Anyone remember “The Little Woman” panel by Don Tobin? Tobin is one of those great old craftsmen whose work I admire. He was a Disney animator and later became a gag cartoonist. “The Little Woman” first appeared from King Features in 1953, and while it’s very corny and dated by today’s standards (not to mention outright sexist-even the condescending title!), I love the style and the mid-century trappings.

Has John Severin ever drawn a bad looking story? And when Nick Cuti writes it, he sure gives John lots of cool stuff to draw!

http://diversionsofthegroovykind.blogspot.com/2011/11/black-and-white-wednesday-star-saga-of.html

Meet Ace Kilroy, hero of a cool and very nicely drawn semi-retro web comic by Rob Kelly and Dan O’Conner.

http://www.acekilroy.com/whois/whois.html

Here’s an examination of a typically goofy Robert Kanigher/Ross Andru/Mike Esposito tale of Wonder Woman in the early sixties.

http://thefifthbranch.com/gorilladaze/wonder-womans-weighty-problem/

Finally today, here’s a luck at Scrooge McDuck, Warren Worthington the Third, Oliver Queen and others who have (or had) big money in the comics world.

http://bullyscomics.blogspot.com/2011/11/grab-that-cash-with-both-hands-and-make.html

A while back (click here if you don’t believe me) I presented a song about Dr. Strange along with a would-be cover by Dr. Strange super-fan Howard Hollis.

At the risk of repeating myself here’s a completely different song about Dr. Strange, and another one of those great Covers That Never Were.

Enjoy!

Dr Strange - Blue Love Monkey

Here are a few examples of Uptight, a single page filler drawn by Lee Elias and Win Mortimer, that appeared in DC romance comic back in the seventies.

http://sequentialcrush.blogspot.com/2011/11/cautionary-tales-uptight-with-lee-elias.html

Here’s part one of a collection of the Arnold Roth illustrations for Norton Juster’s 1969 book, Stark Naked.

http://themagicwhistle.blogspot.com/2011/11/stark-naked-1-of-4.html

Here’s a beautifully drawn 1953 western comic book from Everett Raymond Kinstler (confirmed by the artist!) clearly channeling Joe Kubert!

http://www.bigblogcomics.com/2011/11/everett-raymond-kinstler-in-four-color.html

Finally today, lots of new posts as well as quite a few lowered prices at Booksteve’s Bookstore Plus!. Buying something helps pay my Internet bill and keeps these links coming!

http://bookstevesbookstore.blogspot.com/

I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for I.W./Super Comics, partially because of the Golden Age comics they reprinted and partially because of how they reprinted them. Israel Waldman had a unique business model; obtain (I won’t go into how) original art and printing plates for Golden Age publishers such as Quality, Avon, Toby, Harry A Chessler, Fiction House and even Marvel (among many, many others). Then publish them with new titles and covers by people like Mike Espositio, Ross Andru, Joe Simon, Jack Abel, Vinnie Colletta, John Severin and Everett Raymond Kinstler.

Super Comics were largely the kind of hit or miss proposition you’d expect to find if you slapped together stories from a lot of different publishers more or less at random. Some were better than others while sometimes the new covers were the only good things about an issue. Daring Adventures #16 is interesting because it reprints three different stories from the same issue of Dynamic Comics.

There were two (well, three if you count the one from Timely who appeared in Mystic Comics #1) different Golden Age versions of Dynamic Man, neither of whom looked anything like the guy on the cover of Daring Adventures. This story is from the second version where he was Bert McQuade, a high school basketball coach (a solidly middle class profession for a field usually dominated by millionaire playboys and professionals) who gained super powers and turned his brother Ricky into his sidekick Dynamic Boy. His adventures were strictly ho-hum – I’d say that the most interesting thing about him was that he had a reoccurring villain, but The Clown just wasn’t that interesting either. One assumes that the great Mac Raboy drew this six page story for Harry A Chesler for the most obvious reason possible; he needed the money.

There’s not much to say about Yankee Boy, a.k.a. Victor Martin, who was yet another All-American Boy who decided to put on a patriotic costume (well, a star spangled shirt anyway) to fight crime on the home front during WWII. Other than (according to the Grand Comic Book Database, long may it wave) the fact that this story might have been drawn by George Tuska. This story is interesting for its villain, Reefer King, and the way it revolved around marijuana smoking among teens. Plus it’s unusually brutal for a Golden Age superhero story with a character getting shot full in the face.

