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Ellery Queen #2 (1952) – (Ziff-Davis)
Front Cover
This cover painting, with Ellery bursting into the room, while the villain has raised a red-hot fireplace poker, about to sear the neck of his beautiful victim is bright with colour and full of action and movement. As was fairly common in the detective/crime genre of comic books at the beginning of the 1950s, the scene didn't actually occur as depicted in the story it represented inside the book. It's interesting to me that Ziff-Davis, a major US magazine publisher at that time, used their magazine painters to paint illustrations for their comic books, while other prolific magazine and pulp novel publishers, who also started comic book divisions later(like Dell, Ace, Avon, Fawcett, Farrell, Sangor, Pines, Hillman, Arnold, Sangor, did NOT, and Street and Smith, and United Features, only used them on a few books.
Thanks for the extra info, Robb. I really like the cover art. It puts me in mind of the sort of lifestyle magazine illustrations that were popular in the 1950s and 1960s, only they'd be advertising some product or illustrating a 'nice' fictional story rather than having a girl about to be maimed with a red-hot poker.
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The Death Parade
The title of this story makes the readers think they will witness a lot of murders and their attendant blood and gore. But, in this comic book version, we see only the results of 2 murders, and mention of 3 more occurring, but not only don't see them being committed, but don't even see their dead bodies. So, the "advertising" sensationalist description of "The Parade of Death" on the cover, and "Never has a succession of
corpses come more fast and furious" in the story's introduction narrative, are misleading and disappointing to the blood and gore fetishist and action-based art fan.
I guess this is the comic book equivalent of click-bait. You buy the comic for the promise of the 'Wholesale Homicide' and action depicted on the cover, but the actual stories are more pedestrian.
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I didn't understand the exact relationship of Ellery's father (Inspector Queen) to the city police force in this story. I assume that he is a detective (perhaps the head of the detective department of that city's police force). But Ellery, a private detective, calls his father to join him in unofficial activities that should be handled by the police, WITHOUT him! Such situations wouldn't occur in real life.
Yes, it's not really made clear in the comic. My recollection is that Richard Queen is just an inspector with the police and that he brings in Ellery to help solve the case. Doesn't happen in real life so much, though I'm sure the police would bring in consultants at times. However, without the amateur detective (or private eye) butting in, the police wouldn't solve half the fictional cases they're given
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Smythe of Scotlandyard - 1-Page Gag
A weird "comedic" gag that is a Vaudeville 2-man stand-up early 1900s routine. I suppose this was thrown in as light relief from the "heaviness" of the general subject matter of this book. But I think it is very much out of place.
Yes, probably just meant to be some light entertainment, but it's pretty corny and seems out of place given the readership they seem to be aiming at with the cover.
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Overall Assessment
Not a very interesting read, as there's a lot less fun in just reading a bland account of what happens in crime cases, without being able to test one's skills of finding clues to mysteries, screening what is known or implied about characters who are potential perpetrators of the crime, putting them together, and predicting who committed the crime, how it was committed, and how it will be solved.
Yes, I think we're all agreed that there is not much in the way of clue-finding. The Crackajack collection is better at that. Thanks for your comments.
Cheers
