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Link to the comment: Fawcett's Funny Animals 83

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE:  The Killing
The Haunted Hitman   (8 of 10)

A man runs a murder-for-hire operation for organized crime, where the bodies are never found, but never does any of the killings himself.  Jim's mission is to provide evidence so he can be prosecuted, not just his hired hitmen.

Gerald S. O'Laughlin (THE ROOKIES) is "Bert Gordon", head of this show's equivalent of "Murder Inc." He's tough, smart, but his one weekness appears to be that he's also superstitious.  The team uses this against him to the max when they first convince him his neighbor's house is haunted, then has him involved in a killing, only to find the newly-dead man coming back from the grave to haunt HIM.

Roy Jenson (STAR TREK: The Omega Glory) is "Connie", Gordon's assassin, who not only bumps people off, but gets rid of the evidence by dumping their bodies into a furnace at a lumber yard.

While Jim and Rollin pose as brothers who are haunted by a dead sibling, and Cinnamon poses as an unhappy wife who wants her drunk of a husband dead, Barner & Willy knock out the hitman and spent an awful lot of time installing mysterious equipment in Gordon's house.  When we learn what it's all used for, that's when the episode becomes genuinely HILARIOUS.  Conning a hardened killer into believing in a haunting may not make much sense, but I don't recall any other episode of this show I had so much fun watching.

One of my favorite moments had to be when Jim, apparently shot dead in "self defense", is rescued from the furnace seconds before it really gets going.  Come to think of it, that was the 2nd time on this show I've seen that kind of thing happen (the previous time was at a mortuary crematorium).

Funny thing, it was checking the credits online just now that I suddenly realized all these years I was confusing 2 similar-looking actors:  McLauglin (who was on THE ROOKIES) and Tige Andrews (who played a similar role on THE MOD SQUAD).  It was Andrews, not McLaughlin, who once appeared on STAR TREK (as a Klingon).
   (3-27-2025)

Hi there! 

I'm Teaya and I'm new here. English is my second language so sorry in advance if I make a mistake.

I accidentally stumbled upon this site while I was searching for something (I don't remember now what was it) and I joined because I like old-timey comics and I like how the site is organized.

Hi Jerry and welcome to CB+. The new Image title in the Universal Monsters line, The Mummy, looks good.  But then, I am a fan of The Mummy films. As Fra says, "Lots of fun horror and forgotten stuff here"
Join in the conversations and, even though we can't host them here, let us now what '60's DC titles tickled your fancy.

Looking at it I can see some similarities to Beck's style, or maybe a member of his studio.

Link to the comment: Vic Verity Magazine 2

‘Crash, I’m thinking just turning out a strip is harder than it looks to a lot of people. There is a certain genius to making that deadline day after day, year after year. In that regard alone, Charles Schultz is a genius. You get that level of craftsmanship for decades? Amazing.
We had SMITTY in our paper right up to the end. (1) I cannot remember a single comic from it. Doesn’t seem to be any current hardcover or paperback collections of the strip. Wikipedia mentions a tin toy worth a grand, and that’s about it.
But that last page, with the dad and the kid heading home impressed me. I read it as the two of them heading home in the winter when I first saw it. You know, low red sunset light, lots of white. Changed my mind with the trees in later panels. But the supper time conclusion reminded me of Robert Crumbs’ endings when it wasn’t exactly funny but just sort of suddenly ends without a real punch line like life sometimes does.

BILL BUMLIN Now, (2) my initial theory about the wings and the tutu’s on the psychiatrists was that it was a way of saying they were ‘fairies'...homosexuals. Expressing your emotions or taking your problems to someone was seen as weakness back then for most people. Men kept it inside. It would not be manly to not be able to handle them yourself.  The popular media knew about Freud and that most psychiatrists were German and probably heard rumours about ‘repression’. Take it from there.
But then I looked back and saw the wings on Bumblin and other people before and after the doctors caught up with him, so I don’t know what the artist meant.
Oh, the first doctor to see him makes a joke about 'Dementia Peacox', a play on the old time diagnosis of ‘dementia praecox'. You know it today as schizophrenia . That’s a phrenology map to the right, a discredited German science at the time that thought you could judge intelligence and personality by the size and bumps on a head. By ’47, it was seen as quackery, so it’s probably a dig to psychiatry in general again.

Thanks for the books, Robb, they were interesting and a fun read.

Thanks, Morgus.
(1) There are probably no hardbound collections of "Smitty" because its humour was always very old-fashioned, and its very hard for people today to relate to it, and it's just not funny enough, even by 1920s standards, to have been "timeless humour). Almost no one alive today was around during its heyday of the 1920s-1930s.  Berndt conceived it in 1922, based on his own experiences as an "office Boy" during the first decade of The 1900s. I find it hard to believe it lasted in some newspapers until Berndt retired  in 1973.  I can't imagine how he kept it relevant past the early 1950s or so.

