[The Australian Panther]

Mr. James Lee Wong is a fictional Chinese-American detective created by Hugh Wiley (1884-1968) who appeared in a series of stories in Colliers magazine from 1934 to 1938 and a series of films from 1938 to 1940. In the stories Mr. Wong is six feet tall, Yale educated, "with the face of a foreign devil - a Yankee"! , an agent of the United States Treasury Department and lives in San Francisco.
http://mrwong.seriesbooks.info/
Mr. Wong appeared in a series of six films for Monogram Pictures from 1938 to 1940. Five of the films starred Boris Karloff, the sixth featured Keye Luke in the title role.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0525601/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0   

It happens that 'Mr Wong' was serialized in Dell Comics 'Popular Comics'

So my choice this week is the serialization of Mr Wong Detective - in three episodes.   

Popular Comics 040 - June 1939 - Mr. Wong, Detective (Pt. 1) - 4 pages
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=29545 

Issue #41 - July 1939 - Mr. Wong, Detective (Pt. 2) - 4 pages
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=60429

Issue #42 - August 1939 - Mr. Wong, Detective (Pt. 3) - 4 pages
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=36594

And here is the movie for comparison

Mr. Wong Detective (1938) BORIS KARLOFF
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQvPCVE2b_s

No further comment from me at this time.

Enjoy!

[Robb_K]

Mr. James Lee Wong is a fictional Chinese-American detective created by Hugh Wiley (1884-1968) who appeared in a series of stories in Colliers magazine from 1934 to 1938 and a series of films from 1938 to 1940. In the stories Mr. Wong is six feet tall, Yale educated, "with the face of a foreign devil - a Yankee"!, an agent of the United States Treasury Department and lives in San Francisco.

Mr. Wong appeared in a series of six films for Monogram Pictures from 1938 to 1940. Five of the films starred Boris Karloff, the sixth featured Keye Luke in the title role.   

Although Keye Luke became an American later, he was born in China of Chinese ancestry.  So, he hardly fit the description of a Yankee, foreign devil!

I never read the books.  So I never knew, until today, that the author of the stories pictured Mr. Wong as "looking like a Yankee, foreign devil".  All those years I watched the Mr. Wong films, I thought Boris Karloff (among my Top 10 actors of all time), was terribly miscast, because of the terrible American prejudice, which had the studios almost exclusively using Caucasians in the lead roles of Asian characters.  Of course, the author was a Caucasian-American, who had grown up in that atmosphere which was highly prejudiced against The Chinese.  So, perhaps it isn't so surprising.  Perhaps Keye Luke was used, later, when the studios (or, at least one of them) wanted partly to make amends for their previous racist policies, and offend less people?  But, in doing that, they weren't true to the author's vision.

I loved those films very much, because detective mysteries are one of my favourite reading and film genres, and Boris Karloff was one of my favourite actors.

I did read some of the Mr. Wong newspaper strip stories, mainly in Popular Comics, rather than the newspapers.  I liked them, as well.  I thought it was very interesting, and surprising that the main character was drawn as the spitting image of the real-life Boris Karloff.

[gregjh]

I'm looking forward to this one!

[crashryan]

What a great idea--comparing a movie and its comic book adaptation. I don't know if that's exactly what the Panther had in mind when he proposed this feature, but that's what I ended up doing.

For the record, this adaptation of Mr Wong, Detective actually begins in Popular #38 and runs for five chapters. The GCD listing says it's a nine-part serial but this isn't accurate. Mr Wong, Detective ran in five issues, #38-42. It was followed by a four-part adaptation of a different Wong movie, The Mystery of Mr Wong, which began in Popular #43 and ran through #46. Both serials were Dell originals rather than newspaper strip reprints. These two movies bore no connection to the earlier The Mysterious Mr Wong (1934) which starred the only movie "Chinese" to look less like an Asian than Boris Karloff--namely Bela Lugosi, Hungarian accent and all.

The Dell adaptation is surprisingly good. Shorter source material, like short stories rather than novels, almost always transfer better to the comic page. The Monogram feature is short and sweet, more like an extended TV episode, and the comic version manages to hit all the important points with only minor adjustments. In two ways the comic version is better than the original. First, it states clearly that the murderer planted the gas globes before getting himself arrested. This isn't spelled out in the movie and leaves the incorrect impression that Dayton's office manager was somehow involved. The second advantage of the comic is that we don't have to listen to Grant Withers rant and roar as the requisite Idiot Cop.

