[Quirky Quokka]

Q.Q.: the elderly lodge member gently chided me for marrying a ‘lady who doesn’t wear underwear’ in the first place, saying that ‘at least I won’t have to replace the furniture so often’.  I confessed we had the furniture covered in plastic, just like Aunt Bess used to for that old time 50’s look. He nodded slowly in approval. Was that plastic furniture covering a thing down under?

Morgus, I don't remember furniture being covered in plastic. I have a vague recollection of visiting people who might have had the arms of armchairs covered in plastic. Though I do remember my Grandma had another whole screen that hung down in front of her her TV. I think it was to make the pictures a bit bigger. But it was really weird if you weren't sitting directly in front of it. Everything looked warped. Fun times 

Cheers

QQ

[Quirky Quokka]

Startling Comics 44
Front Page Peggy - "Death In The Dollhouse"

The 11 pages aren't enough even to develop the setting and plot of the villains' group's Doll scheme.  The Dollhouse with Voodoo-like effigies is a great chance for a very memorable story.  Unfortunately, the author threw it into the story, but didn't really use it to any purpose.  All that does is provide a red herring, when there's no real mystery.  All having it in the story does, is to disappoint and anger the reader.   The Villains' having other victims we don't see, or learn about are also extraneous to the story.  It might have been bretter to leave the others out and just have a couple Nazi agents threatening Dr. Salkez who is established as a Voodoo believer (from The West Indies) with symbolically "killing" his effigy doll, by sticking a pin in its heart, if he refuses to give them the bomb formula.

...
Although Peggy didn't demonstrate her athletic abilities and fighting/self-defence abilities in this story as much as in her first 2 stories, she did climb a very tall telephone pole, and climb across the telephone wires, hanging from them, to enter a second story open window, where she she slugs The Underground Nazi leader in his back, temporarily disabling him, as well as gives a hard kick on a Nazi's rear end.  Her strike to the man's back looked like a "karate chop".  I read through Peggy's 2 earlier stories, in which she actually engages men in combat, even taking on 2 at a time.  Yet, despite her high level of fighting prowess, there is no background or "origin" story, explaining how she obtained those fighting skills, nor even a brief explanation of her being taught them.  I think that this omission of Peggy's background was an unfortunate mistake by the editorship, which would have been appreciated by the readers. 

My guess is that she grew up as the lone female child, with 4 or more brothers.  And so, if she wanted to play with them, she not only had to participate in sports with them, but had to play in a rough-and tumble style, get physically stronger, and practice exercises that made her so athletic, agile, physically coordinated, etc. to be able to compete with them, despite being significantly less strong.  She had to be very quick in sudden movement, very aware, good at hand-eye coordination, and so forth, based on hundreds of hours of repetitive practise.  If not the many brothers - no sisters situation, then, she might well have been an only child of a father, who had always wanted a son or sons to participate in sports together with him, or to progress farther up the ladder in school  sports, or higher-level organised sports, than he did, and he coached her to achieve high levels.  She did that out of love for him, and came to love the particular sport because his coaching her brought them lots of happy, quality time together.  These are all stories of girls I knew that were high achievers in sports. 

One other possibility, is that her mother wanted to be a star reporter for a major newspaper, but was stopped by the "glass ceiling and "Old Boys' Club", who didn't want women becoming star reporters jobs away from the youing men they were grooming, or wanted to keep women "In their place", so Peggy had learned to fight men and hold her own, so she would be capable of taking on dangerous jobs, so her editor had no grounds to keep her from getting an opportunity to prove herself.  In any case, Peggy's feature series would have been better to have had such a background origin story, or at least 2 page "explanation" of how she became so skilled, and what motivated her, by, at least, the 2nd episode.

It seems that Tygra (Jungle Girl) took Peggy's slot as the Blonde Heroine in Startling Comics after only 3 stories featuring Front Page Peggy.  So, no origin story was ever printed.  Apparently, Ned Pines got the idea that that feature wasn't well liked.  I wonder if Pines used "test readers".  Being as there were 6 story features, issue sales, strong or weak, couldn't be pegged to just one of the non-lead features.  So, either test readers, or letters to the editor, or both, could have been used to influence that decision.  Or, more likely, Pines just wanted to get in on the hot trend of Jungle Queen Comics by starting Tygra, and didn't want to have 2 Blonde-haired heroines featured in the same book.

Hi Robb

Thanks for those comments. I agree that although Peggy was allotted 11 pages, it wasn't really enough to develop this particular story, especially how the scheme with the dolls fit into everything.

