So I stumbled upon an omnibus comic titled All Good Comics which was published by Fox Features--an oxymoron if ever there was one. Are these stories really all good? Pick a couple of favorites and tell us what you think. (P.S.: As we went to press I found that Fox also offered All GREAT Comics, which presumably are even better.) Does anyone dare read all 128 pages?https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=30903
I have it, and have read it all before. Fox's Ribtickler Giant Comic, which sold for 50 cents, had 194 pages! In general, I've found that Fox's early and late 1940s artwork was pretty primitive, and generally of significantly lower quality than the industry standard (average) for that time period. I only collect funny animal and cartoony human character comedic comics, so I can't speak for the general story writing quality of the "serious" or semi-realistic genre stories produced by Fox, other than critiquing and reviewing those in this book. I'll re-read the non-comedy stories in the book over the next few hours and write my comments forthwith, adding them to this post as modifications.
The Bouncer - "The Borrowed Eye"This story is poorly thought out and put together. The criminal gang leader's motivation doesn't work well with his capturing the blind people to sell their good corneas to the persons of his choice. The Bouncer, as an ancient statue that comes to life to help Mankind control evil badly-behaving people is an novel idea, and interesting to think about it once. But it is too far from any kind of reality for my taste, and doesn't really fill any purpose. Was there an origin story for this superhero? Now, IF there is a real ancient legend about a god or hero who misbehaved, and was made into a statue as a punishment, but one of the goddesses, who knew his merits eased the punishment by allowing him to come alive again when needed to help The righteous (e.g. non-badly-behaved) Humans in their times of need, I'd find that worth reading. But, we never learn ANY of the hero's back story. The story is too short, and the motivation of the villain's plot is weak, and was not developed. It seems that a gang leader in organised crime could think of better, easier, and more reliable ways to make money.
Rick Evans - "S.O.S. From Mars"This story is typical of the weaker. so-called "science Fiction" stories in comic books and comic strips printed in the late 1930s and early 1940s, which had almost no "science" in them, and were based on popular non-scientific misconceptions of the time. Evans, a private citizen, has his own spaceship, which he flies out into Outer Space whenever he gets the urge. We are not told how far in The Earth's future this story takes place. But, Rick and his friends travel to Mars, after hearing an S.O.S. broadcast. Based on guesswork, and a fairly primitive telescopic view of barely discernible lines of colour across a region of Mars' terrain, which were surmised to be canals, the author assumed that Mars' surface was warm enough to have liquid water on its an Earth-like atmosphere. Therefore, his Earthlings wear no spacesuits or oxygen-filled space helmets. They also wear light summer clothing. The leader of the "good" Martian society is a completely humanlike female (queen), but, we see no others of her species. Her only "subjects" seem to be an insectlike species. She is a prisoner of an alien villain (Lugo), who looks reptilian, or amphibianlike. The queen had projected her thoughts across space, directed towards Earth, specifically for Rick Evans to hear. So, she already knew of him, at least by reputation. The setting is very undeveloped, and the backgrounds of all characters are also undeveloped, and motivations are also not shown. So, nothing is believable.
It seems that Rick Evans is a newspaper strip or comic book stories in a newspaper strip episodic style, and is chopped up into episodes appearing in various Fox books (maybe one or two regular standard bi-monthly 52 to 68-page books, as well as several different annual, semi-annual, or quarterly Fox Giants, which leave the episodes in fairly short numbers of pages, and difficult for fans of the strip to find and purchase all the books to follow the ongoing story. I assume that the setting and backgrounds to Evans' World were better laid out in his introduction/first episode in whatever book. But I don't know. It may be possible that it never was laid out, because it seems that this series was developed quickly, with not much thinking about the story's logic, seemingly to fill out the number of regular pages needed to support a new line of comic books with new material, to meet the public demand for new comic book product when the backlog of newspaper reprint stories were getting close to running out.
I don't know enough about Lugo and his evil plans to even be scared of him. I don't have any feeling for Rick Evans or his ladyfriend, as I know little about them other than they seem to be adventurous, but foolhardy. Even at 5 years old, near the beginning of the 1950s, I knew that Humans would need a heated oxygen-filled space suit and helmet to survive in Space, and that no sane person would take it for granted that Mars would have an Earthlike atmosphere until I'd have experienced that myself, first.