The Idiot Cop is an essential fixture of too many B-movie detective series. They've always rubbed me the wrong way. They always jump immediately to the wrong conclusion, then thrash around stupidly until the star detective solves the case for them. Withers dials stupid to 11, then tops it off with verbal abuse. The way he yells at his putative girlfriend is appalling. I sincerely hope she dumps the creep. You just know some day he''s going to blow his pointy top and smack her.

The cop-who-always-gets-it-wrong is a convenient foil for celluloid private detectives, but they don't have to be idiots to be successful. A sterling example is Ray Collins as Perry Mason's Lieutenant Tragg. He was smart, reliable, occasionally something of a smart aleck--and he always got it wrong. But he never acted the idiot.

Jim Gary does a very nice job on the art. He obviously had plenty of stills to work with. He captures Boris Karloff's ridiculous makeup nicely. His treatment of the other characters and of the backgrounds makes the final product slick and handsome. However I don't think Gary drew the last chapter. I notice Jim V's note card credits Tom Hickey. I could buy that. Hickey illustrated the second Wong adaptation and this art resembles that.

As for the movie, it was a better-than-average Monogram programmer, but still a Monogram programmer. Something I noticed immediately was that the lighting was more sophisticated than the typical Monogram picture. The direction was pedestrian save for the "mental exam" and the interrogation scenes, where the dramatic lighting gave everything a slick noir look. Karloff was the best actor by far even though his makeup is downright grotesque. As actors the rest of the cast aren't anything special but some of them have interesting faces. The script was workmanlike and the pace bearable. I'd have welcomed a bit of background music. I have no complaints about those shiny cop cars, though. I'll take two, please.

[SuperScrounge]

Part 1.

Interesting that it starts a ways into the story, skipping over Dayton's talking to Wong and some plot points that happened before Dayton was actually murdered.

Part 2.

Not much to say, although the artist didn't seem to have seen the film as some scenes are drawn in different settings. (For instance, in the film Roemer is questioned in a room, not in his cell.)

Part 3.

At the top of the final page Mr. Wong's ears become pointy and reminiscent of the Sub-Mariner. (What a plot twist that would have been.  )

Overall.

Rushed, obviously. Cutting off the first part of the story feels like you're missing a part. (I wonder how many kids pulled out the previous issue to see the beginning?)

Kind of a shame Myra (Dayton's secretary and Sam's girlfriend) was cut. Admittedly she didn't fit the edited version of the story, but her and Sam's relationship was an amusing part of the movie version.

[The Australian Panther]

CrashRyan said,

The cop-who-always-gets-it-wrong is a convenient foil for celluloid private detectives, but they don't have to be idiots to be successful. A sterling example is Ray Collins as Perry Mason's Lieutenant Tragg. He was smart, reliable, occasionally something of a smart aleck--and he always got it wrong. But he never acted the idiot.

 
An excellent example is Aidan Quinn's Captain Thomas Gregson in Elementary. He's intellectually no match for Jonny Lee Miller's Holmes, but he is quite smart in his own right and always professional and dignified. Quinn is of course, an excellent actor himself. 

[Captain Audio]

Part 3.

At the top of the final page Mr. Wong's ears become pointy and reminiscent of the Sub-Mariner. (What a plot twist that would have been.  )

Obviously the result of an accident involving an automatic rice picking machine.

[SuperScrounge]

Obviously the result of an accident involving an automatic rice picking machine.

LOL!  Live long and prosper.

Well, having learned that there were two earlier parts I decided to go back and read them.

The real Part 1 https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=78046

Could have sworn Dayton's chauffeur was called John, not Arthur, in the movie.

The adaptation has Mr. Wong show up at the same time as the police whereas the movie had him show up after the police discovered Dayton dead.

The real Part 2 https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=77327

Some more minor changes.

Overall (redux)

Well reading the whole story was an improvement. Still they could have used more pages to have done a better job. Some characters just seem to pop up out of nowhere and vanish after their scene.

Sadly the scene with Sam interrogating his girlfriend Myra as a suspect was missing. Then again while that does work with actors it's a little harder to pull off in drawings and a condensed script.