And wow, you've gone above and beyond the call of duty by also reading her other two adventures. It looks like they hit the ground running, without bothering with a backstory for Peggy. Your two suggestions would have served her well. Maybe because she wasn't a superhero as such, they didn't feel the need to give her a backstory or maybe they wanted to see what readers thought of her before investing too much into her development. But it was indeed unusual for a female character to have her skills without some kind of explanation.

I think it's a shame she wasn't given a longer run, as she had more potential than a lot of female characters I've seen from that era. Like you said, it might have been as simple as wanting to jump on the Jungle Girl wagon. I guess in this post-war era, all of the comic book publishers who'd focussed on war stories would have been trying to work out what kinds of stories people were now looking for.

Thanks for commenting. Sorry it took a while to get back to you.

Cheers

QQ

[Quirky Quokka]

Re Startling Comics, SuperScrounge said:

Cover
An illustration of a futuristic boor trying to cut in and dance with another man's date.

I think you've nailed it. That dastardly alien should have checked his dance card.

Lance Lewis
Fin-shaped ships? I'd describe those more as arrowhead-shaped ships (or possibly diplocaulus for those paleontologically-minded).

Did the artist realize space is a vacuum? He doesn't draw the split open ships as if they are in a vacuum.

Interesting that ant society decided that capes were fashionable. 

Like Robb, I'm more shocked you were expecting the science to be accurate    And it just goes to show that fashion trends are literally universal. No doubt there are aliens somewhere wearing disco pants from the 70s!

The Case of the Punch-Drunk Portrait!

The writer certainly had fun coming up with names here.

Yes indeedy. I loved Mr Canvasbright, Grant Legaloops and Nitro Matlin. Interestingly, I was going to use Nitro Nola as my handle if I ever take up Roller Derby!

Death in the Doll House!
Front Page Peggy... I wonder if there was ever a British equivalent, like Page 3 Peggy? 

The whole doll thing felt like something that needed a better payoff. I mean if you rewrote the story without the dolls not much would change.

I'm not sure Dr Wertheim would have approved of Page 3 Peggy, though she would have been a hit with returned servicemen  (Whoops - I wrote that before I realised Robb had said the same thing. Great minds!!)

And yes, there are a few plot holes with the dolls. As Robb said, they probably didn't have enough pages to give it justice.

Thanks for commenting, Super. Entertaining as always.

Cheers

QQ

[crashryan]

Cairo Jones

I wasn't familiar with this strip. It's a fascinating puzzle. I get the impression that Jerry Albert, whoever he is, was trying to be edgy. Introducing a female action hero who's married to Saber, a Nazi war criminal, seems a gutsy move, especially considering that World War II was still on. Hitler died in April of 1945, Germany surrendered in May, and Japan wrapped things up in September. Miss Cairo Jones seems to have made its debut in July. We can assume the strip had the typical (for the US, anyway) lead time of three months between production and publication. Before that would have been a period of promoting and selling the strip to local papers. Before that would have been several months, at least, developing and refining the feature. That pushes Cairo's creation back into 1944.

I'm thinking of how the late 40s saw the darkening of popular culture. It was the heyday of film noir. Downbeat themes and violence were more common. Maybe this trend inspired Albert. In the latter half of this story Cairo is determined to kill her ex and fails thanks only to Saber's convenient suicide.

Another interesting point is the sudden revelation that Cairo was in fact not married to Saber. This bombshell is forgotten as quickly as it appears. I speculate that this was a mid-course correction on the syndicate's part. Someone pointed out that Cairo had been sleeping with a Nazi. Though today this is coming back in fashion, in 1945 it would not have gone over well with most newspaper editors. Unfortunately making the marriage false would mean that Cairo had been living in sin with a Nazi, which is even worse! Maybe that's why the fake-marriage gimmick was dumped and they just stopped talking about it.

I was surprised to learn that Miss Cairo Jones was originally a Sunday-only strip. This was an odd time to launch a Sunday-only feature. There were always far more Monday-through-Saturday newspapers than seven-day-a-week papers. Producing a Sunday-only serial automatically excluded you from half of your potential market. Yet Miss Cairo Jones wasn't the only attempt at a Sunday-only strip at this time. For example, Burne Hogarth's baroque oddity Drago began its brief run in November of 1945. The golden age of the Sunday-only, full-page feature was the 1920s and 1930s. By the mid-1940s Sunday section pages were being cut and daily strips were shrinking. I wonder if a nostalgic yearning to create their own Prince Valiant or Flash Gordon prompted some creators to try for the grand prize long after the contest had closed.

