Dr. Wertham has been back in the news recently as his methods have been found to be shoddier than expected. At Comic Book Plus, one can download or read online many of the comics that wacky psychiatrist criticized in his book!

http://comicbookplus.com/?cbplus=seductionoftheinnocentcollection

While you’re at that site, check out their vintage newspaper strip collection.

http://comicbookplus.com/?cid=6

And don’t forget their fanzine collection!

http://comicbookplus.com/?cid=1509

And their amazingly entertaining collection of Golden and Silver Age comic books in the Public Domain!

http://comicbookplus.com/?cid=1507

It’s not often we get requests around here. Heck (yes, I said “heck”), we rarely get mail at all! And when that request comes from resident I.T.C.H. blogger Steven Thompson, you know we have to do whatever he asks!

Steve (yes, I call him Steve) pointed out that we haven’t yet shared Freddie McCoy’s piece entitled “Spider-Man.” I am correcting that oversight right now! Freddie not only offers a nice little jazz tune here, but the album cover sports one of my favorite Spider-Man images of all time, that famous pose from Sturdy Steve Ditko’s (yes, I called him “sturdy”) 1965 poster which measured a whopping six feet tall! (A bargain on eBay a while back for just $382.77.) This picture of Spider-Man brings back fond childhood memories. (Sadly, my six-foot poster was lost in a fire. If anyone wants to replace it for me, send it here to I.T.C.H. HQ.)

Imagine how great Spider-Man would look on your wall LIFE SIZE, then click the link below and listen!

Spider-Man - Freddie McCoy

I have in the past expressed certain ambivalence about the Golden Age output of the publisher MLJ/Archie, but the truth is there is a lot to admire about their comics. Take, for example, Blue Ribbon Comics #9. If I was really only into Golden Age superheroes I would of course be focusing on it marking the first appearance of Mr. Justice, one of my favorite MLJ characters. In spite of the fact he was essentially just a slightly less spooky version of The Spectre with a better color scheme and attitude.

No, for reasons that pass all understanding for me Blue Ribbon Comics will always be about Rang-A-Tang The Wonder Dog. I honestly couldn’t tell you why, other than the idea of a comic about a dog was an incredibly exotic one for a kid raised on a steady diet of 60′s Marvel and DC comics. I understood early on that the name “Rang-A-Tang” was intentionally supposed to sound like the celluloid dog hero Rin-Tin-Tin, but it honestly never occurred to me that his name was also supposed to sound like one of the a great apes, the Orangutan. The ads for it certainly made it look cool.

And those covers…those covers resonated inside me like a struck crystal. The first stories were very pulpy indeed (as the first two covers would suggest) and focused on the “almost human” Rang’s partnership with hardboiled detective Hy Speed. Soon afterward, no doubt to capture some much needed kiddy appeal, Rang partnered up with “Richy the Amazing Boy”, who while a game lad was a lot more ordinary than amazing.

Especially this one. With covers like this you’d fully expect the stories inside would involve Richy the Amazing Boy and his faithful hound plunging into the underground headquarters of something called The Tribe of the Skull. But no such scene appears inside the comic and frankly I’m still more than a little bitter about it.

None can say just how popular Rang-A-Tang actually was, but he had his own fan club and in spite of the ever increasing number of fairly lame superheroes that kept getting added onto the contents of Blue Ribbon Comics Rang held onto his spot until the very last issue in 1942.

Besides being entirely bereft of underground dwelling green skinned monsters most of the Rang-A-Tang stories were creakingly old fashioned in both script and art. But this one by Joe Blair and Ed Smalle is actually pretty lively.

Here’s a darn nice looking story featuring The Fox by Joe Blair and the great Irwin Hasen.

And, finally, this just lovely adventure of Ty Gor, Son of the Tiger by the incredibly prolific Joe Blair and drawn by Mort Meskin. It really comes as a revelation; it’s smart and funny and finds a unique spin on the whole “junior jungle man” genre. Which makes me wonder why the hell I didn’t know about this before.

And finally, this ad. I can not tell you how much I love these kind of ads.

Today is the 100th anniversary of the opening International Exhibition of Modern Art (February 17th to March 15th, 1913) in New York City, better known as the 1913 Armory Show. Presenting Cubist & Futurist Art to the American public, its influence is regarded as a major turning point for American Art. Naturally, as seen in this posting using pages from issues of Cartoons Magazine from that year, it also elicited reactions from American cartoonists, who saw it as a great target for parody (plus, a way for them to have fun experimenting themselves, if they chose to attempt to imitate these new art movements).

The American 1913 Armory Show, was preceded by similar shows in London and Paris a year prior — which also elecited cartoon parody (click here to find the 1912 Cartoons Magazine page devoted to that). Even prior to the show, Futurist Art cartoon parodies were showing up in American newspapers soon after the European shows — click here to see cartoonist Bushnell’s Futurist depiction of the state of Presidential candidate Teddy Roosevelt’s mind (bottom right of the second page).

Click on the above & below pages, to view larger versions, and better read the captions.