Rick Evans - "Prison In The Sky"I had the same problems with this Rick Evans story. The Earth's scientists are being captured by some giant Cyclopses on a planet out in Space. Evans flies his space ship along the visible (lightning bolt-like) track of the sound wave of another S.O.S. being broadcast by the villains to attract him to the prison planet, where the head villain uses his prisoners as slave labourers. It was way too short to develop any plot (setting, develop characters, motivations, pace the story to build up suspense before the climax, etc. The male and female villains fight, leading to fire that Evans uses to burn his rope binding. (I always wonder where the characters get biologically-based materials on desert planets where we see NOTHING growing). Within a couple pages we are introduced to the story's heroes, problem, settings, villains, shown the climax, and the epilogue, in which Evans rescues the slaves (not shown visually), and shuttles them back to their home planets. It's utterly absurd and ridiculous to write a "story" with a plot deserving AT LEAST an entire 36-page book, and show it in 4-5 pages of 3-tiers of panels. But, that was fairly common during the early 1940s in publishers' "showcase" series with stories from various characters, as opposed to the later 1940s spinoff popular character, single-character comic book series, for which the entire book, or half of it, could be used to tell a single story.
The Puppeteer - "The Bleeding Statue"The story plot idea with the sculptor and his making lifelike statues by using the real people, involving killing them, was first used in Warner Brothers' 1933 film, "Mystery Of The Wax Museum". I'm guessing that the author of this story got his inspiration from that popular classic American film. It would have made for a very good detective/crime story, even including a superhero as the "detector" and hero. But, "The Puppeteer" as the superhero seems a poor fit, as puppets and statues are too similar, in a way, - causing unnecessary expectations of the reader that The Puppeteer's pastime, for which he's been named, will play a part related heavily to the statues. So. it gets in the way of following just what is shown in the story. Furthermore, the reader never gets to see what puppets have to do with his superhero status.
I also have a big problem with this flying superhero having a talking bird for a sidekick. And his becoming super strong, and being able to fly, just from playing notes on an organ, which also magically changes his clothes for him, is just too silly. At least Superman actually has to put his other outfit on, even if he does that in U.S. glass-walled telephone booths, where everyone can watch him do it. I also had a problem with the first young lady seemingly having been enclosed in a plaster encasement, with VERY little air trapped inside for what seemed much to long for her to not die from asphyxiation. The author, storyboarder and final penciler made it seem as if she must have already been sealed inside for at least a few hours, before The Puppeteer got to her to break her free. And with very little space between the sealant material and her face, it would seem that she would have used up all her oxygen, turning it to carbon dioxide, within much less than one hour. All these weaknesses, and like the stories I discussed above, the artwork is not very good to my taste (certainly subpar for the era, based on average for the industry). Although, it was better than the absolutely terrible Rick Evans drawing.
Red Robbins and Speed KarrWhere do I start with my complaints? This story is a mess. Continuously beating "Speed" Karr's slowness "joke" to death is insulting to the reader. And since when do curvy vertical lines indicate slowness? Was there really a reasonable chance that putting down Black people to show they were inferior would sell significantly more comic books than trying to make characters actually fit into the story, and work funny situations around them? It's not like Fox's comic books were sold mainly in The Deep South. Making this Black teenager either so terribly poor that he'd want to keep a torn piece of paper that fell onto the street, in case he might need it some day, or make him so dimwitted that he was basically a moron was a big turnoff for me. And it's not like I didn't know The US mentality of the times. I was already reading comic books in the late 1940s (we got mostly Canadian printings of totally US-produced comics), and I was a big fan of Walter Lantz's Li'l Eight-Ball, which was quite strong in using typical stereotypes about Black People, to make fun of them. Yet I found Eight-Ball to be a not only inherently funny and sympathetic character, and so despite being a Jew, and treated with the same type of prejudice and stereotyping, I found value and entertainment in THAT strip, but was disgusted by the use of Speed Karr in "Red Robbins". "Speed" runs so very slowly that he falls into a manhole, which saves him from his villain pursuer, as if running faster over a hole would allow one to avoid falling into it. I also thought the implication that the brutish villain threatening Karr with torture with a heavy wrench with sharp teeth (implying that he would use it on the teen's genitals) was going too far. Karr is a captive by The Villain Gang under the street (in the sewer tunnels), while Robbins leaves the employment office. The very next panel shows the gang driving their car (with Karr as a hostage) aiming at a man trying to cross the street, and Robbins tackling that man to save his life. Instead of mentioning that there was a time break beforehand, the narrative simply describes what we see in the panel art. A big no-no for the artist, who is already severely hampered in trying to tell the story in far too few pages, now wasting half a panel. Red Robbins, the superhero, never uses weapons. He simply socks villains which transmits electric shocks to his victims, which knocks them out for whatever period of time is needed until the police can come to incarcerate them. Within a few panels, Robbins worms the gang's plans out of one of the gang, drives to the harbour, takes a speedboat out to intercept their boat, captures them all before they can turn over the valuable weapons formula to enemy agents, after capturing the gang leader, and getting his thanks from The US Coastguard, we see Karr trying to take half the credit for capturing the gang. Insulting! And too silly.
