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[MarkWarner]

Although, it appears we are still pondering last week's Christmas comparison, we have another book lined up.

Before I start, I have had a couple of messages (plus I have already been debating it) suggesting we start up "Listening Circle". It would work just like the reading group, and we'd listen to one of our OTR shows a week. I'd LOVE to try it and see if it works. Any ideas/backers?

I believe this week's book is going to be a "big Christmas treat". Well, that is what I have been assured by a gentleman who should know. So fingers crossed! Weird Comics #13 can be found here https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=26909  and as it is Christmas it's a choose your own story time!

[crashryan]

This Christmas treat proved to have health benefits. My jaw got so much exercise dropping that it's now strong enough to chew steel. Only an early-40s Fox comic could be so stupifyingly awful. All the publisher's hallmarks are present: generic heroes who seldom use their vaguely-defined super powers; disjointed stories that were probably written by schoolboys, and pitiable artwork.

The Dart has a Roman civilian name and a Roman sword but there's nothing Roman about him. I guess his "power" is the ability to dig through things with his sword. Ace (like Dart, a fine Roman name) wields an enormous bastinado but is otherwise identical to his partner. There's plenty of action, but it's all rather diagrammatic. Da dum da dum da dum da end.

The Eagle and Buddy the Daredevil Boy are cut from the same cloth as Dart and Ace, except that they run around half-dressed. The Eagle invented an anti-gravity fluid but it only makes him jump a few feet further than normal people.  I'm not impressed by costumed heroes who get around in ordinary cars. It makes them look cheesy, like--well, like Fox Comics characters. Both Eagle and Dart drive mundane convertibles. But as long as there are cars, at least the artist draws them better than he draws anything else in the story.

Dr Mortal doesn't look very menacing but he certainly can crank out the monsters. Putative hero Gary is something of a dunce. When Dr M threatens Marlene by radio, Gary leaves her alone to warn the police. He could just as easily have telephoned them. Why is Dr Mortal fixated upon torturing his niece? At least his schemes give us dialogue like, "Be careful...don't hit your arm against anything!"

Blast Bennett could have been an earthbound adventurer. There's not much science fiction here. The writer sure knows how to move a story along: "Voices from that extinct volcano! That must be the hideout!" The heroes in these stories are rather nonchalant about killing their foes. Tossing bombs at them, throwing them into furnaces, heaving them onto spikes. The drawing in Blast Bennett isn't particularly good but I salute the artist trying to give his bad guys individual personalities.

"Dynamo" is pretty sad. He doesn't seem to know what his own super-powers are and he has to run down the street to his lab to activate them. Another fine moment in storytelling: "Funny, I feel something is about to happen!" It reminds me of Neddy Seagoon's intuition: "I have the strangest feeling a piano is about to fall on my head." Some painful moments in the just-adequate art. No wonder the crooks miss Dynamo and his friend: they're firing into the ground.

Now to my two favorites. I've met The Sorceress of Zoom before. This strip is so damned peculiar that I have to love it. The Sorceress' personality is the big draw. She's completely amoral. By this I don't mean she's utterly evil. Rather concepts of good and evil are irrelevant to her. She operates entirely on whim, flying her cloud city around, enslaving people or turning them to statues just because she feels like it. Her big problem is that she can do literally anything she pleases. This is tough on story logic. For example she shanghais miners to dig up a lost city, but ends up unearthing the city herself by turning a hillside into flying bricks. This character begs for spectacular art. Cities in the clouds! Underground vaults! Stone griffins coming to life! Half-naked heroines! Instead we get a Monogram Pictures budget, including the single most pathetic airplane ever drawn (see our page 16). Somehow that only adds to the charm of this series, which wins my "Most Like a Fletcher Hanks Feature" award.

