[Robb_K]

I have decided to grant Superscrounge's request to compare the "Mitzi In Hollywood" story from Movie Comics #4
Link:    https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=60131

with "The Stars Fell On Arizona" story in Cowgirl Romances #10

Link:     https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=71176.

because, although they are two different stories, they use the exact same artwork.  And, it will be interesting to see how the two story authors used the drawings to tell a completely different story.

Both books were published by Jerry Iger's Fiction House, Inc., The Movies/Film Star - oriented book was issued in 1947, and the Romance-oriented book was issued in 1952 (when Western-themed films, books, and TV series were very popular).

Enjoy the stories, and we will be eager to find out which story, if either, works better with the art.  Wouldn't it be interesting if the remake works better than the original.  Which if true, would strike a note with every comic book story reader who has said, or thought, "I could have done a much better job writing that story!"

[The Australian Panther]

Excellent choice! Looking forward to the reactions!
Cheers!

[SuperScrounge]

Read these years ago so decided this time to read the second story first.

The Stars Fell On Arizona - Awful lot of narration panels. Would I have noticed if I didn't know about the reused art? Hard to say. The final panel is a real disconnect from the previous panel. Otherwise not a bad little story.

Mitzi In Hollywood - Much less narration. The final two panels work much better here than in the rewrite.

Interesting that the stories are very similar, so similar I wondered why they decided to do a rewrite rather than just reprinting the story? A sneaky editor getting an extra paycheck for the rewrite perhaps?

Overall I'd say the original was better. The rewrite did work, but didn't mesh as well with the reused artwork as it could have.

In some ways I guess you could argue that this was a precursor to what Stan Lee would later do at Marvel Comics. Here's the finished art, put in words.

[Robb_K]

Read these years ago so decided this time to read the second story first.

The Stars Fell On Arizona - Awful lot of narration panels. Would I have noticed if I didn't know about the reused art? Hard to say. The final panel is a real disconnect from the previous panel. Otherwise not a bad little story.

Mitzi In Hollywood - Much less narration. The final two panels work much better here than in the rewrite.

Interesting that the stories are very similar, so similar I wondered why they decided to do a rewrite rather than just reprinting the story? A sneaky editor getting an extra paycheck for the rewrite perhaps?

Overall I'd say the original was better. The rewrite did work, but didn't mesh as well with the reused artwork as it could have.

In some ways I guess you could argue that this was a precursor to what Stan Lee would later do at Marvel Comics. Here's the finished art, put in words.   

You have a good point that the same publishing company should just reprint an adequate story, if trying to make a series of sequential drawings that formed that story cannot make a significantly-better story out of it.
A priori, the drawn story tailor-made to exactly fit an accepted script, is almost always going to fit the drawings better than for a storywriter to try to write a story that "fits" well into the non-changeable drawings' sequence.  Perhaps Fiction House's 1952 editor saw a way to get paid for a lot less work than coming up with a totally new story, on his own.  And, maybe he had a heavy deadline and had "writer's block".

I've only seen a couple stories using the same art, with different plots in the funny animal genre (which is the only genre of comic books from which I've read enough stories to experience such a duplication.  And THAT re-use only occurred because the chief editor of an international franchise holder of Disney Comics found the original artwork of an old US story, which didn't have the text on it, and it had been lost by Disney's archives.  So, he insisted on copying the art, and having a staff writer write a new story to fit it.  Fans like myself, who happened to collect ALL the Disney Comics of both countries, ended up with both stories.  But THIS scenario makes sense, while Fiction House paying a writer to rewrite a story they could have reprinted 5 years later, is
hard to understand (although as their editor, I would have reprinted stories only after 7 years, rather than the shorter 5 years, based on the known average length of comic book collection.