Red Robbins and The Medical MurdererThis story has an excellent plotline, an ingenious idea: A doctor whose research will be stopped, and his hospital closed down because he doesn't pay his bills, decides to team up with a gangster and gang to commit robberies dressed as emergency medical technicians, and using an ambulance for their getaway car, and using the hospital for their hideout. The problem is that the story premise is laid out in several pages with good pacing, but then there is basically only one page left to show Robbins in action. He finds the villains at the hospital (he bursts in - we don't see how he found them), and subdues them all in only 4 panels. And the artist is illogical (empty-headed) enough to waste yet another panel on showing a newspaper headline with a verbal description of what the reader just saw in the previous 4 panels! And on top of all that, he wastes the last panel trying to show that this super crime fighter is virile, by adding in his ladyfriend asking where he's been, and he mentions that she'll see more of him soon (ostensibly an advert to remind readers to buy the next issue)! It's amazing how amateurish comic book production was during the infancy of that industry in the late 1930s and early 1940s.
Dick Transom - "Case Of The Vanishing Gems"Wow! This story was absolutely worthless! The story idea (a male criminal dresses as a woman to avoid being found by the police after stealing jewelry from rich women, as a man, at a posh restaurant), is a decent, though often used idea. But the story is just a vehicle for slapstick physical sight gags, and Vaudevillian puns, all of which were old and tired by 1880. That, so-called comedy, was provided by the inept private detective, main character. The story is completely predictable, and not even the slightest bit funny.
O'Brine Twins - Golf Story 1This story was something like Dick Transom's, in that it was a string of physical sight gags, based on The Twins being moronically stupid.
O'Brine Twins - Feud Story 2This story, making fun of Appalachian hicks, having a Hatfield-McCoy style feud. The jokes aren't very funny, but the art was good, as that strip always was; and the story was able to be followed. So, for me, it was worth reading (mainly for the nice artwork).
Betty Boyd (Crime Reporter)The idea for this story wasn't bad. But trying to provide some background about the setting and the main characters, and still trying to develop a story with decent pacing, show a decent amount of action leading up to a climax, and still have enough panels left over for an epilogue in a mere 6 pages of 3-tier paneling, is absolutely impossible. So, the story is choppy, suffers from lack of visual evidence of character emotions, and has way too little action shown visually, and has much too high a percentage of panels just showing people standing and talking. In addition, the artwork is subpar.
The Purple TigressAnother unbelievable superheroine story. The plot is okay. But, that story can't be built up properly in 10 pages, let alone 6. The Tigress sees her cue to go into action, but wastes time putting on her tiny costume, that can't possibly disguise her identity, It is similar to Donald Duck donning a pencil thin moustache to hide his identity. It's all too silly. She defeats a whole gang of big, strong men by turning off the lights, and swinging from curtains in the dark, throwing heavy vases and chairs at them. And then she quickly returns in her innocent alter ego dress, pretending she'd been asleep. Very cliched, and not very interesting. The artwork was weak, just as in most of the other stories.
The Adventures Of Connie - "The Time Projector"The artwork on this story was much, much better than that of all the rest. The story plot with a time machine and Connie and her boyfriend going back 100 years to rescue his sister, who is stranded in 1840, is a great idea. But, like several of the other story lines, 6 pages is way too short to tell that story in a decent pacing, and providing enough information to the reader to "live in the story". Just when it had started to get really interesting, Connie and her lover/sidekick/boyfriend? are back in modern times when she wakes up from a dream. I suppose this is the best way to deal with the drastic 6-page limitation. Instead of trying to tell a 30-50-page story in 6 pages, making it more like just telling a scenario with shown highlights (like all the other non-comedy stories in this book) this author started his story as if it WOULD have 50 pages, and then just ended it abruptly, revealing that it was all a dream, which is disappointing to the reader, but not nearly as much as insulting your readers by actually trying to convince them that you told story that was worthwhile telling, with a natural scope of 50 pages, in just 6 pages.
TitanThis was a straightforward story of a two-fisted hero type, who is determined to fight crime. The art is weak like that of most of the book. The story is not complicated, with nothing unexpected. Not very interesting, but an easier read than most in this collection. And the story is paced appropriately for its page count, unlike all the other non-comedy stories.