Putting all that aside, how about the strip itself? Not bad, as 40s adventure strips go. Bob Oksner was just finding his footing and his art is inconsistent, but one could see good stuff coming. I entirely missed Oksner in my comic fan youth. An insufferable action/super hero fan, I ignored all lighthearted comics, which is what he was drawing at the time. I missed some great stuff! Happily I discovered his work in my dotage. I read that Bob took over writing Miss Cairo Jones halfway through its run. Given how he came to specialize in happier fare, I wonder if he lightened the strip's tone.

Cairo Jones almost manages to become a full-fledged action hero. Her deadly pursuit of Saber certainly enters Modesty Blaise territory. Unfortunately the writer (or the syndicate editor) insisted on saddling her with Steve Racy. By the episode's end Racy is in full Me-Tarzan mode and it looks like Cairo will become second banana in her own strip. That's in the spirit of the time, I know, but it's too bad.

It's odd to me how many cheesecake shots there are. Newspaper editors always had the reputation of being very conservative, especially in the South and the Midwest. Syndicates supposedly preferred to play it safe to avoid an offended local editor cancelling the strip. When I was drawing a strip for the Los Angeles Times Syndicate in 1981 the script called for a character to appear in a bikini. I drew her in a very tame two-piece outfit but the nervous editor had me conceal most of her figure behind a foreground element just to be sure we didn't offend nobody. My British friends will find this ludicrous. In UK comic strips boobs 'n' bums have been flashing for a century or more.

That's they key difference between American and British daily comics. In Britain a strip was usually created for and published in a single newspaper. Over here the most popular strips might have appeared in three hundred papers or more. Imagine having to please--or more accurately, trying not to displease--350 editors from the most liberal to the most conservative.

Thanks for suggesting this interesting book.

[The Australian Panther]

Crash said,

I was surprised to learn that Miss Cairo Jones was originally a Sunday-only strip. This was an odd time to launch a Sunday-only feature. There were always far more Monday-through-Saturday newspapers than seven-day-a-week papers. Producing a Sunday-only serial automatically excluded you from half of your potential market. Yet Miss Cairo Jones wasn't the only attempt at a Sunday-only strip at this time. For example, Burne Hogarth's baroque oddity Drago began its brief run in November of 1945. The golden age of the Sunday-only, full-page feature was the 1920s and 1930s. By the mid-1940s Sunday section pages were being cut and daily strips were shrinking

This may be statistically true, but in the 50's and 60's I always looked forward to Sunday, when the papers gave us 6 to 8 pages of strips. In those days, You read the daily papers for the news - before TV, but the Sunday paper was for entertainment and a good read.
One paper combined all the daily Dick Tracy strips with the Sunday strip, so you got a whole page of Tracy.
Flash Gordon's art made an indelible impression on me, and I have since learned that was Mac Raboy's stint on Flash, and he really pulled out all the stops as far as I am concerned.  That was just two. Great days.
Just found this,
A Tribute to CAPTAIN MARVEL JR.’s MAC RABOY
https://13thdimension.com/a-tribute-to-captain-marvel-jr-s-mac-raboy-by-roy-thomas/

Many’s the Saturday in the late ’40s and early ’50s, I remember, when my mother, if she had to run an errand, would point to a shiny dime sitting atop the family radio console, and say, “That dime’s for if the Grit boy comes by.” He usually did, and for that we got a weekly tabloid full of lots of text and pictures, some of which was aimed at the general public, and some specifically at kids. Something for everyone, that was the idea.
But you know what? The only, sole specific thing I recall about all the Grits I perused, week in and week out, for at least the larger part of a decade—was the weekly, Sunday-style, black-&-white-printed Flash Gordon comic strip drawn by Mac Raboy.

I don’t recall the stories, but they had a distinct science-fiction, space-opera look, with sleek-style space suits and jazzy rockets and beautiful women and strange, alien worlds of ice, fire, or whatever. And that was the province of the artist, whom I was naturally encountering for the first time. 

     
And that page features one of Raboy's Sundays, which we got to see in Colour, so you can see what Roy and I are talking about. 

[Robb_K]

Q.Q.: the elderly lodge member gently chided me for marrying a ‘lady who doesn’t wear underwear’ in the first place, saying that ‘at least I won’t have to replace the furniture so often’.  I confessed we had the furniture covered in plastic, just like Aunt Bess used to for that old time 50’s look. He nodded slowly in approval. Was that plastic furniture covering a thing down under?

Morgus, I don't remember furniture being covered in plastic. I have a vague recollection of visiting people who might have had the arms of armchairs covered in plastic. Though I do remember my Grandma had another whole screen that hung down in front of her her TV. I think it was to make the pictures a bit bigger. But it was really weird if you weren't sitting directly in front of it. Everything looked warped. Fun times 

Cheers

QQ

Covering whole pieces of furniture with clear plastic coverings seems to be a US thing.  I've never seen that in any other country (not anywhere in Europe, Asia, Mexico nor even Canada).