[Johnny L. Wilson]

It's been way too long since I joined the book club on one of these adventures, and this one was fascinating. I didn't just read the comparative stories, but read both books all the way through. I have to say that I found the art in "The Stars Fell On Arizona" to be more pleasing to me--guess I'm a sucker for a darker palette. The other stories in this volume were tremendously predictable. I felt like I was watching Republic Pictures shorts or some early television western (except these were about romance--something often missing from tv and radio westerns because they were largely aimed at kids).

The Movie Comics title was something of a surprise to me. I have heard old radio shows where they summarized upcoming feature films but it just hadn't clicked that the Hollywood Press machine had used comics. I guess I should have known from how many television adaptation comics there were and I figured when movie comics were adaptations that they were just ancillary products like novelizations of films today.

So, thank you for the seminar on both storytelling and promotion, Robb. I don't know why I don't check the forum more often. I get something fascinating out of it every time.

[narfstar]

I really enjoyed seeing the different takes on the same "story." Mitsy was more Millie the Model and you can see that the popularity of Archie and even more so Millie the Model affected their story telling. I think some backlash had caused some toning down by the Cowgirl story. Romances were doing well at the time and they took advantage. I did enjoy the more fun Mitsy story more.

[crashryan]

This was fun. I'd have enjoyed the rewrite assignment. It's like working a crossword puzzle with some of the words already filled in. Overall the re-writer did a great job of making the story read like it was written from scratch.

"Mitzi in Hollywood" works okay as a comedy but the writing irks me. I don't like the flippant captions (apparently dictated by "fate") and as much as I enjoy puns, it's annoying to have all the characters speak or think with the same Spider-Man wisecracks.

As for "Stars Fell Over Arizona," the story works even better as a romance. It helps to have a capable heroine who's not a ditz like Mitzi. The only discordant note in matching new script to old art comes when the crook "slugs" Hartley on page 32. It looks like the crook is shooting Hartley in the stomach. This is also a (lesser) problem in "Mitzi" because Sagebrush's pose is also too extreme for fainting.

The ending is the big problem with both stories. In Mitzi's case we wonder why she's still hot for Sagebrush after he's been revealed as a jerk. We could use an extra panel showing Sagebrush turning down her dinner suggestion. This would set up Mitzi's change from delighted in panel six to aggravated in panel seven. In panel seven she'd be ruminating about what a dolt Sagebrush is.

In "Stars" the switch in our nameless heroine's attitudes becomes downright puzzling. She's on top of the world then suddenly the circus has left town and she's ticked off.  Here's a possible fix. It would work best with an extra panel but you could squeeze a balloon in between the crooks. After our heroine says "That's the nicest thing...(etc)" Hartley says ,"Why don't you come to dinner? My wife and kids would love to meet you!" In the last panel she's grumbling at fate, which fits her pose. An atypical romance story ending but mildly amusing and reasonably upbeat.

My thanks to the second colorist for making Nocturne / Midnight the proper color.

[Robb_K]

Here's my take on the comparison of the two same-art stories:

"Mitzi In Hollywood"
It was difficult for me to understand what was going on.  Part of that was from the too bright, unrealistic colouring.  Another factor was that not enough information was supplied by the author backing up and providing hints to the motivation of the villain.  A side problem was the attempt to make word jokes and ironic jokes just to get a laugh, but they just distracted from the storyline, and took away room that could have been used to provide more information to move the story along. 



"The Stars Fell On Arizona"
This story seemed more realistic, for the reasons mentioned above about the Mitzi story.  But, it too had a problem, in that there was a complete change of mood with no explanation between the last story panel, and the single-panel epilogue.  As Crash and we needed an extra panel between them, showing the cowboy star
being a disappointment in some way (a rude rejection-perhaps making the girl feel like she is just an immature kid, or being married (as mentioned above).  Yes, I agree that the story, itself, fit the artwork even less than the original story , but that is almost inevitable.  But the second story being an inherently better constructed story helps it some.  I also agree that this version had too much narration (which was caused by the story fitting less well to the artwork.


