[movielover]

This week Kerry Drake Detective Cases 13 located here https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=74226

Kitty Carson Story

[narfstar]

Powell's are is over all good but I do not like how he draws women's faces. The Kitty starts with a lot too much coincidence for me. I know they needed to keep the page count down but... The end was pretty predictable and I expected it before turning to the last page.

[SuperScrounge]

The Case of the Fake Mystic Racket - Okay, but a continued next issue note would have been nice.

The Case of the Traditional Ghost - Cute.

Indian Revenge - Eh, okay, but it could have been better. The writer seemed competent, but just seemed to be grinding out a passable back-up story.

Bullets of Death! - Cute story.

Ace Detective Proves Crime Can't Win - A bit preachy. Does anyone know if this was original to the comic or a Sunday reprint? I would guess reprint, but I'm not sure.

[ghmcleod]

I am more of an art creature
I like the simplicity of the art work...the over emphasis of the details aids a lot in the story telling
The number of panels per page and their staggered layout adds another character to the story
The amount of dialogue is phenomenonal compared to today's sound bite balloons
I enjoyed it...

[Morgus]

That female face bugged me too, Narfstar. Like Kitty Carson had been given a botched plastic surgery operation for witness protection. But Bob Powell's art is always cool to look at anyway...But then I got watching some TV with my gramp.  If I hadn't had to watch old musicals with him, this idea wouldn't have occurred to me. But take a look at Kitty Carson and compare her features to Betty Hutton in ANNIE GET YOUR GUN. The musical was already a hit Broadway play in '46 and was probably getting filmed when this comic came out in '49, so the math is right. What if they had to get Bob to change the face to avoid heat from MGM for using Hutton's face without permission? And Bob just gave her a NASTY nose job in revenge?
I know this is a stretch, but it made me laugh just the same.

[Johnny L. Wilson]

This is the first time I've commented in one of your book club discussions. I couldn't resist reading the Kerry Drake story with the missing ending and no hint that it was continued. And I enjoyed the little short story with "Creeper" and the detective--crude, but fun.

Of course, the main course for our purposes was the Kitty Carson story, a story that wouldn't be published in quite the same form today. The Native Americans in the story were handled with a speech pattern like that of Tonto in the Lone Ranger. But, at least they weren't portrayed as being drunk or lazy. Yes, the villain was Native American, but a thief is a thief no matter what "race" they were born into. But what I really liked about the story was that it had both the patronizing elements on behalf of the sheriff and a later admission that she was wrong. And, if nothing else, Kitty Carson is a female protagonist who doesn't look to some "strong male" to bail her out.

This is the first time I've read this type of Harvey Comic. When I was growing up, I only read titles like Casper and the like from Harvey [I grew up in the '50s, only slightly after the publication of this particular issue.]. Thank you for selecting this issue and this story. I'll pay attention to your selections from now on.

[The Australian Panther]

Since Powell signed the dialogue box at the top of page one introducing the story, It seems clear he wrote it as well as illustrated it. Not always the case in those times. Yes, the 'Indian' dialogue grates by current standards. The Artwork drives the narrative well. Even tho we have a strong female character she still had to be rescued by a male. Although I found myself thinking (before the last page) that surely it would have made more sense not to go out at night looking for a murderer on your own. I wouldn't say I don't like the way he draws Kitty's face, but Powell clearly had a stylistic element to the way he drew her. It gives her a semi-cartoonish look. I was reminded of Doris Day actually. I'd have to go back and look at other work by Powell to see if he did that with other female faces or only here.
It seems clear that Powell was given exactly 4 pages to tell his story, which is why it is so brief and straight-forward. I don't know why it was the custom for Harvey to do a book based on a newspaper strip and then pad it out with work like this. I never liked having the main story chopped up and interrupted back in the day. Irritating. And Scrounge, we now have the next issue posted so you can read the end of it!
Cheers!           

[crashryan]

The "Kerry Drake" reprints were a good read, but of course I was annoyed to have the story end, unannounced, in midstream. Allen Saunders' stories are interesting and move well, though he makes odd choices of which words to emphasize. The art is decent despite the jarring contrast between the ultra-cartoony Dr Prey and the rest of the characters. I wonder who drew this. It's too early for Surui Gumen. All the online sources mention the same three ghosts: Hy Eisman, Jerry Robinson, and Fran Matera. The only one I think I could recognize would be Robinson, and this seems a bit too cartoony for him. All we can be sure of is that it wasn't Alfred Andriola.

While the Kitty Carson story's plot is nothing special, it's a remarkable example of efficient storytelling. A complete story in four pages! If you haven't tried it, take my word that writing a four-pager is ten times as difficult as writing a 22-pager that's continued next month. Like many others I don't like the way Powell draws Kitty's face. In fact I've never found Powell's female faces attractive, though everything south is just fine (case in point: Cave Girl.)

The lecture on the inside back cover is very strange. Clearly Kerry is defending his own newspaper feature. I'd love to know where this page originally appeared, or whether it was produced especially for comic books. In that case, appearing in a comic book implies that Kerry also supports the crime comics that were flooding the stands at the time. Somehow I don't think this was Andriola & Co.'s intention. Newspaper writers and artists always saw their product as superior to comic books.

[narfstar]

Well Crash, I think I would have been more at home writing in those times. As you know my Fab 4 and Weird Warriors meeting is only 3 pages in PopCom 1. I have an upcoming Dracula and Fleeta story that is only two pages. I have also written several one page and one panel gags. I think it can be a matter of what comes natural and what one likes to read. I tend to skip the fluff and get to the point.