[The Australian Panther]

Miss Cairo Jones (1945)
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=22118

I have come across Cairo Jones before. I discovered that the 'one-shop' lists in CB+ contain some of the most interesting books.
[Like DC's 'Showcase' in the 1960's.]

There are many examples of publishers taking a Newspaper strip and cutting and pasting it to make a comic book. This must be up there with the worst examples. It looks like a 10 year old did it in his or her bedroom in low light. The cover looks particularly cheap - I have seen cheap amateur fanzines that are better.
So, it wasn't one I was really attracted to look closer at.I think someone in production took a personal dislike to it.
Are the bottom tier of panels and the first panel on the next page, part of the same story? They don't appear to be, so the narrative only appears logical and becomes engaging half way down page 2.
Going back to the beginning after having read more of the story, they make more sense, but not enough. And the reader shouldn't need to do that anyway.
I'd like to think that the narrative is a mess because the Cut and Paste is a mess. Which it is. But the abrupt ending - SABER suicides - makes the whole thing pointless - unless there was material cut out that makes more sense of it.
I would like to see a collection of the whole strip - [45-47] to get a better idea of it.
The cheesecake adds nothing to the narrative. 
           

[The Australian Panther]

Feisty Females.
I'm actually quite pleasantly surprised at just how many golden age strips feature heroic women. Not many had their own strip for long, but there are enough that aren't just sidekicks or the heroes romantic interest.
Certain items of technology were 'exciting ' back in the day, I think, so there were women photographers and  pilots. There were reporters and nurses and policewomen.
Startling Comics #44 (1947)
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=73887
Cover
As one of our regular contributors would point out, always a damsel in distress wearing a red dress!
Front page peggy
So, Peggy wants the Job, she is determined, doesn't give up, does some detective work and gets the job.
And in this case, it's the guy who is the side-kick and the photographer.
Interesting story, very feisty female character
She apparently lasted 4 issues. Would make a nice collection, as would a compilation collection of feisty females.

Thanks QQ, something different from myself on Monday.
cheers!     
   

[SuperScrounge]

Like Robb, I'm more shocked you were expecting the science to be accurate 

It's not that I was expecting accuracy (I barely expect that from modern SF), but it was the most egregious bad science that I was commenting on.

No doubt there are aliens somewhere wearing disco pants from the 70s

LOL! 

[SuperScrounge]

And it just goes to show that fashion trends are literally universal. No doubt there are aliens somewhere wearing disco pants from the 70s!

That's got me rethinking how I design alien outfits now. I used to go with the 'futuristic' smooth onesie-type outfits, but why not take older Earth styles and repurpose them?

I have a friend who loves to make fun of those string vests the Skydiver crew on UFO used to wear, but, hey, if you've got a race from an ice world who would overheat in an Earth-like environment, string vests would be the perfect compromise for wearing clothes and letting excess heat radiate from your body.

Birdlike aliens who love bling. Give them flashy necklaces, rings, tiaras, etc.

And my favorite idea, a race of rocklike beings who put seeds on their heads to grow the biggest green 'afros'. 

[Quirky Quokka]

Crashryan said:

Miss Cairo Jones seems to have made its debut in July. We can assume the strip had the typical (for the US, anyway) lead time of three months between production and publication. Before that would have been a period of promoting and selling the strip to local papers. Before that would have been several months, at least, developing and refining the feature. That pushes Cairo's creation back into 1944.

Thanks for working that out. I felt like we were coming in partway through the story, so I'm not sure if the start of this story was the beginning of the strip as well. So much was happening in that final year of the war, it must have been hard for writers, artists and publishers to pitch the right stories at the right time.

Cairo Jones almost manages to become a full-fledged action hero. Her deadly pursuit of Saber certainly enters Modesty Blaise territory.

I'm not sure if Modesty Blaise appeared in Australian newspapers. Panther might know? But I have a couple of compilation volumes that I picked up at a library sale a few years ago. Each volume contains three complete stories and I really enjoyed them. Great art and storytelling. I wonder if Modesty owes some of her success to some of these earlier heroines who didn't quite make it?

It's odd to me how many cheesecake shots there are. Newspaper editors always had the reputation of being very conservative, especially in the South and the Midwest. Syndicates supposedly preferred to play it safe to avoid an offended local editor cancelling the strip. When I was drawing a strip for the Los Angeles Times Syndicate in 1981 the script called for a character to appear in a bikini. I drew her in a very tame two-piece outfit but the nervous editor had me conceal most of her figure behind a foreground element just to be sure we didn't offend nobody. My British friends will find this ludicrous. In UK comic strips boobs 'n' bums have been flashing for a century or more.