But, we DO have a fair amount (14) of "Smitty" comic books here on CB+ including:

Dell/Western Publishing:

Four Color 1939 Series # 11

Large Feature Comics # 26 (1939)

Four Color 1942 Series #s:  6, 32, 65, 99, 138

Own Numbered Series #s: 1 - 7

(2)  As you surmise, The little wings on the shoulders are NOT related at all, to the psychiatrists wearing ballerina's tutus.  As I stated above, the wings are not related to people behaving like Angels, but seem to always being connected to the characters being inspired with a great idea, or being VERY determined to get action done related to such inspiration.  That' very confusing, because, during the same general period of the 1940s, a few different comic book series (like MLJ's "Gloomy Gus" - who died without having a home, and travels The Earth as a Ghost, looking for a Human body to be his "new home").  He wears his Angel's wings on his shoulders ALL the time, probably to enhance his appearance with more differentiation from the living characters.  His colouring is much lighter,- a faint light blue-grayish across his skin and clothing).

Also, as I stated above, the Psychiatrists wearing ballerina's tutu's is a cliche of making fun of that profession, especially the Psychoanalysts, who have their patients (AND themselves) wading too much in their mental baggage, instead of facing life head on.  It seems to be partly related to the 19th Century view that Homosexuality was a mental disease (against nature) and a form of insanity (thus the denigratory term  "Fruits", meaning "Nutty as a Fruitcake", and many psychologists and psychiatrist took up those careers in an attempt to find out what is wrong with themselves and to cure it.  But, I also am well aware that the image of  Psychiatrists wearing ballerinas' tutus, dancing ballets is not only making fun of them, but also became a cliche for falling into madness, which likely came from when World Renowned archaeologist, Sir William Flinders-Petrie, unexpectedly, danced madly while wearing a ballerina's tutu after making a great new discovery in Egypt during the early 1900s.  I suspect that his unexpected "fall into madness" spurred on that cliche.  I've seen hundreds of examples from the 1910s through 1950s of a group of Psychiatrists (usually Psychoanalysts - Thanks to Freud) wearing ballerina tutus, dancing madly with ballet moves, in newspaper or magazine cartoons, silent and talkie films and other forms of media as a cliche for a funny way to express insanity.  Even Carl Barks used that cliche, and also Phrenology "head Maps" , several times when Scrooge  or Donald went to a Psychiatrist's office.

A Treasury of Comics - Bill Bumlin
Dibble uses a standard 1930s/1940s zany comedy art and writing style, reminiscent of that of Bill Holman's "Smokey Stover", Jimmy Hatlo's "They'll Do it Every Time" and "Little Iodine", Ving Fuller's "Doc Syke",  Milt Gross' "Count Screwloose", and Rube Goldberg's "Boob McNutt".  It reminds me of first having the newspaper comics read to me in the late 1940s, and my reading them into the 1950s.  The humour seems a bit stilted and dull based on today's standards.   

Bill Bumlin 1 - The Professor's Anti-Gravity Juice
The premise as a story idea is very good, with several good possibilities for development, with people and objects becoming lighter than air, sand floating away.  A cow-minder is a funny concept, and he and the cow floating up into the air, and "flying (jumpin) over the moon, is a funny idea.  But Dibble seems to take the good idea nowhere after Bumlin uses the anti-gravity juice to pretend to lift heavy things several times, to scare the town bully into becoming his slave.  So, the story stalls, is repetitive, and thus, boring.

Bill Bumlin 2 - Bill Bumlin Goes Into Show Business
Bill puts adverts in the newspapers that he can lift anything, hoping to join a circus  The president of the local Psychoanalysis Club decides to study him and write a paper about his case.  Dibble has Bumlin kick The Professor up to the top of a tree, and he thinks he's a bird (an old cliche for the crazy Psychiatrist who gravitated to Psychology and Psychoanalysis to find out what is wrong with himself.  Bumlin's wife, thinking the "juice" was booze, empties the bottle, and refills it with water.  So, the reader knows Bumlin will use it to lessen the weight of something big he plans to lift, and he will be denounced as a fraud, and probably tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail!  No suspense possible.  And a boring ending to a story that had some good possibilities.  I'd probably had an ever impressive upgrading of heavy things lifted, with Bumlin becoming more and more famous, until his last exhibition, in which he lifts something (like the City Hall),  but have an unexpected event be his downfall - the anti - gravity effect has a time limit to where it wears out.  And he chooses to hold up the giant building (with people (including The Mayor) yelling out the windows for him set the edifice back down on the ground) for a very long time, so the press photographers can take photos of his master achievement - so he can become World-famous.  The anti-gravity wears off, - the building comes crashing down, and Bumlin is buried 100 feet below, yelling for people to dig him out, while the disappointed crowd leaves in disgust, and The Mayor and City Council argues over which department should rescue him, and how they'll be able to get all the money to pay for the building's damages from that now bankrupt man.  In the last panel, they walk away still arguing, as Bumlin is still yelling for someone to dig him out.  His dialogue balloon comes out of a narrow crack in the ground (made by the building falling back down.