The best(?) for last. It's the art that makes "Marga The Panther Woman" special. I have never seen a more breathtaking (or baldfaced) demonstration of refusal to draw anything at all. Page 40 belongs in the Museum of Minimalism. I don't know which panel is better, the revelation of the torture victims or Marga wedging a log against the dropping ceiling. Can you imagine how Frank Frazetta would have drawn Marga ripping a panther's jugular with her teeth? Hell, even Bill Fraccio would have put more effort into the panel than this guy. I've heard it said that Fox paid artists $5 a page. If so, this dude was pulling down a dollar a minute. I don't think he put more than 60 seconds into a single panel.

In sum this is what "so bad it's good" is all about. Time to crack open a cold Kooba Kola and practice swiping some "Marga the Panther Woman" panels.

[narfstar]

Of all the Fox comic series Weird was the weirdest. I agree with Crash. You know it is gonna be bad and love it all the more because it is so bad. Just look at the cover. It looks like The Dart has just wacked his partner Ace with his sword. Not to mention why does the Dart use a sword. The Dart begs for a modernization where he would have a variety of different types of darts to throw. I always looked forward to the posting of another Weird Comics to our little site. The series itself is a winner including this issue.

[bowers]

This one is both awful and awesome at the same time! The title says it all.

I found The Dart pretty pedestrian, but The Sorceress of Zoom made me sit up and take notice. Was it her horse-mane coiffure, her minimal halter, or the fact she could land her whole city on the roof of the museum? This was one amazing tale with some fun yet ridiculous situations. On page 16 why on earth does she turn herself into a hag for only three panels? Still, all prospective museum curators did pick up a few useful tips. Always buy your maps of secret cities from a disreputable Yogi and keep a fully-gassed up plane no more than ten minutes away.

The Eagle was also a bit silly. The Beast was surprisingly not very bloodthirsty, often whacking his victims with the back of his claw, not the points. Great duel of artificial body parts with The Gimp. These two have pretty similar faces-  relatives?

Now for Marga- a jungle babe who can rip a panther's jugular out with her teeth. That's got to put a damper on her social life. And the escape from the bomb in the hangar- "See! We merely fly through the exploding roof!" Hard to say which was worse- the lack of drawing or the lack of plausible situations.

Dr. Mortal was just an all-around evil guy, out to destroy the human race. Still, as evil maniacs go, he wasn't terribly good at his job. Lucky for us that he ended up in the furnace so we don't have to see him again!

Blast Bennet was little more than a Flash Gordon knockoff with an annoying kid sidekick, and Dynamo wasn't any better.

I think the most amazing thing about this comic is that I made it all the way through - and liked most of it!

I love the idea for an OTR "Listening Circle" but I haven't much free time. I could only participate once or twice a month, but I'm for it! Cheers, Bowers

[MarkWarner]

A little tip I have learned through reading comic books and watching films: don't throw your unconscious victim in the drink. The reason being, as soon as  he hits the cold water he'll immediately wake up, start swimming and swear revenge!

The Dart in plainclothes, AKA Caius Martius Wheeler has a definite Clark Kent feel about him (very silly name though!).

The next story featuring the Sorceress of Zoom is plain surreal.  Dagger follows the Sorceress in a plane as she heads to Calca in her Cloud City! She can turn people to stone, look into their minds and wear a completely strapless bikini. But has a very bad hairstyle!  I really like this one .. three separate villains doing battle with each other. What Wow ... that just got weirder and  weirder. Unless something very bad happens this is going to score a massive hit from me!

This is followed by another Superhero scientist and sidekick, Bill Powers AKA the Eagle and Buddy. His gig ia anti-gravitational fluid he spreads on his cape. I really liked this story. The art work really "did it" for me, I think it is really cool! I do however admit to being confused why the Gimp and the Beast look so alike.

After this great start  is our main story Grippo, Jungle Racketeer featuring Marga.  We start with a unique way to escape a bomb attack! But are soon about to be crushed by a gradually lowering ceiling! I think this was actually the weakest story so far, but it is against stiff competition!

