[SuperScrounge]

I decided to do a comparison on The Saint stories and I hope I've picked some interesting choices for comparison.

According to the Grand Comics Database the first comic book appearance of the Saint was in Movie Comics #2 by DC Comics, which is not in the public domain yet, so I had to settle for the second comic appearance (according to the GCD).

Silver Streak Comics #18 https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=31735
Hey, he even gets the cover!

The Saint #4 https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=47119

Thriller Comics Library #23 https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=82142

And for a change an episode of The Saint radio show starring Vincent Price. The inexplicably named Nineteen Santa Clauses. https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=43295

Enjoy.

[The Australian Panther]

Nice choice, Superscrounge.
'The Saint' has personal significance for me, will explain that later.
cheers!

[Quirky Quokka]

Nice choice, Superscrounge.
'The Saint' has personal significance for me, will explain that later.
cheers!

I think I've guessed it, Panther. You were Roger Moore's double?

Cheers

QQ

[The Australian Panther]

I think I've guessed it, Panther. You were Roger Moore's double? 

QQ, I wish!

[Quirky Quokka]

Silver Streak Comics #18 (Feb 1942)

Cover

It's an interesting cover. Lots of action, with 'The Saint' in large letters, clearly capitalising on the popularity of the books and movies. I noticed that SuperScrounge says this is the second appearance of The Saint, as the first isn't in the public domain yet. But the lettering on the cover says 'For the first time in any comic magazine!' If they had bought the rights, wouldn't they have known it had already appeared? Or maybe the rights were sold to more than one at the same time.

Also, I saw it was signed by Bernie Klein, so I looked him up. Sadly he had a very short comic book career due to his early death. He would have been about 20 when he did this cover in 1942. He was drafted in 1943 and served as a combat photographer in Africa, then in Italy. But he was killed by the Germans in January 1944 at the age of 22. Very sad.

https://www.lambiek.net/artists/k/klein_bernie.htm

Ad for radiumscope

I couldn't go past this ad for a radiumscope that contains small quantities of real radium. I'd never heard of such a thing and I imagined kids all over America glowing in the dark. Morgus, it sounds like just the thing you would have bought )But I looked it up and it's actually a toy spinthariscope. You could even get a Lone Range atomic bomb ring that contained a small one. Sign me up!

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

The Saint

The splash page tells us that they've brought this story to us at 'great expense'. Mmm. I wonder how much those rights cost? And they probably wouldn't advertise The Saint as the 'gay buccaneer' these days  Good that they give a brief synopsis of the main characters for the uninitiated like me. I haven't read any of the books, and I was a bit too young when the Roger Moore series was on TV.

I got confused by the stick figure Saint and parachute on p. 2. I know the stick figure is the Saint's symbol, but I thought the artist had suddenly drawn him that way instead of as a man. I sort of worked out, but it's not really explained until p. 9 that he uses that as his calling card. So what's it made of? It's pretty big in comparison to the parachute, so how many of those things does he have made up so he can parachute them all over the place?

The attempt at a German accent is much better in this book than in the one we were critiquing last week. At least this writer understands a bit about German, so it gives it a bit more realism. The writing overall is pretty good. For example, when Hoppy claims the other guy never touched him (p. 6), the Saint says, 'I suppose a grasshopper hung that mouse on your eye.' Love it.

First frame on p. 7 - Pat tells him to look after himself, and he says not to worry because he always carries a hot water bottle in his parachute. Um ... I guess it's good to stay warm as you're being shot out of the sky.

p. 8 - A neat trick to just flip the insignia on the plane. But wouldn't the types of planes themselves be recognisable? And would the Germans so readily follow new orders from a pilot they didn't know?

p. 10 - I didn't know what a Verey pistol was, but assumed it as some kind of flare. I was right!

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

p. 11 - Would Pat really stop in the middle of all this action to say, 'Darling, when are we going to spend a quiet evening at home?' They still have another page to go before the bad guys are defeated.

Overall - This  was a good opening story with enough page length for some development. A cut above some other stories set in this era.

Cheers

QQ

[SuperScrounge]

I noticed that SuperScrounge says this is the second appearance of The Saint, as the first isn't in the public domain yet. But the lettering on the cover says 'For the first time in any comic magazine!' If they had bought the rights, wouldn't they have known it had already appeared?

Possibly Movie Comics wasn't considered a 'comic magazine' or it was just marketing on the part of Lev Gleason. 

Back then it was thought comic readers only read comics for a year and a half, maybe two years. So if enough time have passed who'd remember?

On the other hand looking up info on Movie Comics #2, the Saint story used stills from a Saint movie with word balloons added. Basically a fumetti/fotonovel/screen-cap comic instead of being hand-drawn. So maybe DC dealt with the film studio rather than The Saint's creator?