[bowers]

 A few words in defense of the much-maligned "Idiot Cop"! Where would Boston Blackie be without his Faraday? Or the Saint without his Fernack? In one of my favorite films, "All Through the Night", the Idiot Cop even had a bigger Idiot Cop as a sidekick! These veteran character actors provided the perfect foil to the much more suave, refined, and smooth talking heroes. Did filmgoers really care that the plots were unrealistic?  These B-flicks were sometimes the only way a depression and war-weary America could find a few hours respite from their real life troubles. And only for a dime! My parents, as children, just wanted escapism and magic  in a darkened theater, where cares could be left outside. My love for films are inherited from them. Yes, these films were made to a formula and cranked out quickly but they served their purpose- to entertain and make money for the studios. Did many really care that oriental roles were played by occidental actors? At that time, I really doubt it. Audiences of that era didn't really demand realism in their movies. Besides, who would sell more tickets- Karloff or Keye Luke? And, yes, at that time that would have been a major studio consideration. I'm not defending the practice but it was just the norm at that time. Of course nobody would even dream of doing that today, and rightly so. So, gentlemen and ladies, please join me in lifting a glass to those hard-working and underappreciated fall guys of the Silver Screen, the Idiot Cops! Cheers, Bowers

[paw broon]

The idiot cop is personified by Alistair Sim in the 3 Inspector Hornleigh films - available on you tube.

[Robb_K]

Obviously the result of an accident involving an automatic rice picking machine.

LOL!  Live long and prosper.

Well, having learned that there were two earlier parts I decided to go back and read them.

The real Part 1 https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=78046

Could have sworn Dayton's chauffeur was called John, not Arthur, in the movie.

The adaptation has Mr. Wong show up at the same time as the police whereas the movie had him show up after the police discovered Dayton dead.

The real Part 2 https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=77327

Some more minor changes.

Overall (redux)

Well reading the whole story was an improvement. Still they could have used more pages to have done a better job. Some characters just seem to pop up out of nowhere and vanish after their scene.

Sadly the scene with Sam interrogating his girlfriend Myra as a suspect was missing. Then again while that does work with actors it's a little harder to pull off in drawings and a condensed script.

It is and will ALWAYS be so in the case of trying to fit a cohesive, well paced story into a small number of pages, which cannot be remedied, given that no publisher would be able to sell enough 1000+ page softbound comic books, to match film's ability to display enough scenes.  The 1000+ page books would fall apart after several readings.  And no children could afford to buy them in any case.  That is one of the main reasons why the novel is almost always more satisfying than the comic book for most readers of ages 9 and above.   

[Robb_K]

I enjoyed reading this entire story in Popular Comics, even in 5 installments in 5 different books, and wouldn't have minded, too much, having to wait a month to see and read the next one.  I did the same for the Mickey Mouse adventure stories in Walt Disney's Comics and Stories.  The breaking off points were good suspense points, with cliff-hangers, and each episode was well-paced within, and each breaking point didn't ruin the overall pacing of the story.  It was well-drawn, and gave a similar feel to that of the film.  True, there were a few good scenes in the film that were omitted, due to lack of space.  But, that wouldn't be noticed by someone who hadn't seen the film.

It did bother me that a Caucasian man played the part of a Chinese man, as I didn't know that the author had intended the star to be a half-breed.  But that is true of my druthers for the film, as well.  In any case, I'd rather have had both portray a Chinese immigrant using Confucian logical judgement, restraint, and other Eastern ways of thinking and behaving to solve the crime mysteries, as a full-blooded Chinaman, to accentuate and help support the reason for choosing the character from a different culture, in the first place.  I did resent having Wong's fellow countryman speaking to the star in broken English.  I'd much rather have seen and heard him speak to Wong in Han Chinese  (from his looks Wong HAD to be a northerner), supported by an asterisk, with an English translation below the panel in the comic book, and with superimposed subtital translation on the screen in the film.

I liked as much realism as is possible, without ruining the story set-up in both my comic book reading and film watching in my 1940s entertainment, even during the short period I encountered them during the 1940s, and into the early 1950s.  I lived in a family complex containing 4 older male cousins, whose early 1940s comic books I inherited in several large stacks, even before I could read.  And after I could read in the late '40s, I inherited the current books from them after they read them 2-3 times.  I preferred more realism to total fantasy.  Which is why I preferred Carl Barks' work, by far, to that of any other funny animal writer/artist.  And I preferred historical stories, like Classics Illustrated, and the more realistic Western and Military comics to superhero comics, and more scientifically-based Sci-Fi comics to those that were mostly Fantasy-based.

The Popular Comics Mr. Wong series was quite realistic, to my taste, and I didn't mind the use of the cliche of The Private Detective teaming up with The Idiotic Police Chief, with which I was well familiar, especially from the 1930s and 1940s films, which formed the majority of the viewing fare in the early days of TV.  I enjoyed it very much, especially because I had liked the Mr. Wong and Charlie Chan films so much, and Boris Karloff, and Warner Oland were two of my favourite actors (Karloff being among my Top 10).  The story was fairly realistic, had good pacing, enough suspense, decent action, and as reasonably easy to follow as could be expected given that it was squeezed into a small number of pages.  And the artwork was fairly good, and colouring was acceptable.

