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[darwination]

I'll let Pyramid know you're in the editing process for 20, Eric. C'est la vie 

[darwination]

Not my scan, I'm just the messenger boy once again.  From Pyramid, Black Diamond Western 16.  Beware the deadly Randito!

Featuring comics from William Overgard, Ed Moore, Basil Wolverton, and more.  Thanks Pyramid 

[darwination]

The Killers 01 (1947.Magazine Enterprises) (Darwin-Dregs).cbr

A notorious crime comic up today from Vin Sullivan's Magazine Enterprises featuring a nice L.B. Cole cover which promises corpses piled up high.  I recently managed to get my hands on both issues of this series, and I was thrilled to get them even though they are in bad shape.  This issue was missing a good chunk of the front cover so I appropriated the nicest image I could find from Heritage and polished it up a bit.  Sadly, the inside front cover is missing a bit of the text of Gardner Fox's "The Killers Three", but hopefully someone can replace this or even just let me know what the words of the text are, and I can fix the page.  The pages were pretty browned out and had been punched into a four hole binding, but I took the time to patch them up since it's a scarcer comic.

This is one of those comics Dr. Wertham was talking about  It kicks off with a brutal and xenophobic tale of the yellow menace with art from Paul Parker:

There's all sort of different ways to kill a man, are you taking notes?  Axe to the head!  Old school drive-by? 

Or you can just hit em with your car

Geez...

and if Murder doesn't faze, how bout some whipping, oh my 

Shocking fun for sure, but it is most definitely mind-blowing that little johnny and suzy were picking these comics up at the five and dime.

The second story is "The Killer Behind the Killer" titled after John Chase, Baby Face Nelson's associate in arms.  Things turn tough when the G-men get involved.  Third up is "Poison Claw Killer".  Always beware the scientist with the bad comb over and giant eyebrows.  Fourth is "They Tricked the School Girl's Killer" in which a mob comes to lynch a suspected black laborer, completely passing over the strange blonde German florist in the cell next door.  The odd and convoluted plan the cops use to gain a confession is not at all out of place in a golden age comic.  The last story is from Vernon Henkel, "'Ace' High Private Eye".  When a blond client comes into his office with a problem regarding her late father's stolen jewels, Ace responds, "Say no more Bay-Bee! Just cross my palm with enough silver."  He may talk an odd slang, but he sure hurls a mean crystal ball.

All in all, a fun comic, but it's hard to top the velocity of mayhem and ridiculousness in the first story.  Perhaps there will be more outlandishness in issue 2...

Cheers and Enjoy,

Darwin

[Yoc]

Great stuff Darwin, thanks!!


Say, do you know if Pyramid is doing anymore Black Diamond Western scans?

-Yoc

[darwination]

Hey Yoc. I asked him today, and he says he doesn't have anymore Black Diamond Westerns. 

[Yoc]

Good to know Darwin, one of our JVJ scanners has plans with BDW.

-Yoc

[darwination]

Jingle Jangle Comics 024 is now at ftp, courtesy of Pyramid.  Thanks Pyramid!   

[Yoc]

Now on the site - Thanks Darwin and Pyramid!

[darwination]

A fresh romance, this is the first issue of the second series of Romantic Hearts.  The number on the cover is pretty funky, it looks like there is a second number one sort of redded-out.  I haven't read this closely yet but am gonna take it to the pool and give it a read now that I've scanned it   

Cheers and thanks to everyone for all the cool comics scanned recently,

Darwin

   

[Yoc]

Thanks Darwin.  It just might be #1 as only it and #2 are missing from the cover gallery on GCD-
http://tinyurl.com/n9am3e

Now up!

-Yoc

[JVJ]

A fresh romance, this is the first issue of the second series of Romantic Hearts.  The number on the cover is pretty funky, it looks like there is a second number one sort of redded-out. 

This is one of the many obscure anomalies in comics, Darwin.
The last issue in the "first" series was #11 dated July 1953. Here's the cover:

Oddly enough, you may have noticed, that it is the SAME cover as second series issue 1.

Here's a close up of the number on the cover.


And, just to prove that it's not the same comic with a cover scratch, here's the indicia.

Notice that the lines do not end with the same words as in your issue #1, so it's definitely a different printing. The contents are both books are otherwise identical.

Go figure.

Peace, Jim (|:{>

[darwination]

Thanks for sorting that out for us, Jim.  It's always fun to figure out what's going on with some of these numbering oddities.  Hey, it's just like Marvel does these days - just start titles over at #1 every year or so  romance reboot! 

[darwination]

Comics so fun it's a crime, up tonight a 1947 issue of Crime Does Not Pay which kicks off with a nice George Tuska story "The Hoover Brothers" on a pair of deathlocked ne'er-do-wells.  The older brother, a sly and successful racketeer has beat down the younger brother, a hard luck bit thug, his whole life long.  A redhead gets involved and one brother will be leaving the room in a trash can, have mercy.  Next up a Fred Guardineer story "Pretty Boy Floyd the Two-Faced Terror" wherein we see a liberal depiction of pretty boys criminal career ending in a bloody panel.  The bodies are piled high in this one.  Thirdly, "Killer's Jinx", a bar robbery on Friday 13th goes wrong but the cops are fast on the case.  The letters page is great in this issue.  A couple of convicts wish they'd found this magazine sooner, a priest gives an erring boy a copy of Crime Does Not Pay to steer him right, and two teachers absolutely recommend this comic.  I wonder if any of these are real    Next with art from Lee Teaford  "Washed in Blood" (I think the splash image is kind of disturbing) regarding Spanish Johnny who's a gangster that runs a protection racket involving launderers.  The comic wraps up with another Gaurdineer tale "Who Dunnit?" featuring a strange pair of Ice sailing murders and good number of homicides in the course of a winter competition between rival schools.  Hmm... I sure didnt have the murderer picked out right in this one, a quirky story for certain.