That's they key difference between American and British daily comics. In Britain a strip was usually created for and published in a single newspaper. Over here the most popular strips might have appeared in three hundred papers or more. Imagine having to please--or more accurately, trying not to displease--350 editors from the most liberal to the most conservative.

That's an interesting observation. There was plenty of the 'good-girl' art in comic books back before Wertheim's time, of course, but I'd never thought about how different it would need to be in newspapers where they had to please everyone. I remember reading that even Charles' Schultz got flak when he introduced an African-American boy as a regular character into the Peanuts strip in 1968 because not all editors were happy about it. Must have been hard to please everyone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_(Peanuts)

Thanks for all of the interesting info, Crashryan.

Cheers

QQ

[Quirky Quokka]

And it just goes to show that fashion trends are literally universal. No doubt there are aliens somewhere wearing disco pants from the 70s!

That's got me rethinking how I design alien outfits now. I used to go with the 'futuristic' smooth onesie-type outfits, but why not take older Earth styles and repurpose them?

I have a friend who loves to make fun of those string vests the Skydiver crew on UFO used to wear, but, hey, if you've got a race from an ice world who would overheat in an Earth-like environment, string vests would be the perfect compromise for wearing clothes and letting excess heat radiate from your body.

Birdlike aliens who love bling. Give them flashy necklaces, rings, tiaras, etc.

And my favorite idea, a race of rocklike beings who put seeds on their heads to grow the biggest green 'afros'. 

It's certainly interesting to think of all those varieties of alien day and evening wear. I remember thinking it funny on the original Star Trek when aliens on another planet would be wearing Roman togas or other costumes from Earth's past. It made me think that there wasn't enough in the budget that week, so they popped down to the wardrobe department to see what they could find. 'Oh look! Some Roman outfits. Let's have toga-wearing aliens this week!'    And don't get me started on Lieutenant Uhura's micro-mini and the way they had her perched in a non-ergonomic fashion at the coms consule. There's no way that was practical fare for what she was actually doing. But then, Batman's cumbersome costume isn't ideal for his acrobatics either. Ah, the wonders of sci-fi costume design 

Cheers

QQ

[Quirky Quokka]

Australian Panther said:

I have come across Cairo Jones before. I discovered that the 'one-shot' lists in CB+ contain some of the most interesting books.

Yes, there are lots of interesting items in there for sure. It's obvious why some of them didn't fly, but there are some real gems and others that seem to have potential. A shame some of them didn't get the chance to develop. I guess it's like new TV shows. If something's not rating in the first few episodes, it gets cancelled or relegated to last-night TV before it has a chance.

There are many examples of publishers taking a Newspaper strip and cutting and pasting it to make a comic book. This must be up there with the worst examples. It looks like a 10 year old did it in his or her bedroom in low light. The cover looks particularly cheap - I have seen cheap amateur fanzines that are better.

Yes, I agree that the cover looks quite amateurish, especially in terms of the colour. It wouldn't stand out against other similar books of the time on newstands.

I'd like to think that the narrative is a mess because the Cut and Paste is a mess. Which it is. But the abrupt ending - SABER suicides - makes the whole thing pointless - unless there was material cut out that makes more sense of it.
I would like to see a collection of the whole strip - [45-47] to get a better idea of it.

Yes, a collection of the whole strip would be good. It felt like we were coming into the story partway. It would be good to see all of the original strips in order.

Front page peggy
So, Peggy wants the Job, she is determined, doesn't give up, does some detective work and gets the job.
And in this case, it's the guy who is the side-kick and the photographer.
Interesting story, very feisty female character
She apparently lasted 4 issues. Would make a nice collection, as would a compilation collection of feisty females.

Yes, I thought she had a lot of potential. A shame she didn't get a better run.

Looking forward to your selections tomorrow.

Cheers

QQ

[The Australian Panther]

QQ said,

I'm not sure if Modesty Blaise appeared in Australian newspapers. Panther might know? But I have a couple of compilation volumes that I picked up at a library sale a few years ago. Each volume contains three complete stories and I really enjoyed them.

Must have been in some newspaper as I was aware of Modesty Blaise quite early.
To my knowledge, all of the Modesty Blaise stories have been collected in those compilations (Albums0 

Modesty Blaise Books In Order
https://www.bookseriesinorder.com/modesty-blaise/

And here is the Modesty Blaise Movie with Monica Vitti and Terence Stamp. Not bad at all.
Admired by Quentin Tarantino,who hasn't  yet got around to filming his own version.

MODESTY BLAISE (1966) FULL MOVIE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BpC0NatYqU

Cheers!