Overall Assessment
I liked the re-make better than the original.  The storyline was clearer, and more plausible.  More information was provided for the villains' motivation.  I also liked the colouring better.  Both stories suffer from lack of room to breathe.  They are both choppy.  I would have hated to be so limited in number of pages with the expectation of my coming up with a high-quality story with such a big scope.  Only showing 6 pages of text, dialogue and visual information for a story with a scope of 10 pages worth is no fun, and never can work.  That is probably why I didn't like most of the 36 or 52 page books with human characters, when they tried to have 5 -8 "mini-adventures" in one book.  I guess I was spoiled with Uncle Scrooge full-book adventures.  Both stories used the clich

[crashryan]

...the unbelievable occurrence of the girl, who knew the horse for less than one hour, riding where she wanted to go...

For the record, Robb, the rewrite author did try to deal with this. The crooks toss the girl into the corral, scaring the horse, but when she calls to him he calms down as he recognizes her: "Daddy's favorite stallion quieted down at the sound of my voice." However her next line is cringeworthy. "Suddenly I remembered the plot against Hartley." As if she'd forget having just been clubbed and chucked into a corral with what the crooks thought was a killer horse! I'd have changed the captions in the last two panels to dialogue. In panel 6 the girl says something soothing and tells Midnight they have a job to do. In panel 7 she says, "We've got to help Hartley!" The girl's smile in panel 6 might play oddly, but the right choice of words would suggest she's soothing the horse.

[The Australian Panther]

Well, I'm curious to know which one came first.
That would be 'Mitzi in Hollywood' which is from 1947, while Cowgirl Romances is 1952.
Also find myself wondering if Matt Baker was paid for both. Somehow I doubt it very much.
Also tells me that Fiction House kept their art - apparently with blank balloons. Not sure every publisher did that.
No credit for the writer on 'Mitzi'. Mitzi rhymes with Ditsy, and that's how she's written.
Page 2: In both versions we never see the Camera again after it falls. In real life that would be a greater calamity than an accident to the male lead.
The Male lead comes off as an effete snob. Totally unlikeable.
'Fate's commentaries are on each page, moving the story along.
Page 3. Meet the Villains. But we don't know why they want to kidnap the star or what they want to do with him.
From last panel page 3 to first panel page 4:- How does he get behind her? I'm Pedantic, I know!
Both writers toss in a few jokes.
Here, ' Yoo Hoo, Me, Too?'
and 'A horse of a different colour'
and, 'Don't! Neigh! Neigh!'

as much as I enjoy puns, it's annoying to have all the characters speak or think with the same Spider-Man wisecracks.

Makes me think that the writer wasn't happy about the assignment and wasn't taking it seriously.
Which also makes me think Matt Baker supplied the art, but not the words.
Stars fell on Arizona
It seems to me that the second writer treated the Narrative with more respect and tried to make it more coherent.

I liked the re-make better than the original.  The storyline was clearer, and more plausible.  More information was provided for the villains' motivation.

Exactly!
He uses the dialogue in the last panel on Page 1 to tie the episode with the arc light in with the rest of the villainry.
Next page explains why she had to tackle him after she had yelled at him to no avail.
He's annoyed, but not arrogant,
[A few minutes later, behind a 'Wild' wall] The writer knows his [or her] way around a film set.
'Hartley's contract must be broken ....' This time we get an explanation for the kidnapping.
This writer uses the dialogue to clarify elements of the story and make it more unified.
The Horse now is, 'Daddy's favourite stallion'
The 'Male lead' is grateful and shows it, but this is a movie set after all, nothing is permanent.
For mine, the second attempt is the better script. The writer makes clear their opinion of the original script with lines like,
'I hope he likes this silly costume' 
I'll go out on a limb here and say that I believe that the original was done 'Marvel' style.
[Don't imagine Marvel invented the technique] Baker conceived and drew it and it was left to another to add the words. They didn't care very much and it shows. The second writer used the words to add to the art-work and make the story stronger.
In any case, we are reading the story for Matt Baker's art work. Who cares about the words!
Cheers!