Cheers and enjoy,

Darwin

[narfstar]

Thanks darwin, now up. Haven't seen your stuff here much lately

[darwination]

Yeah, Narf, it's been a busy Summer.  And by busy I mean going to the pool everyday really takes it out of me   

But seriously, I've been away from working with comics more than I like and intend to focus on my golden age scan pile a bit more over the next few months, as these comics aren't gonna scan themselves (though the site sure is active these days    My main scanner (plustek opticbook 3600) has been sent back now for a 3rd time in a row, so I'm getting accustomed to an Epson v300 in the meantime. But while I've been slacking at the pool, a scanner named McCoy has been editing some cool pulp and magazine material for me which those interested can see here (I never miss a chance to pimp my blog  )

http://darwinscans.blogspot.com/

But seriously even when I'm busy or working in other areas, the golden age site is never far from my mind, you guys here scan so much cool stuff week in and week out, I love it!   

[Yoc]

Love the blog Darwin!
Keep up the great job.

[rez]

darwin,
What's the deal with your plustek opticbook 3600?
Can you fill us in?

[darwination]

I had mine for about a year and a half and have always been very happy with it. I started to notice a red line that got quickly worse over a series of scans.  I'm pretty sure it was time to replace the bulb, not unreasonable after thousands of pages.  Anyways, the scanner was out of warranty (1yr), so I was happy to pay the servicing fee for a new bulb and tune-up.  A scanner named Gambit had sent his plusted in with a similar problem and got his back better than ever.  Anyways, mine comes back and the scanning carriage hadn't been locked down, so the new bulb was damaged.  I send that one back, in the meantime they send me a brand new machine to expedite matters.  Which also had lines. So that one's headed back now.  After running around in circles trying to get authorization and shipping labels for all this, I'm still hoping to get a nice working scanner back.  I would have have just tossed my hands up in the air and asked for a refund long ago if I didn't like the scanner so much.  I don't know if I've somehow hit a bad batch of bulbs or what, but after my experiences and the experiences of some other scanners I'm not so eager to recommend the plustek anymore.  I'd definitely like to see some other scanner companies incorporate the edge feature of the opticbook, but mebbe plustek has it patented - I don't know. 

In the meantime, I'm happy I picked up the Epson v300 - it was cheap ($90), and there are a bunch of things I like about it.  It has no warm-up time (a bit greener that way too), has nice compatible software, and was pretty cheap.  The downsides are the prescan settings take a little more tuning to get a natural looking raw, it's slower than the plustek (but still 10 seconds for 300dpi isn't bad), and the scanner bed is sunk-in (which can leave a crease from where the lid closes on the overhanging edge).  When my plustek makes it back, I'll have three scanners including my mustek A3, I just know my wife will make some smarta@@ comment about all my toys 

Up next:  Shocking Mystery Cases 53 

[Yoc]

Ohhhhhh, more Star!!
 

[rez]

I had mine for about a year and a half and have always been very happy with it. I started to notice a red line that got quickly worse over a series of scans.



and the plot thickens.

[darwination]

Shocking Mystery Cases 053 (1953-03.Star)

My copy of this issue had a big chunk of the text on the cover missing and was also cropped about 3/4 of an inch off on the right.  Luckily, Heritage had a nice image of the cover proof.  I love this L.B. Cole cover, an iconic horror graphic which might have left some readers disappointed as all the stories inside are straight crime.

Enjoy!

Darwin

[Yoc]

Nice cover!
Thanks very much Darwin.
It's now up gang.

[darwination]

Straight Arrow 003 (1950-06.Magazine Enterprises)

Now at the ftp, issue 3 of Straight Arrow featuring a Frank Frazetta cover and art from Fred Meagher and Bob Powell.  I keep meaning to track down the radio program to check it out...

Next up: Crime Smashers 4

[Yoc]

Wonderful cover!
Thanks Darwin, going up shortly.

[darwination]

Crime Smashers 004 (1951-04.Trojan) (Darwination-McCoy)

I recognize some of these characters from the Spicy pulps, so I found a couple links trying to figure out who owned this company and came up with a couple links but no real answer.

Here's a nice page that shows the association of Frank Armer and Harry Donnenfeld in the pulps

http://www.supermanartists.comics.org/dchistory/dcsother-pulps.htm

and page with info on Frank Armer:

http://www.bailsprojects.com/(S(3f32cejgvomaydjgqwitbk55))/bio.aspx?Name=ARMER%2C+FRANK

Who was Armer's partner in these comics?  Or was Donnenfeld or Gussie still involved somehow? It looks like Trojan didn't really put out that many comics, but I liked the issues of Crime Mysteries I've read...

Big thanks to my pal and magazine scanner extraordinaire McCoy for the edit work.  This was his first try with a golden age comic and he did a super job on it.

Cheers and Enjoy

Next up: Geronimo 2 On the Warpath