[Quirky Quokka]

Regarding the Crackajack Funnies compilation, Robb said:

message icon
Re: Reading Group #321 - Ellery Queen
« Reply #12 on: April 25, 2024, 12:16:52 AM »

(1) Adventure of The Coffin Clue

I'm not sure I like the tutorial feature of the writer using narrative boxes to keep the readers on track with noticing clues.  But i have never seen that method of telling a "Whodunit story"-so, to me it is unique, and so, interesting, at least from a comics history standpoint.

I thought that was an interesting feature. It breaks the fourth wall, as did the 1970s TV show. I found myself stopping at those points to see if I had picked up the clues.

I agree there were a few too many coincidences or points of convenience in this one, and the identical wicker chairs was a 'rabbit out of the hat' conclusion, but I liked the way the reader was encouraged to match wits with Ellery.

(2)  Adventure of The Blood Red Stamp
Hiding a stolen very valuable stamp inside a book with many pages is a good method of stealing it and hiding it, unless the thief hides it in a bookstore that has many copies of that book, and sells several of them before the thief can come back to retrieve it. 

Maybe the thief was in a hurry or was about to be spotted, so had to hide it in a book that was close to hand. But if that wasn't the case, you'd think he would put it in something a bit more obscure that wasn't likely to sell three copies in one day. If it happened today, he'd be caught on security cam 

(3)  The Vera Oslo Case
It's a clever touch to have Sven, her husband catch her around her neck in their trapeze practising rather than by grabbing her hands, and hiding his crime by using a rope to simulate a hanging, by covering up his thumb marks on her neck.

Yes, I thought that was unique as well. I don't remember seeing anything like that before.

(4)  The Ski Resort Murder
Taking a workaholic friend or family member to a snowbound resort for a rest is a good idea.  Of course the first crime wave in 50 years afflicts Inspector Queen, depriving him of his. badly-needed rest. 
An interesting story, highlighted by the mountain scenery and skiing action scenes, as I was an avid nordic skier and ski mountaineer for over 30 years.

I did smile when the "crime wave" consisted of only two crimes. But maybe that is a wave if there's been nothing for 50 years. And wow, Robb, that's a lot of skiing. I've visited the snow, but live in a sunny part of Australia, so have never done any winter sports apart from a few feeble attempts at ice-skating during the Torvill and Dean era.

Cheers

QQ

[Quirky Quokka]

I was lucky enough to see the Jim Hutton/Ellery Queen series when it ran in the 70’s. It deserved a bigger audience than it got. Sort of like Wayne Rodger’s CITY OF ANGELS that only lasted a season. Maybe both were too good for TV at the time. I think an entity like Netflicks would have worked for both.
Tim Hutton WAS good in LEVERAGE and NERO WOLFE, but i think he’d make a good Ellery Queen himself now.

The first issue of Ziff-Davis’ ELLERY QUEEN magazine can get you about $200 American these days, and they always made more money with their pulps then the did with their comics. If you can, read THE PLAYER ON THE OTHER SIDE, ghost written by Ziff Davis published science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon.

The comics are okay, not great, but I don’t think they could be much better given the unique set up of how Ellery Queen is formatted to run. You could have really used multi issues for the stories, something nobody was doing at the time. Placement of clues is also problematic, unless you are like Wally Wood and can put 9 million things in one frame and practically beg the reader to guess what’s important.
You are always going to wind up with guys standing around and staring at each other with lots of word balloons. Like that bind you have in movies when you try and show how somebody is thinking. More times then not, you wind up with a close up of their eyes while an off screen voice fills you in.

I liked the art and when there was action it was handled well. And yes, the colour is 80’s neon.

It sort of warms my heart that I still run into ELLERY QUEEN magazine at the news stands now and again. Right up there with ALFRED HITCHCOCK MYSTERY MAGAZINE still grinding away. Long may they both run in the digital age.

Nice selections, Q.Q. Another great deep dive into what the site holds.

Hey Morgus

I really loved the Ellery Queen TV show and I'm not sure why they would cancel it when it seems much better than other similar shows that had longer runs. Maybe by the time 'Murder She Wrote' started in the mid 80s, people were more ready for that kind of show, though I think Ellery Queen was better quality (no offense to Angela Lansbury).

I would have liked to see more clues in the panels rather than just the word balloons. There were a few, but the interaction between pictures and words could have been better.

And I didn't mind the 1980s-like neon colour, though it did seem funny that Ellery's checked suit kept changing colour in the first story in the Ziff-Davis one.

Cheers

QQ

[SuperScrounge]

I wonder too whether the writers just turned in their stories and then the artists did their work, or if there was more of a collaboration.