[Quirky Quokka]

QQ said,

I'm not sure if Modesty Blaise appeared in Australian newspapers. Panther might know? But I have a couple of compilation volumes that I picked up at a library sale a few years ago. Each volume contains three complete stories and I really enjoyed them.

Must have been in some newspaper as I was aware of Modesty Blaise quite early.
To my knowledge, all of the Modesty Blaise stories have been collected in those compilations (Albums0 

Modesty Blaise Books In Order
https://www.bookseriesinorder.com/modesty-blaise/

And here is the Modesty Blaise Movie with Monica Vitti and Terence Stamp. Not bad at all.
Admired by Quentin Tarantino,who hasn't  yet got around to filming his own version.

MODESTY BLAISE (1966) FULL MOVIE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BpC0NatYqU

Cheers!

Thanks for the extra info, Panther. I haven't seen the movie, so will have to have a look. It would have made a great TV series.

I think our library had most of the compilations in storage, but I never saw them pop up at one of their monthly sales again. Maybe I'll buy some more when I win Gold Lotto 

Cheers

QQ

[Quirky Quokka]

Hi everyone

Thanks for your participation this fortnight. It looks like most of you found something of interest in these selections, plot holes aside.  I've already made a number of comments in reply to the different posts, so I won't repeat all of those. Here are some general comments about the Miss Cairo Jones book.

Miss Cairo Jones

I agree with Panther that the cover isn't very appealing. It gives the book an amaterish feel, which is a shame because the art inside is quite good. Some of us were mystified at the number of frames showing Cairo whizzing around in her lingerie/underwear. I thought it was unintentionally funny that she was supposedly running from a killer, while all the time having her coat draped over her arm. Wouldn't it have been easier to put the jolly coat on? And why did she hand the sword back to Schlye? Front Page Peggy wouldn't have done that!

A few of us also picked up on the funny expressions. My faves were 'Heckle a herring' and 'Luger-luggin' lassie'. And what secretary wouldn't love a boss who told her to 'get those glamorous gams moving'? Um ... okay, we were still a long way before sexual harrassment policies. And I liked the added humour of all the folk in the telephonist's office who were listening in to the private phone call.

Steve's dialogue in the last frame is cringeworthy now - 'You're due for a good rest, Cairo ... and I'm the guy who's going to anchor you on the Miami sand and take a whip to you if you lift a finger', to which Cairo replies, 'Steve ... nothing could sound sweeter than that!'. Oh dear. I know it's the 1940s, but Katharine Hepburn would have slapped Spencer Tracy if he'd said that to her!.

As others have mentioned, there were a few plot holes. We know that it used to be a newspaper strip, but it's not clear where this book fits in. Did the series start like this or are we coming in partway through a story? It felt like the latter to me.

But in spite of some problems, I liked the art, the snappy dialogue and the overall premise. It's a shame they didn't give Cairo more of a chance to develop and shine. Given the timing of the strip, I wonder too if people weren't looking for these types of stories so much once the war ended, though there would be exceptions of course.

In any case, I'm glad we had a peak at Cairo. Too bad we can't see a compilation of all the strips.

Simp O'Dill

#1 - The first one was lost on me. I can't see how the punchline works.
#2 - Okay, but pretty corny.
#3 - Okay, but not great.
#4 - Two fellows in bed together in 1945? I guess it's platonic or maybe they're brothers. Gag okay.
#5 - Punchline falls flat.

Silly Dilly's


#1 - Maybe the humour has dated, but I don't understand what the five red points are.
#2 - Very dated humour in the portrayal of a black character, but I guess it fits with the times.
#3 - Okay but pretty corny.
#4 - Oohh ... very black humour and not funny by today's standards.

Okay, I know that these one and half-page gags were just fillers, and that humour has changed, but they were medicocre at best and seem like a strange mix for this comic book. Perhaps shows the publisher wasn't trying too hard.

Cheers

QQ

[Quirky Quokka]

Startling Comics #44

Front Page Peggy - Death in the Doll's House

Again, there were a number of plot holes and the whole premise of the dolls wasn't really fleshed out. As Robb suggested, 11 pages was unusually large for a story towards the end of a book, but still too small to really do this story justice.

I liked the character of Peggy though. She certainly didn't let anything get in her way and had no trouble subduing hefty men with her prowess. At the beginning, it felt like an origin story because it seemed they were coining the name 'Front Page Peggy', yet she'd already appeared in two other issues of Startling Comics by then. Though this seems to be the first one where she goes for the position of foreign correspondent. Oh if it was only that easy.

I'd like to know what hairspray she was using because her sidekick can throw her through the air and she pops back up with not a hair out of place and no apparent injuries (p. 3).

