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[MarkWarner]

The was a slight difference of opinion on last week's book L'il Rascal Twins #12. A few found it tedious, whilst others (including myself) rather enjoyed it. So, any ideas for a children's comic we might all like will be grateful accepted! Let's see if we can nail this one!

This week it's a change of pace again (you'll see what I did there in a second). This was suggested by another masked and shadowy reading group member, and we are going Silver Age Charlton with a 1966 book, Hot Rod Racers #9  https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=35706. The story we are concentrating on is the first one "A/A Champ".

[Captain Audio]

Just read the first story, I liked it.
My older brothers were old time hot rodders and custom car builders.

[betaraybdw]

also read the 1st story, even though the it seemed a little stilted, it was fun. And due to how many fond memories I have of playing with Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars (as a kid and later with my son) I am pre-disposed to like this comic. (I think I may have an issue buried in a long box somewhere).

I consider this series to be the spiritual predecessor of DC's short lived Hot Wheels comics http://www.comicvine.com/hot-wheels/4050-2465/




Nothing says "The Holidays" like a demented Santa trying to run you down with a Hot Rod Sleigh!

[SuperScrounge]

A/A Champ - I've never been a fan of racing comics and the opening caption kind of showed me why. I'm sure people who know things about cars and engines and all that jazz would understand it, but to me it was a foreign language. Then I thought, what if this was a science fiction story?
"At the Kessel Run Championships, Han Solo took the Millennium Falcon down the space line in 10.2 parsecs with a top speed of 141 lyh."
Okay, treat the technical stuff as mere flavoring and maybe I can slog through this thing?
That worked, although the story is still aimed at people who understand the technical stuff and I probably would have enjoyed it more if I did, the basic story worked.

The Burning Car - Interesting, although reading it I wondered just how common burning cars were at the time?

The Little Giant - Okay, but what is it about souping up the engines of family cars? Suddenly that burning car article is starting to make a lot more sense.

Strip Tips - So we go from cars to women taking their clothes off... What? Not that kind of strip?  Disappointment aside, that was interesting. 

The Bad Bears - Isn't this about a baseball team???  An okay, if predictable, story about motorcycle prejudice (which seemed to be it's own genre back in the fifties and sixties).

[SuperScrounge]

Oh, wow, Kracalactaka, I never saw that Hot Wheels Santa cover. I would have read that on sheer curiosity.

[Morgus]

These I always had a soft spot for, but FORGOT about the genre entirely...nice writing, and the art had kinetic flow that worked most of the time...it's really hard to do MOVEMENT in a comic strip if you don't do it just right...most of the time, it worked here...even the fights and confrontations that went along with the genre outside the cars.

Now here's why I dug the genre...folks used these to promote literacy. Classes used to give them out to guys who did well with their hands and had numbers down pat, but with words, not so much. It was a great bridge to car mags, more complicated tech manuals and eventually paperbacks and books with no pics...kids in the middle grades used them as a bridge to the same car mags they might otherwise be intimidated to buy.

And yeah, that Santa cover is really really bitchen'.

[Drahken]

Not bad, although the motorcycle one was decidedly cliche'd and predictable.

I actually used to have one of those "magic art reproducer" things advertised at the end, I had gotten it at some garage sale somewhere.

[betaraybdw]

Couldn't help myself, went onto evilbay and picked up the Hot Wheels #6 with the Santa Cover.

[crashryan]

I was something of a car fan when I was a kid. It was the newest Detroit cars and sports cars that excited me, not hot rodding and drag racing. Consequently I have no idea if the "local color" in these stories is authentic. Joe Gill lays it on pretty thick, suggesting he's done his research. But then I remember an "Adam 12" story Gill wrote in which the dispatcher uses the abbreviation "WMC," which a footnote translates as "White Male, Caucasian."

Anyway this comic typifies what always bugged me about Charlton: it's relentlessly generic. Beyond the car talk the stories are very much alike, dull and predictable. Same for the art. I confess Charles Nicholas isn't terrible. He draws figures reasonably well. It's just that all the heroes look the same; all the girls look the same; all the bad guys look the same; and we see the same poses and the same staging over and over. Similarly, Vince Alascia isn't the worst inker in the world. Someone even pointed out that he has an "Alex Raymond line." But page after page, it's the same thing again and again.

My biggest gripe with the art isn't the dull figures, but the cars. As a car fan I always wanted cars in a comic--especially when they're named--to look like the real thing. Nicholas' Chevrolet sedan in the first story looks like a Chevrolet once or twice. The Chevy II in the second story doesn't look like anything. Not as fake as it would have been had Bill Molno drawn it, but fake fake fake. That's what I admire about Alex Toth. If the script calls for a 1964 Chevy Bel Air, you get a 1964 Chevy Bel Air. And if he draws a 327 V-8 you can be sure that's what a 327 V-8 looks like. The engines in Nicholas' stories are embarrassing.

