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Some day, someone is going to write a book on why a big floating eye fascinted people over 80 years ago. You had these comics, you had movie later like THE CRAWLING EYE...there had to be a reason, right?? Doggoned if I could figure it out. But it was a nice afternoon read. And you’re right bowers, I think Wertham would have done a whole chapter on it.
It would probably freak him. And that’s not even going into the guy hanging in Keen Detective 20!
Does anybody know how much money they saved with their wonky printing style of colour /to one colour /to no colour? Would it be THAT much?
hey, Q.Q. speaking of microphones, dig the deluxe one in the Johnson Smith ad. Looks about the size of a fist. Lawsy I love those ads. I also would love to try and build a 2 passenger plane that flies from junk yard parts. What could go wrong? Let’s take it for a spin off the top of the house!
Favourite line in both books; ‘turn Roche loose”. Don’t know why, it just cracked me up.
Favourite panel; Spark O’Leary page 17, Keen Detective 16. Anybody else see Ministry of Silly Walks from Monty Python??
Great picks bowers.

Hello! My name is Helen and I found this site while looking for Plastic Man's early comics.

Keen Detective Funnies v2 #12

The Masked Marvel
Given that the Masked Marvel has been shown to be an inventer I'm surprised he didn't give his sidekicks bullet resistent vests.

Good thing Roche knew how to work a parachute and that a strong breeze didn't come up to blow him away from the prison. 


Spark O'Leary
“Wow! What a collection of celebrities...”
I wonder if those drawings look like any 1939 celebrities?

A man is murdered, but the party continues?

Spark sure does run around a lot in this story.

The more I think about the crime the less sense it makes. The Countess De Rossini wearing a gem insured for a million dollars, so at first it seems like insurance fraud, but, as we find out she's not the real countess and it's a paste gem, so even if the fake woman convinced an insurance company she was the countess, they would never insure a paste diamond. What would happen when the real countess finds out about this? Why did the woman's accomplice hang around the balcony where the 'robbery' took place? It's like the writer just used a bunch of crime elements, but didn't fully think out the crime.


Dan Dennis F.B.I.
Eh, okay.


Jerry O'Keefe
Ditto.


Fair Exchange
Amusing.


The Doctor's Revenge
Didn't police take fingerprints in 1939?
Hmmm, yes they did as the following activity makes clear. So the police not taking in the gang and fingerprinting them to discover Torske is a big plothole.


The Devil-God Murder Case
It might have been more interesting if the detective had some experience dealing with supernatural threats and did something more than ducking a thrown hatchet and letting random chance end the bad guy's plan.


Junior Detective
Ugh!


The Eye Sees
An interesting opening to the Eye series, although I don't believe that later stories ever revealed more about the mysterious Eye, although, decades later, Malibu would at least 'humanize' the character. Bah dump bump!
(For those who don't get the joke, in the '90s Malibu revived the Centaur characters as The Protectors and turned the Eye into a human wizard who no longer disguises himself as a disembodied eye.)


Dean Denton
So Dean can just break into someone's house with no problem?


Keen Detective Funnies #20

Cover
Aha! So this is where the makers of Superman Returns got the idea for a bullet to the Eye from! 

The Eye
It's hard not to make MAGA jokes about a story involving illegal aliens.
I wonder why the Eye went easy on the illegal aliens instead of just crashing the plane with them on it?


Magnetic Mine Menace
Good thing that cyclotron was aboard.


Dan Dennis
Kinda falls into the 'Solves crime through luck' school.


TNT Todd
I think he went to school with Dan Dennis.


Muddy Evidence
Okay.


Dean Masters
Geeze, don't they have that test where you can test someone's hands for gunshot residue?


Spy Hunters
I wonder how the poor French people in that town felt about the shelling? Somehow I doubt it was, “I hope Suszette is safe!” 


The Masked Marvel
I wonder if the Masked Marvel suspected the Eye of bringing down that plane? 


Spark O'Leary
So-so.

 Very interesting comments, Quirky! I also wondered about the black and white- black and red pages. I checked some other Centaur comics from nearly the same period, and found that this format was used in other titles as well. One example is Funny Picture Stories v1 n02 from 1936-  https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=88028 , which has several stories using this format and a Dick Kent story, "The Monster Man", which begins in color, switches to black and white and then to a rather minimal black and red! Cost cutting or artistic license gone amok? Cheers, bowers

Detective Funnies 16 (Part 1)

Thanks for these selections, Bowers. It's taking me a while to read them, so I thought I'd at least get the ball rolling with a few comments about what I've read so far.