At that point in time the standard was full script and the editor would give it to an artist.

Mark Evanier in the 1970s commented that the editors didn't really care for the writers to talk to the artists. True, I think these were different editors, but everything I've heard about Western Printing (the company that produced Dell's comics up to 1962) seems like they could be set in their ways on certain ideas.

[Quirky Quokka]

I wonder too whether the writers just turned in their stories and then the artists did their work, or if there was more of a collaboration.

At that point in time the standard was full script and the editor would give it to an artist.

Mark Evanier in the 1970s commented that the editors didn't really care for the writers to talk to the artists. True, I think these were different editors, but everything I've heard about Western Printing (the company that produced Dell's comics up to 1962) seems like they could be set in their ways on certain ideas.

Thanks for that, SuperScrounge. I was thinking that was probably the case. I guess some of that might have been due to time constraints, but I feel these kinds of stories  might be better with more collaboration. I know it's a completely different era, but I went to a panel at a ComicCon a couple of years ago where writer Tom Taylor (DC, Marvel, Star Wars) and artist Jon Sommariva talk about their graphic novel 'Neverlanders' and it was interesting to hear how they collaborated on the book. It's a great teen/young adult novel that does a new spin on Peter Pan's Neverland. But they also talked about different projects they've had with different publishers/editors and how the work might differ in terms of no or little collaboration to greater collaboration. Here's the link to their book:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neverlanders

Cheers

QQ

[Quirky Quokka]

Well, it's almost the end of the weekend in sunny Australia, and I'm running out of time, so I'll just do a few general comments to wrap up.

First of all, thanks for all of your contributions. I enjoyed reading them. I think most of us are agreed that there wasn't much in the way of clues to find in the Ziff-Davis Ellery Queen book. It read more like crime or police procedural. The stories that appeared in the Crackerjack Funnies compilation are probably a better representation of what Ellery Queen is supposed to be like, in that there are clues along the way so that you can try to solve the case along with Ellery. I liked the way there were narration boxes now and again to let you know that you should have found two clues by now and encouraging you to work it out before turning the page and finding out whodunnit. I did manage to solve some of those, though some were probably easier to follow than others. The use of breaking the fourth wall to talk to the reader was similar to that used in the 1970s TV series that some of us fondly remember.

In terms of the art, the Crackerjack Funnies one is pretty good for that era; though the 1950s Ziff-Davis one is more polished. There were different views on the bright neon-like colours used in the 1950s one. I didn't mind it, though I did find it a bit disconcerting when Ellery's checked suit changed colour three times in the first story, and that wasn't even between scenes (green last panel on p. 5, red next panel, green next panel; or green last panel on p. 9, then blue next panel and back to green next panel). Did they have some different-coloured paint they had to use up?

Overall, I enjoyed looking at the different ways Ellery was portrayed, though I think the stories were better in the Crackerjack ones.

Next fortnight, I think Robb has something special in store for us, so stay tuned.

Cheers

QQ

[The Australian Panther]

The Adventures of Ellery Queen – Crackajack Funnies Archive (Dell)
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=26171

This is an archive, so here we are only going to get EQ stories. 
I may not do all of these but here we go.
The adventure of the Coffin Clue
While the artist is no Toth or Ditko, I quite like what he does.
On the first page we get a different perspective in each panel, and the coloring isn't bad either.
I'm a believer in less word balloons and more illustration, so I like this work.
Although he makes one elementary mistake, when you draw something moving keep it consistent from panel to panel. So the car should always be going in the same direction in every panel. 
There is no real surprise in the denouncement here, nobody else is in danger of being murdered, so there is also no suspense. Not engaging.
Adventure of the Blood Red stamp.
It's not rocket science to realize there must have been something in one particular copy of the book and the
murderer hadn't yet found it.
A 'Ditko' water tower on a roof is the scene of the attempted murder. Why would the murderer go public? 
Stamp collector QQ has already said enough about the modus operandi in this story. Thank you!   
'Ellery Queen' in lights.
This is a real 'CLUEDO" - 5 weapons of death - which one? or neither?
'The murder watched the act and learned how to tie the knot" Magicians are masters of illusions and don't make it easy to see through the illusion. So, no, don't think so.
But this story works because there is a lot of visual action and emotional suspense.
The snow story
not much to say, but Ellery's dad plays the 'Watson' part in these stories.
'This day in the country' Nice and visual story but yet again we have the car going in two different directions. Yet again Ellery survives a car crashing off a mountain road into rocks, Is he Ellery Queen or Batman?
Panel 4 page 4, according to the word balloons Ellery has a conversation with himself. 
'Eastbound to New York'  this time Ellery and his dad survive a horrendous Train Crash.
In the next one he survives a plane crash while hanging onto the wing. 
Somehow I don't think he went through these disasters in the books. 
These kind of 'co-incidences' make sense for comics, they provide lots of visuals and puts the Detective on the spot of the crime quickly and right in the middle of the action.
Maybe the Queen Estate didn't understand that? 
Crash said,

Thanks for posting this compilation. I'd never paid much attention to this series. Turns out the stories are entertaining and Bill Ely's art starts good and gets better as the series progresses.   