The 2 page text story Buffalo War was rubbish, but so what?? It is followed by Dr Mortal which looks like it is going to be SO COOL! Only really evil scientists finish their sentences with "Heh! Heh!". Dr Mortal is certainly a "fiend" and "inhuman maniac". Thankfully the body brittleness wore off after time. To find out more you need to read the story.

This is a book that just keeps giving! Blast Bennett and Red add a bit of retro Sci-Fi. A bomb in the mouth was a nice touch! I am sadly on the last story "The Invention Destroyers" featuring Dynamo. BTW Dynamo is in reality Jim Andrews an electrical expert, who has become Dynamo through an electrical shock. If I were a top scientist I'd be mightily disappointed if I didn't have an superpower creating accident!   

Two full page advertisements one for Blue Beetle radio show and one for Kooba - the cola that never existed! 

Verdict: A MASSIVE HIT!!! Every page wqas bliss barring the two page text story "Heh! Heh!"

[SuperScrounge]

The Dart & Ace - Because Ace works so well with Dart. *shakes head* I wonder if Lorendiac has a list of heroes who are reincarnations of people? Seems to pop up in a fair number of heroes. You'd expect a guy fighting criminals with a sword to have much bloodier battles. ;-) I guess the Dart's sword is magical given all the things it does in this story, cut through walls, dig holes & tunnels, not kill anyone it hits... As for the story, it feels generic. The kind of thing you could plug any hero & sidekick into without much trouble, Batman & Robin, Green Arrow & Speedy, the Black Terror & Tim, etc. The kind of thing freelancers would grind out for half a dozen publishers. An otherwise okay read, that fails to create any kind of distinct identity for the hero other than his weapon.

The Sorceress of Zoom - Uhhhh... well, it's weird all right. The intro seems to indicate she's a hero, but then she does villainous things. Basically she's a spoiled brat with magic.

The Eagle & Buddy - Another well thought out sidekick name... You'd think the police would have removed the guy's iron claw. Is the Eagle allergic to shirts? Is a t-shirt & shorts really the best costume for a kid sidekick? I'm surprised webcartoonist Karabear didn't pick these two for her LGBT webcomic Wonder Team which uses Golden Age heroes. You know I think this story would have worked better if it had just been the Gimp vs the Beast. The writer certainly seemed to care more about them than the heroes.

Marga the Panther Woman - Ted Grant? Isn't that the secret identity of DC's Wildcat? So the plane survives a bomb, but breaks up in a crash? I think the writer spent most of his time coming up with dangerous situations to cram into the story so he didn't have to worry about things like character development.

Buffalo War - Not bad, although the end of the story felt like an advertisement for Sharp rifles. 

Dr. Mortal - Weird.

Blast Bennett - Story logic? Nah, just have lots of action!

Dynamo - Ditto.

[crashryan]

Speaking of The Beast and his claw, isn't it odd that The Beast is more careful not to kill his opponents than our hero is? He has this wicked claw and most of the time he uses it just to bop people on the head.

[Morgus]

Read The Dart...somehow the art reminded me of Bazooka Joe bubble gum comics...only more berserk..much more berserk..."re-incarnation of an ancient Roman racket buster"? Wow. Swords that look like black jacks? And who IS the little jerk that tags along?? Or was I just not paying attention?? Easy enough...the art with the cars that look like they are flying half the time and heads floating with no background are distracting...but also very fun.

[mr_goldenage]

I loved the Weird Comics and Science Comics from Fox.....true golden age madness that made no sense but was a lot of fun. V-Man Comics, U.S. Jones Comics and The Eagle Comics were faves too...I guess I just love weird/science/patriot comics that are so bad that they are good. Just my thoughts.....

Richard Boucher

[cbpdc1]

I clicked on this and it failed to appear. Why can't I view this comic book ?

[The Australian Panther]

cbpdc1

I put the title into the search box top right and this is the correct link.
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=67518

the link originally posted in 2015 was posted in two parts, and clicking on those never works anyway.
Why it was wrong, I don't know.

Anyway,

I'm glad to see  somebody going thrugh old threads, I have always said there is some wondedful stuff there.

Cheers!