[Quirky Quokka]

Hi SuperScrounge

Thanks for the clarification re 'Movie Comics'. If they were stills from the movie, with word balloons, then this would be the first 'proper' comic book.

The Saint #4 (1948)

Cover - A glamorous cover that would have drawn you in if you were a fan of the Saint. They're obviously walking into danger. Though why isn't he in front of the girl if he's protecting her?

The Saint Steals the Show

Well, the war is over, so we see the Saint in different types of stories in this issue. The art on the splash page looks good at first glance. But when you look at the expressions on the girls' faces and the way they're standing, it doesn't seem real. Wouldn't they be more scared and/or trying to get out of the way?

There's nothing in the art work to indicate where Louise was shot (and don't say 'the theatre'  ). Were they not supposed to use blood? Though the bullet does seem to have been powerful enough to just about pop her out of that bikini top!

Last panel on 4th page of story - The two suspects seem hale, hearty and calm even though they were knocked to the ground by the Saint in the previous frame. No hard feelings?

Why is Kiki so quick to confess? The Saint hasn't really found any clues to indicate it was her, yet she's happy to confess all. She should have lawyered up.

Pat must be quite a gal to subdue Kiki with one slap from her gloved hand.

Not a bad story, but the Saint didn't really solve the crime. It was handed to him, and he and Pat just had to subdue the culprit.

Flash Harper - Operation Blackout

The 'Daily Slant' would be a great name for a newspaper today.

Interesting use of infra-red cameras. My quick google search says that they were invented in 1929, but it wasn't until 1947 that a camera was invented that could take stills, and then it was a long process. So maybe they couldn't have used it in the way described in the comic, but it was pretty cutting edge at the time. Regarding that, I couldn't work out from the artwork how Speed and Flash actually managed to take the photos. Was the camera set up automatically? At no point do either of them seem to be operating a camera.

https://speedir.com/blog/the-history-of-thermal-imaging-cameras/

Lucky Dale - Girl Detective

Why do they always have to say 'girl' in the job title (girl reporter, girl photographer, girl detective)? Was it that unusual to have women in these roles? Maybe it was for the times.

Seems strange that the crooks take the hostages up on deck where they can now readily see what the crooks are doing.

Lots of action shots, with some interesting angles in the art. Though there wasn't really any detecting. It was more of a crime stopper story. Though I did like this one. I'd read more of Lucky Dale.

The Saint Play Nursemaid

Although it's still a crime story, it's a lighter one. Not the greatest story, but there was a humorous twist in the tale.

Did You Know?

One-page factual inclusion. I hadn't heard about the origins of the term 'blind justice', so looked it up. But my quick google search said it originated from Greek and Roman times? I couldn't find the Egyptian link, but I did only do a quick search.

And little girls all over the world can thank the poor translator for Cinderella. A glass slipper is much more romantic than a fur slipper. I'm imagining Cinders wearing Ugg Boots with her ballgown 

Letters

I love reading letters to the editor or a character in these old comics (and of course these letters are being answered directly by the Saint). The comic is popular with girls too, going by the letters from Bessie Mae, Shirley and Gloria. And probably strategic to include a letter from a parent who loved it (M. C. Budzko) and also for Gloria to mention how much her mother likes it. But Harvey, how can you not like Lucky Dale? She was my favourite of the lot.

I know we've discussed it before, but it amazes me how they used to include the full addresses of the letter writers, including house numbers. As one of you has said before, that was one way kids could connect with each other before comic cons and the internet. I wonder how many kids wrote to Shirley so they could join her fan club? I had a lot of penpals when I was younger (some continuing into my 20s), so I probably would have written to someone who liked the same comic as me. More innocent times.

Overall

I did like the comic book overall, but the Saint's stories weren't as interesting as the one in Silver Streak Comics. Are they aiming more for a family audience?

Cheers

QQ

[bowers]