Instead of my building his fame and ending in disaster idea, Dibble has Bumlin, never getting anywhere with his fame, by having him meet a rich old woman he hopes to get to finance his climb to fame and fortune, but, instead, offers to lift her above a mud puddle, but his "juice" now just being water doesn't lift her, and she ends up chasing him in the last panel.  An easy copout, and a very unsatisfying ending for the reader.  I've come to the conclusion that Dibble should have stuck to just drawing, and teamed up with a good comedy writer.

Bill Bumlin 3 - Bill Bumlin's Ghoulfriend

The atmosphere on this opening page is terrific.  A dark, Gothic night scene, perfect for a horror tale.  Already, Dibble commits the Cardinal Sin of disrespecting his readers by thinking they can't comprehend what they see, and not only leading them to the water, but flushing it down their throats with a firehose!  He has Bumlin Saying to himself (not even thinking it) that he is so scared chills are running down his spine.  He's the artist.  He should be showing the fear in the man's eyes, and showing him shiver with body movements and action lines, and, perhaps very light touch on inking the outer lines of his body to indicate blurriness of motion.  I like the imposing tower shot, and the dark background and only seeing the 2 eyes of his greeter.  I do like Bumlin's terrified and shocked look and the sweat off his brow when looking at the eyes.  Also, it's a great panel for suspense at the end of Page 1. 

Again, Dibble is trying to make the readers scared by telling them things that should scare them, instead of showing them in visuals and people's reactions.  Leading them by the hand like he thinks they have the brains of 5 year olds.  Instead of Dibble's having the should-be ghoulish scientist say that he has done things that would make leading scientists' hair stand on end, he should have shown the fear in Bumlin's eyes after getting a view of a diseased brain in a glass jar, and seeing the bottom half of the Monster's large body strapped ton the operating table, have HIM screaming in terror at Wolfbane, that HE has gone where no man should, and risks letting it wreak vengeance upon Mankind.  After all, it IS a comedy series.  Dibble should be exaggerating everything to accentuate the irony and absurdity of the situation.  At least the last panel on Page 3, with Wolfbane telling Bumlin that any minute the thing he saw lying on the table will be the fruit of all his labour and he's lucky to be there to see it.  It makes a good, suspenseful page-turner.  But it would have been better with him starting to open the door.  Then, on Page 4, Dibble wastes too many panels trying to build upn suspense, but we see nothing to make us fear for Bumlin.  No painful screeches, no plaster falling off the walls accompanying the clanks and thuds of The Monster's heavy footsteps.  I don't see terror in Bumlin's eyes.  Dibble did not do a decent job in this part.  The 3 visions Bumlin has of what he thinks the Monster could be are too tame.  They should all show the more scary versions of The Monster doing terrible things to Bumlin.  They look too funny.  There should be more difference from the comedic way he really looks, making the joke that he's just a big"Teddy Bear type" all the more unexpected and funny.  TERRIBLE that Dibble uses the entire last page of a wayyyyyy-too-short 5-page story for its epilogue.  It shouldn't be more than about the last 4 panels, or so, in which Wolfbane (1st) shows his disgust at how his Monster turned out, and (2nd) is angry at Bumlin for bringing bad luck, (3rd) Kicks them out from his castle door, and (4th) same last panel as in the comic book, showing us that the "Monster" is scared and Bumlin tells him he'll guide and protect him.  He used too many panels to show that The "Monster" is a harmless flower-child, and the opposite of what Wolfbane wanted.  We can see that the story will continue in the next episode of "Tip Top Comics".

Bill Bumlin 4 - The Fighting Champ of Bugaboo Bend

The pacifist would-be Monster encounters the bully terror of the town, and offends him, by taking his lapel flower.  The Bully hits him hard, but breaks every bone in his hand in doing so.  The town elects him their protector, until he is scared away by a toy mechanical monkey.  So ends the Gothic Monster Saga.  A slight bit funny, but toon common a plot for a long time comics reader, who's seen it used hundreds of times.