The Masked Marvel

On the whole, the art is quite good for that era, though there are a couple of anomalies. For example, at the bottom of the second page, there's a pic of the officer being shot by the gangster. But following on from Panther's comment on a previous comic, the angle of the gun is all wrong. The puff of smoke coming from the gun seems to indicate he's just taken the shot. But he's aiming at the officer's post-shot slumped head rather than where he would have been aiming in the first place. There are also some continuity issues. For example, the nationwide alarm about Roche being on the loose seems to come some time after the escape, as there has been a crime spree in the meantime.

It's interesting that they give a lot of the backstory before the Masked Marvel actually appears (almost 6 pages). That seems uncommon for a lot of Golden Age stories I've read, but does flesh out the issue more. It's very generous of the police chief to say that he wants the Masked Marvel's men in charge of the police squad. Also interesting that not all of the good guys survive, thus showing the very real dangers and costs of fighting for justice. I did wonder if the Masked Marvel gave Roche any parachuting instructions before tossing him out of the plane. Seems like a lot could go wrong with that kind of drop-off. An interesting tale overall. I'd read more of these.

Spark O'Leary

My favourite part was how to tried to conceal the whopping big microphone stand so the fake countess wouldn't know she was being broadcast. Um .. I think she noticed  I did like the format of the story though. Spark's broadcast at the end was like a modern-day true-crime podcast.

Dan Dennis FBI

Interesting technique of interspersing black and white pages with red and black pages. I guess that was a compromise to doing full colour. The last narration box on the second page is sort-of like 'breaking the fourth wall' in asking the reader who the prison guard is who's lurking in the shadows. We find out as soon as we turn the page.

I'm not sure if the premise was meant to be amusing, but the whole idea of an 'organ of destruction' seemed funny to me, especially when it kind of looked like the Yamaha organs that were popular in the 1970s. We had one of those!

My favourite line? "Realizing he must act before the fiend goes on a rampage of destruction, Dan resorts to his ventriloquism." Say what? Maybe that's come up in previous stories, but I found it hilarious to think of ventriloquism as being one of the tools of trade of an FBI agent.

Not the best writing in this one, as there was a lot of repetition, but it made me smile, perhaps unintentionally.

Comicrimes

I liked the one-page Comicrimes features, as it gives the reader a chance to work out the clues. Though I was clueless about the one with the bullets. I live in Australia where most people have never even held a gun. I have no idea what each of those bullets would do - LOL

I also thought the one about the dead thoroughbred had a flaw. The answer is built on the premise that you can bend down under a railing, yet keep your shoeprints in a straight line. But wouldn't most people have to turn a little to get under the railing, thereby breaking the straight line under the railing?

Foggy Night

The action sequences could have been drawn a bit better. I got confused in a couple of points. For example, in the last panel on the third page, the bad guy challenges the trooper to a fight. Then on the next page, the trooper swings the first punch, but the next panel shows the trooper on the ground rather than the bad guy. Then in the next panel, the trooper is on his feet and punching the bad guy. It just doesn't seem to flow well.

Also, the foggy night of the title appeared rather suddenly. There's no fog throughout the story until the last four panels where it's mentioned repeatedly.

That's as far as I've gotten so far. Some interesting qualities in all of them. Will add more as I keep reading.

Cheers

QQ

FIT TO KILL   (1993)
The BIG Diamond Caper   (5 of 10)

The usual DEA gang (referred to in this film as "The Secret Service", but, no, that's a different government org) are assigned to guard a party, wherein a Chinese businessman, before he retires, is planning to present a huge diamond to a pair of Russian diplomats. It was stolen by Nazis during WW2, taken to South America, and fell into the hands of the Chinese along the way. DEA nemesis "Martin Kane" wants to steal it to discredit both the US, the Russians, and the DEA. But his former business associate, Chinese gangster "Poe", sends a female assassin to kill Kane, because of his failure in the previous movie (HARD HUNTED). Kane gets the assassin, "Blue Steele", to help him, but it's a shaky allegiance, and by the 2nd half of the movie, EVEN I began to get confused by the plot. (I know, this is an Andy Sidaris film. What am I doing paying attention to THE PLOT?)

Series regulars Dona Speir, Roberta Vasquez, Cynthia Brimhall, Ava Cadell, Bruce Penhall, Michael J. Shane, Tony Peck, Sandra Wild & Carolyn Liu all return as the group of DEA / Secret Service agents. Geoffrey Moore (Roger's son!) makes his 2nd appearance as "Martin Kane". The weird thing is, he acts like he never met Dona's character before, but he did, 2 movies earlier, EXCEPT, in that film, "Kane" was played by Pat Morita. (SCRIPT EDITOR!!) Chu Chu Maleve & Richard Cansino make their 3rd appearances as a pair of IDIOTIC comedy assassins. When they show up, the film had been so serious, their comic antics felt totally out-of-place, yet, they were both so aggressively STUPID, I found myself really laughing during their scenes. Especially when a toy store manager cons them into thinking a pair of Japanese cities are really in America, and later, one of them says, "That's the last time I buy American-- next time, I buy Italian!"