The art is quite good, though some of the action doesn't quite flow. For example, in the two lower panels on p. 5, green guy has lunged at white guy's legs, presumably knocking him over; but in the next frame they're both standing and white guy lands a punch. I guess space didn't allow for anything in between.

There was some snappy and original dialogue in parts. For example, 'I'm going to throw a bombshell into the knitting circle' (p. 7)

On the last page, the police seem quite happy to just stand back and let Peggy finish off the bad guy with a chair to the head.  What a gal!

Using flashbulbs in the chandelier to blind the bad guys predates the classic scene in 'Rear Window' where James Stewart's wheelchair-bound character uses flashbulbs to temporarily blind his would-be attacker. Love that movie!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oowcsynjIwc

The last frame where Peggy says 'This is only the beginning' again makes it sound like this is her first appearance, though it's not.

Overall, I really liked Peggy and it's a shame they didn't give her more of a run. It was my favourite story in the book.

Speaking of which ... I did read the whole book and was going to comment on the other stories, but I might do that tomorrow.

Cheers

QQ

[SuperScrounge]

Simp O'Dill

#1 - The first one was lost on me. I can't see how the punchline works.

Sorta black humor. He's complaining about something trivial rather than his impending doom.

Silly Dilly's

#1 - Maybe the humour has dated, but I don't understand what the five red points are.

Not positive, but I would guess it has something to do with the rationing that was going on at the time it was originally published.

#4 - Oohh ... very black humour and not funny by today's standards.

I found myself thinking of the legal situation. If he cuts him down before he suffocates, he's saving his life. If he waits till he's dead to cut him down, he's disturbing the scene of a crime.

[crashryan]

Maybe the humour has dated, but I don't understand what the five red points are.

Not positive, but I would guess it has something to do with the rationing that was going on at the time it was originally published.

Yes, the joke was based on the USA's World War II rationing program. I first learned about it as a kid. 1930s and 1940s movies were frequently on TV. In one of them a detective who'd discovered a corpse sardonically told the cops that he'd found a couple of red points for them. My folks explained the somewhat complicated system. I cribbed this description from the State of Oregon's historical website:

Two ration books were distributed to "every eligible man, woman, child, and baby in the United States." One contained blue coupons for processed goods while the other contained red coupons for meat, fish and dairy products. Each person started with 48 blue points and 64 red points each month. Thus, the shopper for a family of four had a total of 192 points for processed food and 256 points for meats, fish and dairy products. Each month brought new ration stamps as the old ones expired. Each stamp had a number on it designating the points it was worth and a letter showing which "rationing period" the stamp could be used. Each rationed product had a point value that was independent of the price.

Here's a link to the article for fellow rabbit-hole followers.

https://sos.oregon.gov/archives/exhibits/ww2/Pages/services-rationing.aspx

[Quirky Quokka]

Hi SuperScrounge and Crashryan

Thanks for the extra info on the points rationing system. You learn something new each day.

We had rationing here too, of course, though not as strict as Britain and I'm not sure how it compared with the US. Here's a sample from Queensland, the state in which I live:

https://www.slq.qld.gov.au/blog/rationing-world-war-ii

Cheers

QQ

[Quirky Quokka]

Startling Comics - The Other Stories

Hi everyone

I've already commented on our featured story, 'Front Page Peggy'. Here are a few brief thoughts on the other stories in the book for those interested.

Lance Lewis - Space Detective

p. 3 - Marna's quite a gal to be willing to be used as bait. (Marna, this is one of those red flags in a relationship. Run girl, while you have the chance!)

p. 4 - Isn't Lance shelling the ship that Marna's on or have I missed something? 'Confound it! Now they've got Marna.' Umm Lance, we could have seen that coming.

p. 7 - I know you can't expect sci-fi of this era to be accurate, but I did wonder if they had any concept of what Venus was really like. I know a probe didn't do flybys until the 1960s and probes to the surface were much later, but I did wonder why they came up with a prehistoric civilisation. I guess it made as much sense as the 'Queen of Outer Space' in which Zsa Zsa Gabor played the despotic ruler of a race of beautiful Ventian women.

In spite of some problems, I like these old sci-fi stories and would probabably read more of these. Though Marna should think about whether Lance has her best interestes at heart.

Curtis

Okay sight gag.

The Fighting Yank

The Fighting Yank had a longer run than some of the others, even scoring his own book for awhile.

https://pdsh.fandom.com/wiki/Fighting_Yank

As this is the only story of his I've read, I wasn't sure how he was able to toss a bear, but it appears he has superpowers as a result of his cloak and hat, given to him by the spirit of his ancestor. Not bad as stories go, though my favourite part was the quirky names (e.g., Mr Canvasbright and Grant Legaloops).

