[Robb_K]

Pep Comics 22 (1941)

(1) The Shield with Dusty (The Spectacular Boy Detective)
The Shield seems to be another Superman Clone, with Dusty as his boy sidekick, to give boy readers someone who could provide vicarious thrills and a boy could imagine doing what Dusty does in the stories much more easily than being able to do what The Shield does.  This is a spy story. German agents have captured a Latin American ambassador to USA, to affect the wording of an international treaty, by replacing him with a lookalike double that they murdered, so no one would be looking for him.  Then, they planned to torture him until he'd agree to tell them what was written in their proposed military treaty.  Of course The Shield and Dusty free the ambassador from The Germans and hold them for the police.

I had to laugh at the so-called German spy who threatened to make "Wiener-Schnitzels" out of a dog.  Many Americans think of a "wiener" as a long, thin hot dog/sausage.  Why they call a Dachshund a "Wiener Dog" (which was the origin of the American phrase "Hot Dog".  But "Wiener Schnitzel" is a Vienna style meat dish made with a panfried veal cutlet.  It is not a sausage type meat dish.  The Viennese sausage dish is "Wiener Würstchen", which is quite different.  Wiener just means ""Viennese" (from or belonging to Vienna).

(2) The Hangman
This was a continuing story which had already started in previous issues.  I like this artist's use of many different camera angles to set the mood and provide a better feel for the setting locations.  The story concludes with The Hangman catching up with the villains escaping on a ship to South America.  The action scenes were drawn well.  I don't like the colouring much, but I do like the contrast of lighter and darker hues.

(3) Danny in Wonderland
This is more a younger child's fantasy series. We come in on a continuing story that started in previous issues.  Danny, the elder (protagonist) and Kuppie, the younger, smaller, sidekick, are travelling in Wonderland, and come across a master puppeteer, Spumoni, whose puppets are living, shrunken people. The Evil Spumoni has a "shrinking liquid"that can shrink living things.  He captures children and gullible teenagers, by shrinking them, and does that also to the curious Kuppie.  The action scenes of the fight between Danny and Spumoni inside his caravan horse cart are excellently drawn.  There is too much yellow, orange and red colouring (perhaps due to lack of availability of blue at that time, or just to keep production cost down. As could be predicted, Danny pours the shrinking liquid on Spumoni, who shrinks until he disappears.  Danny returns the shrunken people to their homes, knowing they'll grow back to normal size without daily being doused with the liquid.  This is a typical young children's fantasy story from the early 1940s.

(4) Sergeant Boyle - Detective
Is this character a combination mercenary/soldier of fortune and detective?  Interesting that he has a comedic sidekick named "Twerp".  Boyle is besmitten by a beautiful client, and they go to unoccupied wartime France to rescue her father from prison.  I have a lot of trouble seeing rocky red-coloured hills, with absolutely no vegetation, in southern France.  The action scenes looked very good.  The portrayal of The German soldiers was good, and comical.  It all happened too fast, which is a problem of having to be told in so few pages in relatively short 8-page episodes, in a book with 6 or 7 episodic feature stories.  I like that The French local painted The letter "V" (for "Victoire") on the back of The German Captain's Jeep.  The way The French locals behaved reminded me of The British TV sitcom, " 'Allo, 'Allo". Interesting that the beautiful young client jilted Boyle for his rival soldier colleague in the last epilogue panel.

(5) Jolly Roger and His Sky Pirates
Right away I'm perturbed by the fact that this American story has 4 protagonists who represent Scotland, USA (which only sent volunteers), "Britain", which also includes Scotland (maybe Scotland shouldn't have been separated from The UK?), and Australia, and they left out Canada, who sent long-term professionals, and wartime enlistees, and after The UK, sent, by far the most pilots to The RAF.  These four buddies are said to be the best pilots in The RAF.  And they are separated into 4 different flyer squadrons.  The panels portraying their dogfights with German Luftwaffe fighters are excellent.  During the spitfire's effort to stop The German convoy of bombers on its way to bomb southern England, the 4 "Sky Pirates" communicate with each other to leave their own squadrons' formations, and join together to fight in their own new formation - a punishable offence (disobeying orders)!  They knock out several German planes, and send the surviving planes back towards The Continent, in retreat in disarray.  When they return to their hangars they are commended and told that they have been assigned to have their own squadron, together, until the end of The War.