Bill Bumlin 5 - Fighting Graft in Bumlinville (OR "The Pied Piper of Bumlinville")

This story starts out with a really good setting, character development and premise to craft a solid plot with lots of good possibilities.  For the first time, the first 3 pages have a really good pacing.  Unfortunately, they are paced well for a story of, at the very least, 10 pages (and would be better at probably 15).  This story (like all the others), is only 5 pages long.  So, it is chopped off, just where the main plot action starts.  Bill, agreeing with his fellow townspeople that he will fight The evil Mayor and banker brother, and their graft and their cruel treatment of The Townsfolk, immediately meets The Pied Piper of Hamelin's 20th Great Grandson, who just happens to have the famous fellow's magic flute.  We can guess the rest of the story.  As we should have guessed, the flute's music makes the cruel, greedy, crooks act in the opposite way, giving everything of monetary value and privileges back to The Townsfolk.  The story ends abruptly with The Piper asking Bumlin to provide sanctuary for him in his house, because the psychiatric hospital's "men in white suits" are chasing him with big nets because they think he's insane, believing in a magic flute.  Clearly, this story continued in the next issue of United Features' "Tip Top Comics".  But, unfortunately for us, the follow-up episode was NOT reprinted in this book.  We are getting more and more Tip Top Comics uploaded here on CB+ lately, so I'll check the 1946 issues to see if we have it.

Bill Bumlin 5 - Bill's Orphaned Nephew arrives

Bill rises to the occasion when his orphaned nephew is scheduled to arrive in Bumlinville to stay for good, as Bill and his wife plan to adopt him.  Bill tries to prepare by reading a book on child psychology, but has several mishaps before finding him at the train station, and the more responsible boy has to take his battered and bruised uncle to his house.  Clearly, this was a new addition to the series to help revive it.  Unfortunately we don't get to read the following episode unless I can find it in our "Tip Top Comics" section.

Overall Assessment

Dibble should have stuck to drawing only and allowed United Features to find a good comedy writer to team up with him.  He came up with some good ideas, but didn't know how to properly pace them or end them, and used mainly slapstick cliche gags, with no subtle, clever, high-brow style humour, and only very basic characterization. 

I, myself, would have liked the assignment of writing and storyboarding this series.  I'm sure I could have made the stories more appealing structurally, and also made them funnier.  I could have taken his basic ideas and made them into stories that would feel like stories than just a bunch of gags strung together, with truncated endings.  And the endings would not be so telegraphed, they would almost always have a funny surprise attached in some way.  There would also be more individual character-based humour.  I would have introduced more regular-appearing characters with different strengths and weaknesses, and attitudes on life.
The basic outline of the series and premise is a decent structure to have made it a memorable one, but it had a quite competent artist, who was clearly not an eager storywriter, only doing the writing for convenience, using a general slapstick comedy structure and well-known cliches to get by.  He had several good ideas, but didn't really know how to carry them out with a mere 5- pages with which to work.  Of course, I'd rather have had at least 8-10 pages to produce such stories.  It makes the job a lot easier, and would be much more enjoyable for the reader, too.

‘Crash, I’m thinking just turning out a strip is harder than it looks to a lot of people. There is a certain genius to making that deadline day after day, year after year. In that regard alone, Charles Schultz is a genius. You get that level of craftsmanship for decades? Amazing.
We had SMITTY in our paper right up to the end. I cannot remember a single comic from it. Doesn’t seem to be any current hardcover or paperback collections of the strip. Wikipedia mentions a tin toy worth a grand, and that’s about it.
But that last page, with the dad and the kid heading home impressed me. I read it as the two of them heading home in the winter when I first saw it. You know, low red sunset light, lots of white. Changed my mind with the trees in later panels. But the supper time conclusion reminded me of Robert Crumbs’ endings when it wasn’t exactly funny but just sort of suddenly ends without a real punch line like life sometimes does.
BILL BUMLIN Now, my initial theory about the wings and the tutu’s on the psychiatrists was that it was a way of saying they were ‘fairies'...homosexuals. Expressing your emotions or taking your problems to someone was seen as weakness back then for most people. Men kept it inside. It would not be manly to not be able to handle them yourself.  The popular media knew about Freud and that most psychiatrists were German and probably heard rumours about ‘repression’. Take it from there.
But then I looked back and saw the wings on Bumblin and other people before and after the doctors caught up with him, so i don’t know what the artist meant.
Oh, the first doctor to see him makes a joke about 'dementia peacox', a play on the old time diagnosis of ‘dementia praecox'. You know it today as schizophrenia . That’s a phrenology map to the right, a discredited German science at the time that thought you could judge intelligence and personality by the size and bumps on a head. By ’47, it was seen as quackery, so it’s probably a dig to psychiatry in general again.

Thanks for the books, Robb, they were interesting and a fun read.

What aspects and elements of the drawing, staging, or storywriting style in "Hot-Shot Galvan", remind you of Beck's style?

Link to the comment: Vic Verity Magazine 2

It seems like there is a proliferation of characters that look like Dick Tracey in comics at this time

Link to the comment: Crackajack Funnies 11