Apparently one of the prerequisites for a Golden Age comic book publisher was to have an anthology comic featuring their major players under a title which essentially said “Yes, We’re Just That Good”. There was America’s Greatest Comics, America’s Best Comics, World’s Finest Comics, All-Winners and to a somewhat lesser degree, 4 Most, Four Favorites, Jackpot and Big 3. And as the below cover below might suggest, this time I’m going to be writing about America’s Greatest Comics #4 from 1941.

I’ll only be posting one story from it because it’s a fairly lengthy one, but I’ll use this comic as an excuse to dump on Fawcett’s pantheon of second-string superheroes who never caught on the way Captain Marvel and his entourage did. Personal tastes vary but frankly I’m not all that crazy about Spy Smasher, Bulletman, Minute Man, Mr. Scarlet and especially Commando Yank (who may very well be the dowdiest dressed mystery man of the Golden Age). It’s interesting to note that there’s never been a serious attempt at reviving them in the modern age, if you don’t count the reimagined versions of them who appear in the background of Mark Waid and Alex Ross Kingdom Come. And I don’t.

Our feature presentation is a twenty page Captain Marvel story titled “Captain Marvel and the Bumble Brained Bridegroom”. It’s set during the early days of the character when the writers and editors were still figuring out what exactly they wanted to do with him. It’s a little after Billy Batson gave up wearing the shirt with the double B.B. on the chest (like readers couldn’t have picked him out of a line-up even then) and carrying a miniature radio station on his back. You also know it’s a fairly early Captain Marvel entry because it features an appearance by Dr. Sirvana’s beautiful daughter (and that was her one and only defining characteristic) Beautia, and her desperately shallow love for the Big Red Cheese.

It’s also a strange and genuinely funny one featuring guest appearances by the Whiz Comics back-up features Spy Smasher (with his goggles up, revealing his secret identity of Alan Armstrong), Lance O’Casey, Golden Arrow (who apparently arrived via a time machine, as his adventures ordinarily took place during a non-specific period in The Old West) and Ibis the Invincible and Princess Taia (watch that hand, Billy). The story never comes out and exactly says it but it looks as if Billy is acting as the master of ceremonies at a War Relief Benefit showing of episodes of the Spy Smasher serial.

It also features a guest appearance by Professor Edgewise Smith who made reoccurring appearances in Golden Age Captain Marvel comics. In this story he self identifies as a mad scientist but in most of his appearances he was depicted as being your standard garage and/or attic whacky inventor type. When Captain Marvel was revived by DC in the 70’s he became Captain Marvel Jr.’s super scientist in residence.

From The Caricaturist’s Scrap Book, published in London in 1840 by Charles Tilt….Plates 1 & 2 of Demonology & Witchcraft, by artist Henry Heath.

Click on the pictures above and below, to view larger versions.

Demonology & Witchcraft was just one of several 1830′s cartoon scrapbooks (all by Heath), gathered together within The Caricaturist’s Scrap Book. Craig Yoe features some of these Henry Heath drawings, in the Cartoonists Go To Hell section of Craig’s book, Arf Museum.

Doug Wheeler

The ever romantic Sequential Crush revisits the short-lived genre of gothic romance comics with art and commentary including a nice cover by the late Jeffery Catherine Jones.

http://sequentialcrush.blogspot.com/2011/10/to-wed-devil-sinister-house-of-secret.html

Here’s a nifty site I just discovered which attempts to ferret out long-lost and unknown credits of comic book stories of the past…and does a pretty darn good job of doing so!

http://martinohearn.blogspot.com/

Superman, Swamp Thing and Solomon Grundy…written by Steve Englehart and all drawn by Murphy Anderson! In one story, together! Go. Read! Enjoy!

http://mailittoteamup.blogspot.com/2011/10/tales-from-dollar-bin-dc-comics_29.html

Attempting to interpret Legion of Super Heroes continuity is, of course, a losing battle but here’s a look at questions and speculation regarding the Time Trapper.

http://sacomics.blogspot.com/2011/10/curious-case-of-time-trapper.html

Entirely by accident I seem to have stumbled across an interesting (to me, anyway) bit of Marvel Comics lore. Between 1969 and 1975 Marvel published 39 issues of My Love and during that run they published the story “His Hair Is Long and I Love Him!” by Stan Lee and Gene Colan three times: in #5, #21 and #39. Of course by the time the final issue came out in 1976 the story had lost much of it’s relevance (i.e. long-hair for men had gone from outrageous to more or less normative).

This issue also included “Too Young to Wear Black” by Joy Hartle and Win Mortimer, which is nice and all…

…but it’s no “My Song and My Sorrow!” by Stan Lee, John Buscema and Dick Ayers.

Well, whaddaya know? WordPress has seen fit to let me back in finally after a lockout of nearly a full week! Betcha there’s been some good posts we can link to since we were last here! Let’s take a look.