[Robb_K]

I am very busy on a deadlined project right now, and also have several family get-togethers coming up during the next 3 weeks.  I will be hard pressed for time even without having to deal with coming up with new books to review, and creating the opening post.  If any of you would want to be the "Guest Host" of The Reading Group this coming fortnight, starting next Monday, November 29, I would appreciate it very much.  Please PM me as soon as possible, if you'd like to volunteer.

Robb K.

[Robb_K]

Super Scrounge will host Monday's new book(s) review.

[gregjh]

Mr Wong was a similar character to Sherlock. I enjoyed the story. The stereotypes and tropes were at a minimum and the behavior of the main characters was reasonably sensible by comic standards. I didn't have time to watch the TV show, too.

It would be great to have at least one Christmas themes comic book reading corner before  Xmas.

[The Australian Panther]

greg,, my next spot Mon Dec 13th and that is what I plan to do. thqt will take us to Mon Dec 27.

Cheers! 

[The Australian Panther]

How did this selection happen?
I had been watching the Mr Wong movies and did a search for Mr Wong. A page came up which included the serial on CB+, but i missed the first two episodes because the blog had only included the last 3 issues. So my apologies.
What I like about the character and the series was stated succinctly by newby Dave Porter who posted elsewhere on CB+,

  Dave_Porta - Last post by Dave_Porta
"The benevolent and heroic Chan was conceived as an alternative to Yellow Peril stereotypes and villains like Fu Manchu." - American Western.

"famous British actor William Pratt (Boris Karloff)" played both Fu Manchu and Mr. Wong.

Karloff's father was the son of an Asian mother, and Karloff's mother was also part Asian.

When he came to play the character of Mr. Wong, detective, he broke ground by not resorting to the pidgin dialect and pseudo Confucian quips that marred the Charlie Chan films.
Link to the book: Popular Comics 040

The film version of Mr Wong Detective is the most straightforward of all the films.

So Episode 1 Popular Comics 038
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=78046
The Splash panel says, Monogram pictures present, so clearly an adaption of the movie, not the written story.
The art is excellent, Wong is depicted accurately and we end on a cliff-hanger.
The joint arrival changes help set up the cliffhanger, increases the drama and saves time. 
Episode 2 Popular Comics 039
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=77327
Mr Wong finds out the Murder method but not the trigger.
Episode ends with a question.
Episode 3
Popular Comics 040 - June 1939 - Mr. Wong, Detective (Pt. 3)
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=29545 
In this episode, Mr Wong has some of the evidence as to how the Murders are done, but we still don't know what the trigger was, here we get a reenactment of the first murder and for a discerning reader, all the clues are there, it just remains for Mr Wong to wrap it up in a future episode.
Issue #41 - July 1939 - Mr. Wong, Detective (Pt. 4)
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=60429 
we get the final clue, the letter.
'stay in your study and call the police'
So Anton didn't kill Wilk, so who did?
The writer has laid all the pieces of the puzzle out on the table, it just remains to put them together in the right order.
Issue #42 - August 1939 - Mr. Wong, Detective (Pt. 5)
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=36594
So a few changes here - not quite as dramatic as the movie but everything wrapped up.
The wiriter and artist seemed to have been locked into 5 episodes of 4 pages each, and given that, I think they did a fine job. Reads like a radio serial, for which this story is better suited than a movie because it is very cerebral and has little action. So the movie is fleshed out with car chases and the aforementioned 'idiot cop'
Interestingly, Grant Withers as Captain Street is the only actor who is in all the Mr Wong films. And yes, he can be over the top in some scenes but I quite like him.
We tend to view these movies as serious drama, but that was not necessarily how the studio and the audience saw them. To the studio, the audience needed to be entertained, so elements had to be added to the story.
In the other Karloff Mr Wong movies Grant Withers does a double act with Marjorie Reynolds as newspaper woman Bobbie.
For mine, for movies of this period and this type they are better than average.
The Mr Wong comic adaption I feel is the best written of the Popular comics strips - some of which are very good indeed.
I was rewarded as I often am, by rereading the story and looking closer at it. And I'm definitely going to watch the movies again. Also, if this story is faithful to the original stories, I'm going to have to track them down too.

I hope you all enjoyed this selection. Scrounge over to you. Can't wait!