Agreed, although I haven't reviewed every story, stay with the Archive to the end. If all the art is Bill Ely, you will get to see an artist start off well and mature and grow. He was still working into the early 60's where he did some work for DC.   
Also Ellery replaces his Dad with the attractive Nikki, his secretary.       
I enjoyed these, thanks QQ.

[Robb_K]

I wonder too whether the writers just turned in their stories and then the artists did their work, or if there was more of a collaboration.

At that point in time the standard was full script and the editor would give it to an artist.

Mark Evanier in the 1970s commented that the editors didn't really care for the writers to talk to the artists. True, I think these were different editors, but everything I've heard about Western Printing (the company that produced Dell's comics up to 1962) seems like they could be set in their ways on certain ideas.

I think that Western's Editorial setup was fairly standard throughout the industry.  They had a Chief Editor, who was above everyone and often was the chief story editor, as well.  And most publishers had an art editor, as well, who had more interface with the artists.  Otherwise, small publishers who had no artists in house, hired a few outside freelance individuals, and the only editor was just a story editor, who dealt directly with those artists.  Or if they needed more than a few artists (because of having a larger number of regularly issued titles, had contracts with comic book artist studios, and the chief editor or his in-house editorial artist or assistant editor dealt wth the artist studio head or artists.

Western seemed to work in a similar setup most of the way through their run from the late 1930s through the early 1980s, having a large studio of artists (most working in their company artist studio building, and a few others working from their homes (like Carl Barks, after he started suffering from asthma-like symptoms from the air conditioner fans). they had artist studios in New York and Hollywood. 

The artists  (who didn't also write their own stories- like Carl Barks did) generally had no contact with the writers.

When I started with Dutch Disney, during the early 1980s, they had a chief editor above everyone, who only had direct contact with their longest tenured, and most prolific storywriters, and had a few story editors under them who dealt with the writers, and am art editor, who dealt directly with the artists.  There were two ways of submitting stories.  One was an artist and a writer, who often worked together, teaming up to submit a story and the other was writers submitting a story, which was assigned by the company to an artist.  The company had a staff of local, Dutch artists, and staff of local Dutch writers, that could each come in to the office to meet with their editors, as well as 2 German artist-writers, who dealt with the publisher through the mails, and by telephone.  Aside from that, most of the stories which came from lesser writers, who had not teamed up with artist friends, were given to a Spanish studio by regular contract.

When I started also working with Danish Disney in 1989, they had mostly a staff of storywriters in England, (because the chief editor loved the British hi-brow humour of Monty Python and it's precursor comedy repertory groups), as well as a small studio of local Danish writers (which I joined) and moved there for part of each year.  All the writer's stories (except for those of a couple favoured Danish artists), were given to Danish Disneys contracted studios in Spain.  Later, I brought in my main writer/artist partner, who worked with me on Dutch Disney stories, so there we both had direct artist/writer contact.  Over 30 years of work with Danish Disney I only worked as a storyboarder and storywriter, and had no contact at all with artists until one artist liked my Gyro Gearloose stories and always asked for them.  So. I became one of the studio's two main writer/storyboarders for that character, and looked up that Argentinian artist (who lived in Majorca), and we had some (unofficial contact).  But only the most prolific Spanish artists ever visited Denmark.

As for the New York contracted outside artist studios, I think that only the publisher's chief editor had contact with the day-to-day art studio foreman, rather than the individual artist who worked on the story.  Of course, when a tiny publisher hired a couple freelance artists who worked from their homes, they came in and met with the story writer in the publisher's office, when a meeting was needed.  And few small comics publishing companies had a couple contracted artists working in their offices and the only storywriters were the editor and his assistant. 

I have no idea how US publishers worked after the very early 1960s.

[Quirky Quokka]

The Adventures of Ellery Queen – Crackajack Funnies Archive (Dell)
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=26171

'Ellery Queen' in lights.
This is a real 'CLUEDO" - 5 weapons of death - which one? or neither?
'The murder watched the act and learned how to tie the knot" Magicians are masters of illusions and don't make it easy to see through the illusion. So, no, don't think so.
But this story works because there is a lot of visual action and emotional suspense.
The snow story
not much to say, but Ellery's dad plays the 'Watson' part in these stories.