One comics artist whose work I have come to really appreciate in recent years is Ernie Colòn whose sci-fi and adventure stuff all has a unique style but he nonetheless remains best known for his Richie Rich stories.

http://www.bigblogcomics.com/2011/10/ernie-colons-richie-rich.html

Whoa! Here we see an entire unpublished Golden Age story of Superman, shown in black and white from its original art as seen online at Auction!

http://allthingsger.blogspot.com/2011/10/small-super-package-friday-comic-book.html

Speaking of Superman, this has been spreading like wildfire on the Net-the actual check with which DC screwed over Siegel and Shuster in 1938!

http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/10/25/superman-check-jerry-siegel-joe-shuster-dc-comics/

And finally today, with Halloween inching up daily, here are some of Mike Ploog’s fantastic Eisneresque covers for Marvel’s Werewolf By Night.

http://diversionsofthegroovykind.blogspot.com/2011/10/grooviest-covers-of-all-time-mike.html

I’d been planning to resume the Wall Street Frauds Make Wonderful Cartoons series of last year, starting in 2012. But the growing Occupy Wall Street movement has had me itching to get back to the subject earlier.

Click on the pictures above and below, to view larger versions.

First up, Childish Simplicity, published in the October 19th, 1872 issue of Frank Leslie’s Boys’ and Girls’ Weekly. Demonstrating how the reputation currently enjoyed by banks, is one they’ve nurtured over a long, deep, consistent history of (mis)behavior.

Below, a re-presentation from a year-and-a-half ago, of a set of circa 1880s trade cards depicting a child Playing Bank President according to the examples of his day. The set is by artist C.M. Coolidge (most celebrated for his painting of dogs playing poker).

To find last year’s episodes of this series,click on Wall Street Frauds Make Wonderful Cartoons. And, to find posts on financial reforms in general, click here.

Doug Wheeler

financial reform FLBGWeekly

Here’s Joe College #2, second verse, same as the first, which isn’t so bad given that means stories by Bob Powell, Dick Briefer and Frank Frazetta. I suppose you can look at this as inconsequential fluff but I prefer to put in the context of the times, the interesting post WWII period when people were fairly uncertain about how exactly to live, think and feel in the new normal of a world without a world war. College seems to have been on their minds, if movies like An Apartment For Peggy and Mr. Belvedere Goes To College are any indication. Having watched those movies I can tell you that the odd fashions on display in these comics weren’t the fantastic invention of a cartoonist but how people (well, some people anyway) actually looked and dressed.

Yes, I know I presented a Batman song just last week. But I have soooo many Batman songs and I ain’t getting any younger. What if I died of old age before I was able to share Batman-A-Go-Go with all you loyal ITCHers? Then where would modern civilization be? Answer me that!

So here we have it. Another toe-tapper that references the Dark Knight, back when he was just a Caped Crusader. Whether you’re an avid Batman fan or just a casual admirer, you’ll want to Batusi to this tune. Take it away, Combo Kings!

Bizarrely, this is NOT the same record. Just one of the many Bat-masterpieces with a similar name.

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For you music buffs, this song bears a striking resemblance to Herbie Hancock’s “Watermelon Man.” Sounds like a Batman villain, doesn’t he?

As usual, click the Bat-link to listen:

Batman a Go-Go - Combo Kings

For this week’s Tigwissel Tuesday, a few images from the 1846, Geneva, Switzerland-published, French-German language edition of Rodolphe Töpffer‘s 1830 graphic novel, Le Docteur Festus.

A scientific social satire, Docteur Festus is amongst the earliest (and probably the first) long-form comic book parody centered on science.

The story involves rival astronomers Lunard, Nebulard, and Guignard arguing — and literally fighting — over whose hypothesis is correct.

The images of their floating telescope (named after astronomer John Herschel)…

…and its ocean landing, presages the Hubble Space Telescope, Apollo program splashdowns, and Jules Vernes’ later 1865 novel, From the Earth to the Moon.

For a complete English-lanuage translation of Docteur Festus — and Rodolphe Töpffer’s other graphic novels — see author David Kunzle’s, Rodolphe Töpffer: The Complete Comic Strips, plus its companion volume, Father of the Comic Strip: Rodolphe Töpffer.

Tigwissel Tuesdays will be going on hiatus for a couple months, returning in January with the eighth Tigwissel appearance. I am taking the brief break on this series, in order to gear up for a number of concurrent series in 2012, including a resumption of the Wall Street Frauds series of last year.

Doug Wheeler

Even though these things are supposed to cover a wide variety of comics I’ll happily admit I revisit some kinds of comics a lot more than others. These tend to fall into the categories of (a) comics I never read when I was kid and (b) comics I wished I could have read when I was a kid. British comics fall neatly into the second so once again here’s another British Annual from Fleetway featuring some of their strange semi-superheroes.

It constantly frustrates and bewilders me that there is such little interest in these comics and characters, both in the UK and in America. I suppose if I was going to be absolutely honest there’s a small part of me that hopes if I keep putting this material out in plain view it will inspire someone somewhere to do something with them. It’s really, really unlikely I know, but never let it be said I didn’t do the least I could do.

But in the meanwhile from 1971, Kelly’s Eye! House of Dolmann and The Steel Claw!