One thing I like about the first car comic, Fawcett's Hot Rods and Racing Cars, is the way Howard Nostrand lovingly details the hardware the heroes are talking about. When Charlton bought HR&RC, and the Fawcett inventory ran out, the book soon devolved into typical Charlton mush.

The best part of this book is Rocco Mastroserio's cover. It's not great--that seatless motorcycle is a bit funky--but one gets the impression Mastroserio actually looked at a few photos. Everything else: bleah.

[paw broon]

I have to make it clear first that I don't particularly like cars.  I use one - my wife's - and it's a small Japanese model.  We've never fancied a big, fashionable, powerful car and I know next to nothing about them.  Also, I've never read car comics and this is the first hot rod comic I've tried.
The story is packed full of technical stuff and I have no way of knowing if all that stuff is accurate and I don't recognise the vehicles.  To me, they could be works of fiction, like the space ship in this weekend's Doctor Who.
The story didn't particularly excite me.  It was all a bit so-so.  But what did strike me is that Andy seems to have learnt judo sometime between our page 5 and our page 10.  Now that's amazing.
The Bad Bears is so predictable.  The gang is in the chief's office when the emergency comes in and they're the only ones who can get there with their bikes to save the day.  Who'd a thunk it?

[Captain Audio]

The Burning Car - Interesting, although reading it I wondered just how common burning cars were at the time?

Actually engine compartment fires were not uncommon, especially with Sportscars and souped up engines.
Backfiring through the intake manifold was a common cause, I witnessed this happening three or four times. Electrical fires were fairly common as well. Leaking fuel lines spraying gasoline onto a hot exhaust manifold could blow the hood right off a car. I saw that happen once.
It was pretty common to see the underside of a cars hood marked by old fires.
My brothers always carried big brass pump style fire extinguishers on spring clip racks in their matching souped up 40 Ford Coupes. These were the same kind of extinguishers you would see mounted on the side of the old Indy racing cars of that era.

[MarkWarner]

I am so not a petrol head, that I put my driver learning on hold after just 2 lessons. This was very much to the relief of all involved, most of all me. However I really enjoyed the film The Last Indian. I am not expecting this to be up to that standard, but I guess it is a glimmer of hope.

I have just finished the main story A/A Champ and found it passable. It would certainly be preferable than looking at the walls in a waiting room and there were no problem pages available.

The one page factual text "The Burning Car" was rather interesting. I guess nowadays car fires are very rare, but even so I am slightly better prepared if I spot one. Mind you as already said I don't drive, so maybe I ought to start carrying a fire extinguisher a blanket around with me!

The Little Giant - Rather like the first story, ok for a waiting room read.

An advertisement on our page 19 caught my eye. "Aim for the space team" a model rocket kit. I want one! Space rockets are MUCH more interesting than cars!

Strip Tips - Again I guess the problem of hoods (or car bonnets as we call them over here) accidentally opening is also a problem of the past. We finish with "The Bad Bears" which if nothing else scores highly in the Dumb Dialogue League:

".... How are you fellows going to get back to town?"
"The way we came ... on our bikes!"

Verdict: A hit (just), as was better than looking at a blank wall. I'd have preferred to have read some problem pages though. Thankfully after all that wait the doctor tells me that it is perfectly OK to pretend to be an astronaut, but suggests I only do so in private.

[narfstar]

Charlton A Machine lettering kept me from reading anything but the superhero comics of the time. I find it extremely distracting. The story is very blah. Yes Nicholas/Alascia art looks the same everywhere but they were cranking out quantity at Charlton page rates and were always passably good. I never mind their art. I am not a motorheard and do not find much of interest in the stories. I will never understand the joy in watching drag racing or Nascar.

[bowers]

A great blast from the past! This one came out around the time I was trying for my driver's license- the "Great All-American Rite of Passage".
This comic didn't talk down to the readers and didn't bother to explain the jargon used- they assumed you had a brain and could figure it out. I liked that. The stories may have been a bit weak, but they featured fearless, clean-cut, young men who played by the rules and respected themselves and their fathers' wishes. What's not to like? This was the theme for all of Charlton's racing comics and they were not too bad. I actually bought a few although my brother, the race car freak, usually stole them.
A/A Champ was my favorite of the lot even if it was so very predictable. The bully gets his just desserts, the kid gets the girl and his validation and all is well.
I also enjoyed the Strip Tips feature. Hey, you never know when you might be hijacked and forced to drive a rail. Good to know about the spare chute in back.
A nostalgic read for me, but a very fun one. Thumbs up- Cheers, Bowers