Above, Nelson Harding takes aim with the top two cartoons, using the style to parody the ongoing Mexican Revolution and passengers of the New York City Subway. Harding’s subway take may have been more inspired from artist J.F. Griswold’s cartoon parody of Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase, then by anything actually at the show. Maurice Ketten gives his impression of Cubism (and, “Curvism”), in the bottom half of the above page, perhaps accidentally giving us the only element in all of these cartoons even remotely resembling any work in the show — his head of New York City mayor William Jay Gaynor, versus the Picasso sculpture, “Head of a Woman”. Beneath, W.A. Rogers’ “New York Street as Futurists See It”. Both are from the May 1913 edition of Cartoons Magazine (remember: Cartoons Magazine collected cartoons from other publications, one to three months after their initial appearance)

From the April 1913 issue of Cartoons Magazine: above, Ketten again, this time taking aim at the painters themselevs; below, Clare Briggs depicts his idea of quilt makers as “The Original Cubist”.

In addition to the examples found in Cartoons Magazine, numerous other cartoon parodies appeared. Click here, for some posted several years back, by Jeet Heer. Plus, click here for a collection of cartoons parodying the show, posted by the SUNY Oneonta university.

Doug Wheeler

Cubist Art Futurist Art

This year for Valentine’s Day, we present the British fold-out comic strip booklet, Cupid & Crinoline. Published on October 20th, 1858, creator Thomas Onwhyn parodies the impediment to romance that the popular women’s fashion known as a “hoop skirt”, or, “Crinoline”, imposed.

Click here to find previous Valentine’s Day postings.

To complete the story (never mind that it really has no ending), the final panel below comes from the website of rare book dealer David Brass. (My copy does have the final panel — however, I would have had to break the spine of the booklet, to get it to lie flat on my scanner — luckily, David Brass has that panel posted on his website.)

Doug Wheeler

ValentinesDay Women’s History

First off, big congrats to our hosts here, Craig and Clizia, for the release of their latest project, baby Grace! Now, on to the links!

Rocky the Stone Age Kid was a bit of an Alley Oop ripoff, seen here in a number of Sunday examples.

http://allthingsger.blogspot.com/2013/02/caligraphengli-tuesday-comic-strip-day.html

Kid Robson attempts to apply logic to the early Marvel Universe in the age-old losing battle.

http://kidr77.blogspot.com/2013/02/is-there-no-end-to-these-loopy-lapses.html

The blog formerly known as Grantbridge Street continues to supply some nifty comics art via Tumblr.

http://grantbridgestreet.tumblr.com

Finally, here’s a nifty look at hidden gems found in seventies Marvel reprint mags.

http://nick-caputo.blogspot.com/2013/02/hidden-gems-in-marvel-reprints.html

WARNING: The below 19th century strip contains racist imagery and language.

Continuing our coverage of African American History Month, we have today another comic booklet by the Geo. W. Helme Co., manufacturer of Railroad Mills Snuff & Tobacco. Published in 1888, only two decades after the end of slavery, this is an example of how advertisers used stereotyped imagery of African Americans to sell their products to white America. As you can see from the page below, it is titled, “Up to Snuff, a Tale not to be Sneezed at, or the Luck of a Fat Little Moke.”

To view a previously posted, earlier Geo. W. Helme comic booklet, click here.

And click here, to find other examples of Victorian Era (plus slightly after) advertising comics.

Doug Wheeler

BlackHistory AdvertisingStrips

Since Mattel recently announced their new line of toys based on the 1966 Batman TV show starring Adam West (47 years later!), we thought it was about time to present yet another version of the theme song, perhaps the most recorded tune in comics history. To go along with this version by The Jam, we’re spotlighting some of the various Batman toys that have been based on the classic Adam West portrayal. Enjoy!

After you’re finished drooling over these toys, click the link below and listen!

Batman Theme - The Jam

On February 10th, 1913, word reached the world that the entire Terra Nova Expedition to reach the South Pole in Antarctica, led by Captain Robert Scott, had perished.

Scott’s expedition reached the South Pole on January 17th, 1912, learning they had been beaten there by the rival Amundsen expedition, who had arrived at the Pole on December 14th, 1911 (34 days before Scott).

The members of the Expedition died in Antarctica while attempting to return from the Pole, with Scott’s final log entry dated March 29th, 1912.

On November 12th, 1912, a rescue mission found Scott’s camp. It took until February 10th, 1913, for them to reach a telegraph station in New Zealand, and report to the rest of the world, what they had found.

Above & below, from the April 1913 edition of Cartoons Magazine, are some of the cartoons published in Scott’s memory.

To find prior cartoons involving Polar Expeditions, click here.

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

Cartoon above, by Oscar Cesare; below, depiction of the death of team member Oates, on March 17th, 1912.

Beneath, cartoons by Harry J. Westerman, Paul A. Plaschke, and Ralph Everett Wilder.

Doug Wheeler

Tigwissel Tuesdays

WARNING: The below 19th century strip contains racist imagery and language.

Continuing our African American History Month coverage, we present the circa 1870s fold-out comic strip Nebuchadnezzar Whoa, Sah!, published for Crescent Tobacco, by C.A. Jackson & Co. This giveaway comic, is one of many published in the 19th Century. While all types of products used such racist images to sell their goods, tobacco (and soap) companies could be particularly vile (we’ll see one of the worst examples I own, later this month). The story appearing here, is either ripped off from the 1873 popular humorous illustrated prose novel “Fred Douglass and His Mule”, by Bricktop; or possibly, both stories derive from a yet earlier tale (I don’t know). Both are likely inspired as parodies on the (very brief) Reconstruction-period policy of providing “40 acres and a mule” to freed slaves.

I would normally say “Enjoy!” at this point. But instead, I’ll just say, here’s the kind of material advertisers in the 1870′s used to sell their product.

Doug Wheeler

BlackHistory AdvertisingStrips