Also Ellery replaces his Dad with the attractive Nikki, his secretary.       
I enjoyed these, thanks QQ.

Thanks for that, Panther. I agree about the knot. It's 'not' so easy to see someone tie a knot unless they are actually trying to teach you and do it step by step.  He also waves the knot around a lot, but if it's a complicated knot, it's not always easy to work it out by simply looking at it. Still, it was an entertaining story overall.

Ellery's Dad seems to be clueless in some of the stories. If he was a police inspector, he couldn't have been that bad, but then they might not need Ellery to solve the case. So I guess he does take a Watson-like role. I haven't read any of the books, so I'm not sure if that's how they play it in the books. And adding the secretary does open up a few more story possibilities. I think she's in the radio shows too, or at least some of them.

Thanks for commenting.

Cheers

QQ

[Quirky Quokka]

I wonder too whether the writers just turned in their stories and then the artists did their work, or if there was more of a collaboration.

At that point in time the standard was full script and the editor would give it to an artist.

Mark Evanier in the 1970s commented that the editors didn't really care for the writers to talk to the artists. True, I think these were different editors, but everything I've heard about Western Printing (the company that produced Dell's comics up to 1962) seems like they could be set in their ways on certain ideas.

I think that Western's Editorial setup was fairly standard throughout the industry.  They had a Chief Editor, who was above everyone and often was the chief story editor, as well.  And most publishers had an art editor, as well, who had more interface with the artists.  Otherwise, small publishers who had no artists in house, hired a few outside freelance individuals, and the only editor was just a story editor, who dealt directly with those artists.  Or if they needed more than a few artists (because of having a larger number of regularly issued titles, had contracts with comic book artist studios, and the chief editor or his in-house editorial artist or assistant editor dealt wth the artist studio head or artists.

Western seemed to work in a similar setup most of the way through their run from the late 1930s through the early 1980s, having a large studio of artists (most working in their company artist studio building, and a few others working from their homes (like Carl Barks, after he started suffering from asthma-like symptoms from the air conditioner fans). they had artist studios in New York and Hollywood. 

The artists  (who didn't also write their own stories- like Carl Barks did) generally had no contact with the writers.

When I started with Dutch Disney, during the early 1980s, they had a chief editor above everyone, who only had direct contact with their longest tenured, and most prolific storywriters, and had a few story editors under them who dealt with the writers, and am art editor, who dealt directly with the artists.  There were two ways of submitting stories.  One was an artist and a writer, who often worked together, teaming up to submit a story and the other was writers submitting a story, which was assigned by the company to an artist.  The company had a staff of local, Dutch artists, and staff of local Dutch writers, that could each come in to the office to meet with their editors, as well as 2 German artist-writers, who dealt with the publisher through the mails, and by telephone.  Aside from that, most of the stories which came from lesser writers, who had not teamed up with artist friends, were given to a Spanish studio by regular contract.

When I started also working with Danish Disney in 1989, they had mostly a staff of storywriters in England, (because the chief editor loved the British hi-brow humour of Monty Python and it's precursor comedy repertory groups), as well as a small studio of local Danish writers (which I joined) and moved there for part of each year.  All the writer's stories (except for those of a couple favoured Danish artists), were given to Danish Disneys contracted studios in Spain.  Later, I brought in my main writer/artist partner, who worked with me on Dutch Disney stories, so there we both had direct artist/writer contact.  Over 30 years of work with Danish Disney I only worked as a storyboarder and storywriter, and had no contact at all with artists until one artist liked my Gyro Gearloose stories and always asked for them.  So. I became one of the studio's two main writer/storyboarders for that character, and looked up that Argentinian artist (who lived in Majorca), and we had some (unofficial contact).  But only the most prolific Spanish artists ever visited Denmark.

As for the New York contracted outside artist studios, I think that only the publisher's chief editor had contact with the day-to-day art studio foreman, rather than the individual artist who worked on the story.  Of course, when a tiny publisher hired a couple freelance artists who worked from their homes, they came in and met with the story writer in the publisher's office, when a meeting was needed.  And few small comics publishing companies had a couple contracted artists working in their offices and the only storywriters were the editor and his assistant. 

I have no idea how US publishers worked after the very early 1960s.

Robb, thanks for all of that extra info. I read it with interest. You've certainly worked on some interesting projects over the years and I appreciate your behind-the-scenes look.

Cheers

QQ