 An excellent choice, SuperScrounge! Also a very nice surprise, adding something from our extensive Old Time Radio section.
Okay, let's start with the Silver Streak 18. I stopped cold at the inside cover ad! Like QQ, I was flabbergasted. A Radium Scope with real radium? Come on! They had to have known better after all the damage done to female factory workers in the 1920's. (google Radium Girls 1920's) Moving on, the story itself was a rousing yarn, indeed. Featuring inovations like automatic insignia changers on the wings, a truth extractor using oscillating currents to paralyze will power (why didn't I think of that?), and an angel parachute- the Saint's calling card. A really fun read, but I personally doubt if Mr. Charteris actually wrote this. The Saint's usual sophisticated personality seemed to be completely missing.
The Saint 04's 'The Saint Steals the Show' depicts the Saint as much more like the character we all know. With dry humor and snappy repartee, he and the faithful Pat finds themselves in the midst of a murder in a theater! The bumbling police arrive, the suspects introduced, we get some red herrings, and,finally, a slam-bang finish! The second Saint story, 'The Saint Plays Nursemaid' concerns Simon and Pat being obligated to judge a baby contest. Meanwhile a gang of none-to-bright thugs are plotting a kidnapping at the same contest! Simon quickly ferrets out the first two kidnappers and subjects them to torture by unruly children, forcing their retreat. Then, things get serious as the rest of the mob intervenes! Simon and Pat grab the intended victim and the car chase is on! A crash and fisticuffs follow, and (mostly) all is well. A fun read.
'Nineteen Santa Clauses' is the tale of Simon being forced to play Santa for a charity, accompanied by the stalwart Louie, the cabbie. The boys find themselves in the middle of a deadly mistaken identity situation and the action doesn't stop until the would-be killer is identified. Great story, and Vincent Price is superb in the role. I'm glad this was included from our very large (and underused) Old Time Radio collection.
Still haven't read the Thriller Comics issue yet, but I'll get on that soon! Cheers, bowers

[crashryan]

The Saint

When I was in junior high school I discovered the Saint in the late novel Vendetta for the Saint. I loved the character right away. (Many years later I learned the book was ghosted by, of all people, ex-comic book artist Harry Harrison). It turned out that our small-town library had a bunch of 1940s-vintage reprints of early Saint novels. I plowed through them all, enjoying especially the earliest collections. At the same time the Roger Moore TV series began showing on American TV. I saw the Moore shows long before I saw the George Sanders films, and while I like Sanders I felt Moore was a perfect Saint. I haven't seen any of the newer Saint movies. I haven't wanted to--the previews made them look like typical wham-bam Hollywood fare.

It wasn't until Comic Book Plus that I discovered the Saint had been born in the pages of the British story paper The Thriller. (We have some of these Thriller issues at CB+.) Simon Templar was a sort of sixth-wheel to a team of extralegal crime fighters known as the Five Kings. It was a clumsy arrangement, with Templar called both "the Joker" and "the Saint." Discovering this finally made sense of the earliest Saint book, in which some of Simon's friends, whom I'd never heard of, die valiantly. This was in fact Charteris polishing off the Five Kings. Charteris made the right decision in clearing the decks for the Saint to be a one-man show.

Anyway, I've seen Saint comics now and then but haven't been impressed. Let's take a new look at them.

The Saint's first comic book appearance

As someone already mentioned, the Saint first appeared in comics in the pages of DC's Movie Comics, a 1939 experiment that must have seemed a good idea at the time. Each issue offered several short (like 9 pages or so) adaptations of recent movies. The covers promised "64 PAGES IN NATURAL COLOR" but that was a bit hyperbolic. Instead of drawings, the panels contained still photos from the movies, with the backgrounds painted out and the whole thing overlaid with various flat colors. This wasn't your typical fotonovel though, because when the necessary photo didn't exist, an artist drew a fill-in. Most of the hand-drawn art was to add backgrounds behind cut out characters, but from time to time an entire panel was hand drawn--drawn, I must say, very poorly. Movie Comics are not in the public domain, but in the spirit of Fair Use here's a sample page from The Saint Strikes Back.



Silver Streak #18

Pretty cool, the Saint gets the cover! As for the story, the Saint went out Nazi fighting in Charteris' World War II novels, but I wasn't very interested in them. I haven't read them in sixty years and I don't remember much. I'm pretty sure the Saint didn't fly fighter planes, though.

The script does a fair job with Simon's cheerful patter but there's not much satisfaction because he, Patricia, and Hoppy don't get much time to work together. Edd Ashe's artwork is very good. Ashe was a capable but inconsistent second-tier artist. Some of his work was excellent, some only so-so. He hit a high note in Dell's Mike Shayne comics. After that he seems to have disappeared for a while, then resurfaced drawing humdrum Charlton stories under someone else's inking.

Why does everyone call the Saint "Saint"? I remember that in early books no one knew Simon Templar was the Saint and he could work undercover. Eventually he became so well-known that everyone knew they were the same person. I suspect comics editors stuck with "Saint" because readers unfamiliar with the books might be confused if people called him "Simon" some times and "Saint" other times.

Parenthetically, I never could stand Hoppy Uniatz. Dumb lug sidekicks were popular back then, but Simon worked better without one.

[crashryan]

For those interested in the evolution of the Saint, here is a very long, very informative blog entry about Simon, the Five Kings, and Charteris' possible influences. You must read all the comments as well as the main entry to get the full picture.

https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=37295