(6) Archie
I must say that I've always liked the earliest several years of Archie better than the stories from the late 1950s and early '60s.  Maybe I'm more nostalgic for "The old days" (my young years).  The Archie strip started roughly about the same time as "Wilbur".  Both of whom were teenaged boys who meant well, but were always getting into trouble.  But Archie had much more personality and much wider developed character, and had first one, and soon after, two regular "love interests" , who also became well-developed characters fairly quickly, as did Archies parents, schoolteacher, school principal, malt shop manager/owner, and even other secondary characters (sort of like "The Simpsons", whereas Wilbur, his girlfriend, and parents and other characters in his series were never developed enough to be likeable. 

This story is basically his introduction story, and mainly based on slapstick, physical gags, and showing that he's likeable, honest, but a bit flighty and not so responsible, and he likes Betty, but can easily get distracted from her, because he is still young (maybe first year in High School, while, by the early 1950s, he acted more like senior year in High School.  This story is not very funny, but okay as an introduction story.

(7) Kayo Ward - (Heavyweight Boxer)
Kayo Ward, acting as a volunteer referee in a military boxing match, tries to keep one of the boxers from going AWOL and ruining his career.  He breaks his wrist trying to bring the boxer back, which jeopardizes his own status for his own scheduled fight.  A moral tale with a message.  Kayo helps keep Crummy out of trouble for leaving his duty.  Later, Crummy helps save Kayo's career, and takes his place in a fight because Kayo has a broken wrist.  So, Kayo helps Crummy in his career.  A bit "preachy".

(8} Bentley of Scotland Yard
This story about a lake reptile "monster" has a great opening Splash Panel, with the monster rising out of the water and capsizing a boat. I'm wondering why the townsfolk by the lake called a detective to investigate  a man being "captured" by a lake "monster", described as a "sea serpent".  Did they think it might have been a disguised mechanical machine used to hide committing murders and, possibly other crimes?  Now comes the quiz narrative!  It's a "Whodunit? story.  It was fairly obvious, that some of the locals thought that a "real" sea serpent in a small lake was preposterous, and so, it must have been a machine built by a murderer with an agenda regarding their town.  So, they sent for a detective, rather than a zoologist or herpetologist.  I love the design of the "monster" and its poses.  And I was entertained by the story, too.

[Quirky Quokka]

QQ, Thanks for the verification.
No disrespect to you - but this article is not entirely correct.
The artists on the Archie masthead book were,

the 'house style' that Archie Comics incorporated, first introduced by Bob Montana, updated and modernized by Harry Lucey, then streamlined and perfected by Dan DeCarlo.

Of the three the one that wows me most was Harry Lucey. It's not pointed out here,
https://boards.cgccomics.com/blogs/entry/4998-archie-comics-95-classic-artists-of-the-era/
but he was the Jack Kirby of Teenager comics, in that, his work had such energy it seemed to jump off the page. Great slapstick.
There was also Samm Schwartz who defined Jughead in the 60's and 70's and whose work can be seen on CB+ in the Tower 'Tippy Teen' comics. I love artists who have their own unmistakable visual style which makes you look for more.
Also slapstick.

he also liked to draw in his own gags or even silent mini-stories in the background. His scenes in the hall of Riverdale High School often feature explosions, pratfalls and other mishaps by characters who aren't directly involved in the story, and Edwards was particularly fond of a gag where Schwartz made it look like Mr. Weatherbee was making a rude gesture at a portrait on his office wall.[ 

Samm Schwartz
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samm_Schwartz
cheers!

Thanks for the correction, Panther. I was trying to pick an article that was different to Wikipedia. Maybe I should have stuck to Wikipedia - LOL

Cheers

QQ

[The Australian Panther]

QQ said.

I was trying to pick an article that was different to Wikipedia.

I usually do exactly that, but in this case I already had that information, so I referred  Wiki for confirmation.
Actually I usually look at least two sources for references. 

Cheers!