Airminded Rollo

Um ... okay. Not sure if this was meant to be funny (it wasn't) or if it was just for information that seaplanes are different to regular planes.

Jefferson Jones

On p. 1, we're promised 'fun-packed problems such as you've never known'.  That's a big promise and I don't think it's fulfilled in this story.

On p.2, Nancy's hairstyle changes from Frame 1 to Frame 2. It's just below her collar in Frame 1, but short and perky in Frame 2.

There was some good art, especially with different perspectives and some of the action shots. But the story was a bit lame. A poor relation to Archie and the Gang, but then it took them a while to hit their strides too.

Blue Plate Bill

Pretty corny, but not a bad sight gag.

Overall

It's not a bad mixed-bag comic, but I still like 'Front Page Peggy' the best. It's a shame they didn't give her an extended run.

Cheers

QQ

[crashryan]

Front Page Peggy

Late to the table as usual, before going off to war I wanted to put in my two cents (and five red points) on Front Page Peggy. I agree with QQ, I'd have liked to see Peggy in a longer series. True, she wasn't unique in comics. There were a fair number of similar characters at other companies. Being a reporter or a news photographer was a hot profession in the thirties and forties--just look at all the movies featuring such folk of both genders (my personal favorite was Rosalind Russell as tough cookie Hildy Johnson in 1940's His Girl Friday ). I read Peggy's earlier stories and she was quite a scrapper, dishing out the right hooks with the best of them.

It's strange that this episode reads as if it were her first appearance.  Maybe it was intended to be a soft reboot, teaming her with a photographer sidekick so she'd have someone to talk to during her adventures. Unfortunately the story makes no sense at all! What a mess. On top of that the artist keeps the camera too far back in most panels and has an annoying tendency to draw Peggy with her head turned away. It adds up to the weakest of her handful of stories.

Everyone else has said all that needs be said concerning the other features. One brief comment about Jefferson Jones, the laugh-free teenager. Maybe it's just me, but I couldn't get past the fact that JJ is drawn as a good-looking, wavy-hair heartthrob. Comics deal in stereotypes, for better or for worse, and JJ looks like the too-handsome, self-important snob who'd be the hero's antagonist. Sort of like Reggie in the Archieverse. The typical-teen outfit and street-kid accent are incongruous attached to what looks like a Dean Martin clone.

These were great reading group choices, QQ. Thanks!

[Quirky Quokka]

Front Page Peggy

Late to the table as usual, before going off to war I wanted to put in my two cents (and five red points) on Front Page Peggy. I agree with QQ, I'd have liked to see Peggy in a longer series. True, she wasn't unique in comics. There were a fair number of similar characters at other companies. Being a reporter or a news photographer was a hot profession in the thirties and forties--just look at all the movies featuring such folk of both genders (my personal favorite was Rosalind Russell as tough cookie Hildy Johnson in 1940's His Girl Friday ). I read Peggy's earlier stories and she was quite a scrapper, dishing out the right hooks with the best of them.

It's strange that this episode reads as if it were her first appearance.  Maybe it was intended to be a soft reboot, teaming her with a photographer sidekick so she'd have someone to talk to during her adventures. Unfortunately the story makes no sense at all! What a mess. On top of that the artist keeps the camera too far back in most panels and has an annoying tendency to draw Peggy with her head turned away. It adds up to the weakest of her handful of stories.

Everyone else has said all that needs be said concerning the other features. One brief comment about Jefferson Jones, the laugh-free teenager. Maybe it's just me, but I couldn't get past the fact that JJ is drawn as a good-looking, wavy-hair heartthrob. Comics deal in stereotypes, for better or for worse, and JJ looks like the too-handsome, self-important snob who'd be the hero's antagonist. Sort of like Reggie in the Archieverse. The typical-teen outfit and street-kid accent are incongruous attached to what looks like a Dean Martin clone.

These were great reading group choices, QQ. Thanks!

Hi Crashryan

Thanks for your thoughts. We have the DVD of 'His Girl Friday'. I love the snappy dialogue they had in a lot of those 1940s comedies, kind of like Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy's movies like 'Woman of the Year' or any of the Thin Man movies.  Too bad Peggy didn't really get a chance to shine. It did seem like an origin story to me, though it wasn't the first one. Maybe they had bigger plans for Peggy that didn't come to fruition.

And I hadn't thought about Jefferson Jones that way, but you're right. They tried for some slapstick in parts, but it didn't work as well as Archie. We believe Archie is a klutz, but this one didn't quite fire.

Thanks for commenting.

Cheers

QQ