A real surprise was the subplot where the gem containing the tracker is damaged, then taken to a jewelers, then stolen... and one of the robbers was none other than "Rico Rossi" himself, Nicholas Giorgiade. Sidaris had been hiring this guy for 20 YEARS, ever since STACEY in 1973 (which I just got on an excellent bootleg DVD-R from "j4hi.com").

I've already noticed that lead hero "Donna Hamilton" (her last name not revealed for the first few films) was clearly a tribute to author "Donald Hamilton", creator of MATT HELM. Now, in this film, they reveal that the recurring baddie's full name is "Martin Kane", a tribute to MARTIN KANE PRIVATE EYE, a tv series that ran 241 episodes from 1949-1954!

At this point, more and more, the amount of nudity with LARGE-breasted girls seems to be more important than the stories. For myself, personality still matters, and for the last few films, I have to say, Cynthia Brimhall's "Edy" has become my favorite character in these things. She not only has an incredible bod, she's also REALLY nice. Overall, I enjoyed FIT TO KILL more than the 2 previous films combined.

I don't think the message of the D-13 story was isolationist. It was written several months before the war began, and carried a message against the military aggression of, and any alliance with, "Gothland" a.k.a. Nazi Germany. It was pro-peace, for avoiding war - but by containing Germany, not ignoring it.
Bob Powell, who wrote and drew the story, was fervently anti-Nazi.

Link to the comment: Mystery Men Comics 2 (paper/2fiche)

THE SPECTRAL SISTER at times top heavy with the dialogue but overall pretty good THE HOWLING HUNTERS pretty decent WINGS OF HORROR wow finally a good acg vampire story ZOMBIES DISCIPLE didn't make much sense too much romantic mush still ok THE SPECTER IN THE SHOP WINDOW a little convuluted again too much romantic sap for me

Link to the comment: Adventures into the Unknown 24

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE:  Old Man Out, Part 2
HOW MUCH suspense can anyone stand?   (8 of 10)

The prison break, so carefully planned out, hits a snag, as the Cardinal is no longer in his cell, but has been moved to Maximum Security. Dan has to go in and visit 'prisoner' Rollin to find out what happened. And that A-HOLE Colonel Scutari is getting more suspicious, and warns the circus troupe he's going to have his eye on them from now until they leave. So, Dan ADJUSTS his plans on the spot.

Crazy enough, if you've watched Part 1, and then seen this episode's opening credits, you kinda KNOW what's going to happen, more than usual. The opening montage (perhaps inspired by the ones used earlier on Gerry Anderson's THUNDERBIRDS?) usually act as a high-tension teaser, but without the audience having any idea what's going on yet. This time, instead, they sort of confirm for you that, YES, the mission WILL be pulled off-- even WITH hitches.

The craziest part wasn't Rollin actually escaping from the prison on his own (without the aid of the planned high-wire gimmick), but Dan BARGING into the prison, holding 'escaped prisoner' Rollin at gunpoint, pretending to be from Military Intelligence, when at least one of the guards SHOULD have recognized that he's the same man who visited Rollin inside the prison TWICE already!  Dan wearing one of Rollin's special make-up jobs would have REALLY seemed called for right then! Of course, MY favorite part was when Dan (not Barney) was diguised as a clown, silently lured Scutari into a tent, and then without warning, KNOCKED his lights out. We never saw the guy after that. Did they take him with them when they escaped the country? How embarrassing that must have been for him when he woke up in the wrong country.

The last act is just one prolonged HIGH-TENSION nightmare, as the story deliberately squeezes EVERY LAST OUNCE of suspense out, right down to the very last minute. Watching this show can often be compared to riding a rolling coaster, as, by the time it's over, you feel exhausted. (But then, a lot of episodes of VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA were also like that. The difference is, they were almost NEVER this well-written, shot or edited.)

An ongoing surprise for me, watching Season 1 for the first time, is that the team members all seem a lot more "human" than I ever remember them. Maybe the show got "slicker" when Peter Graves replaced Steven Hill? I was long under the impression that the regular characters didn't start being written this "real" until the 1988 revival!

A minor surprise (and mystery), is that the unknown "extra" team member whose face we saw at the beginning of both parts, NEVER turned up in the story. Maybe, unlike "Crystal", HE refused to come along?

Thank you, Downunder Dan, for making these awesome books available. They're all new to me and I like them all.

Link to the comment: Middy Malone's Magazine vol.2 3