-76-grooviest-covers-of-all.html

In 1989, the great Harvey Kurtzman revisited his Help and Mad-style humor in a prehistoric collaboration with William Stout, Shmegeggi of the Cavemen.

http://hairygreeneyeball3.blogspot.com/2011/06/harvey-kurtzmans-schmegeggi.html

Here’s a vintage Superman/Lois Lane tale drawn by Wayne Boring. If you’re a comics fan that should be all you need to know really.

http://grantbridgestreet.blogspot.com/2011/06/lois-lane-wanted-by-william-woolfolk.html

Finally today, there’s a wealth of comics and Bettie Page history deftly mixed with some dashes of hard truth and dollops of fiction over at comics historian Greg Theakston’s entertaining blog.

http://gregtheakstonteasemag.blogspot.com/