No doubt about it; Mr. E was weird. This unnamed (for no apparent reason, beyond the strained pun, everyone just called him “Mr. E”) two-fisted adventurer didn’t have powers but didn’t need them; he worshipped (there really isn’t any other word for it) an ancient tribal god named King Kolah he found in a prehistoric city. From his subterranean temple under Washington DC E would get his marching orders from King Kolah then go off to fight evil, added by his helpers The Messengers of Justice. Who were eleven elves (yes, you read that correctly; elves) who could change shape and would bedevil the bad guys so Mr. E could smash them in the face. Lots of Golden Age heroes used ancient magic or invoked the names and powers of ancient gods and goddesses. But I can’t think of another main character from an era when everyone in popular culture was presumptively Christian (until proven otherwise) who demonstratively wasn’t. Other than Ibis the Invincible that is.

I realize I just featured a UK comic with b&w reprints of American comics a couple days ago, but there’s something irresistible about Diamond Adventure Comic #3. First off there’s the handsome cover by what I’m guessing must have been a British artist, but most of its appeal lies in the extra added thrill of not knowing where the hell these comics first appeared. The Kaanga story and the promise of “another Madame Zero exploit” (which sadly doesn’t come to pass) strongly suggests that “Atilla”, “Jungle Patrol” and “Smoky Joe” were originally published by Fiction House at some point. Given the relatively sophisticated polish of the art, I would guess it was during the publisher’s swan song in the early 50’s. But the thing is I don’t know! Even my personal friend Google let me down so I’m asking, can any of you identify when and where these comics were originally published?

For this week’s Native American History Month Entry, we present “Wellington Stubbs’ Hunting Adventure in the West”, which in 1873 was serialized across the August 2nd, 9th, and 16th issues of Frank Leslie’s Boys’ and Girls’ Weekly.

I’d be surprised if anything involving the portrayal of Chickasaws in this comic story were accurate — most illustrators depicting Native Americans (and moreso, cartoonists), never personally encountered actual natives. Their entire knowledge of the subject, derived from popular media, written and drawn by others, who likely also had no real experience.

While Wellington Stubbs does not contain the sort of egregious, over-the-top racist imagery found in some other portrayals of Native Americans (see some of the earlier postings in this series), its story follows the overworn Pocahontas path (which it directly refers to) of a native woman falling for a white explorer/hunter/leader.

To view prior Native American History postings, click here. More again next week.

Doug Wheeler

NativeAmericanHistory FLBGWeekly

Who is the one superhero who dare not say his own name? Why, Captain Marvel, Jr, of course. Find out pretty much anything you ever wanted to know about him with the months of great scans at The Blue Boy.

http://capmarjr.blogspot.com/

If you haven’t been following the serialized history of Jack and Joe over at the Simon and Kirby Archives, why not? Still time to catch up with Chapter 9 today.

http://kirbymuseum.org/blogs/simonandkirby/archives/4154

Here we have a far out cover gallery spotlighting the over-the-top space opera art found on Planet Comics.

http://comicbookcatacombs.blogspot.com/2011/11/planet-comics-cover-gallery.html

Finally, I believe I mentioned Archie Out of Context recently here—if so, I’m mentioning it again. It’s exactly what it sounds like.

http://archieoutofcontext.tumblr.com/

Let’s start today with the great Al Hubbard and some gorgeous and genuinely funny Andy Hardy stories from a 1952 issue of Four-Color from Dell.

http://www.bigblogcomics.com/2011/11/al-hubbards-andy-hardy.html

Hunter was a series from Warren (about to be reprinted by Dark Horse) that somehow I never read at all but which sure generated some nice covers back in the seventies, seen here.

http://ripjaggerdojo.blogspot.com/2011/11/return-of-hunter.html

Robert Kanigher’s Rose and the Thorn-not a great series really but one that I actually had a letter published about in an issue of Lois Lane. Here’s Buckler and Giordano with one now.

http://diversionsofthegroovykind.blogspot.com/2011/11/bring-on-back-ups-silent-sniper-by.html

And around here, we always break for Boody-Rogers, that is. Particularly the ever-delightful adventures of Spark Watts and his buddies.

http://pappysgoldenage.blogspot.com/2011/11/number-1053-sparky-watts-side-show.html

As previously established here there’s something (to me, anyway) wonderful about seeing American color comic stories in dazzling black and white. Especially when they’ve been repackaged and repurposed for an audience the original creators of the comics never imagined. And of course it doesn’t hurt when the contents are such as these, an ill-considered hodge-podge of DC Comics from that wonderful period when they were at their most reassuring and non-threatening. In a world where the focus in entertainment is increasingly devoted to the ugly, coarse, cruel and mean, there’s something heartening about stories so overwhelmingly…nice.

So, allow me to present from the 1968-69 Superboy Annual, published in the UK by Atlas Publishing the stories “The Super Zoo From Krypton” (from Superboy #53 originally published in 1956, script by Otto Binder and art by John Sikela) and “Rex, Honorary Fire Chief” (from Adventures of Rex the Wonder Dog #24, originally published in 1952, script by Robert Kanigher and pencils, of course, by Gil Kane) along with selected shorts.