PercyThis story was an abominable insult. There were no indications of why there was really a treasure on a sunken ship exactly in the spot where the "villain" drew it on his false map. The characters' motivations were way too general. I would have provided some background on the characters' relationship to each other, and shown strong emotions related to the trick the prankster played on Percy. There were no jokes, and there was no confrontation, and the ending was predictable. This was typical of many of the early 1940s comic book filler stories, that were written by people who were uninspired amateurs because the new field popped up very quickly when the backlog of newspaper scripts was about to dry out, and publishers didn't know where to find competent story writers, and didn't really understand what their would-be customers would want, and how to provide it to them using that medium.
I would have made Percy a boat owner in the ocean salvage business, and the villain his biggest rival. In addition, I'd have made the business rival his greatest rival for the affections of his girlfriend. The prank would have been arranged by the rival to make Percy look like a fool in front of his girlfriend, with the goal that she'd drop him and try out the prankster.I'd have included a fight between them, and shown extreme emotions in several scenes, so the reader could identify with the hero. This writer and artist wasted valuable panel and dialogue balloon space with boring empty talk which didn't provide any information to the reader to understand what is happening or to move the story plot along.
These weaknesses in Fox's staff's development of their series' characters shows just how good Disney's staff was. They developed their animation characters strongly, as opposed to many of the other studios, and even stressed strong character development under their established rules in their dealings with their children's book and comic book franchisees, Whitman/K.K. Publications/Western Publishing/Dell Comics.
Donald Duck, for example, was a ne'er do-well, semi-juvenile, egotistical hot-head, who could start a new business in any field, at any time, and expect to get rich, only to fail miserably, in a comical way. His 10-page lead story in "Walt Disney's Comics & Stories" was a perfect vehicle for the type of story that should have been written for Percy in this situation. Percy was a regular Fox character, with stories appearing in several of their "Funny Animal/children's Comedy" and multi-genre books. But, Fox gave him NO characteristics of his own. He was a little boy. That's ALL his developers got to work with. They knew he would have to be likable and honest - but nothing else. Had I been given that task, I'd have broadened and deepened his character, and that of his girlfriend, and given him some regular friends with very different characteristics, and a regular rival. They would have fit right in with the motivations needed for this story. There would have been pressure on him to perform, adding suspense to the story. I'd have started off with his girlfriend wanting him to take her to "The Sailor's Ball", and buy her an impressive costume that would cost a lot of money. His rival would be planning to buy it for her and steal her away. The rival would plan to occupy Percy on the "wild goose chase", while he'd earn the money he needed by selling tickets to a lot of the Harbour Folks who knew both of them, who would pay money to take a trip on the rival's ferry-boat to watch Percy make a fool of himself looking for a bogus ancient pirate treasure in a fake sunken ship. I'd certainly add a bunch of comedic scenes, also showing strong emotions. I write and draw stories like this all the time, using already established Disney characters that fit my story needs perfectly, and even invent some new ones when the perfect one doesn't yet exist.
In the early 1940s for the nascent comic book industry, Fox's hired writers and artists didn't get much help from Fox in terms of character development or authority to improvise. But, I'm sure that had they been bold, and developed things on their own, and ran it by their editors, they'd have been able to go through with most of their ideas, produced higher quality stories, and possibly, one or two of them could have gotten a permanent higher position with Fox. But, the problem was that Fox didn't want to pay their writers and artists much at all. THAT was the main reason why the artwork and story writing was so poor. No one wanted to put a lot of thinking, or drawing time into stories for slave wages.
Pussy Katnip - "The Cat's Meow"I think it's funny that an anthropomorphic "Cat-person" hates the sound of cats howling. But that "joke" can't carry a story. This is really a weird one, with an illogical plot. The gangster with a nightclub next door to hers tries to put her out of business by playing loud music inside HIS club??? Wouldn't that ruin HIS business, too??? Then, to top the zaniness off, Pussy becomes a super-heroine, by drinking a magic "Katnip Fizz", which transforms her into a super-strong "crime-fighting Feline". This 3-page story is way too short, and thus, choppy, to develop what could have been a nice plot, if thought out reasonably, and the super-hero element is dropped. Pussy's regular character, being a bold, street-wise, tough, no-nonsense sharp cookie, is already fine for being a nightclub owner, who can deal with gangster types. I don't get why Fox, who had lots of 130-200-page books allowed Len Short only 3 pages for his stories. Or, maybe that's all he could produce by deadline times? His art certainly looks amateurish. If he could only produce so little, Fox shouldn't have used so many of his 3-page "stories" or episodes. That is too little room to portray the plot he chooses for them. He'd have been better served to produce half the stories at 6 or 7 page size.
SnookySnooky is a little girl whose magic teddy bear (who comes to life to take her on adventures) is her best friend. Being romantic, Snooky notices there are no stars in the clear sky for lovers to view. She rides on her rocket up to The Moon, to get The Man in The Moon some pie, to make him sleep, so he can let the stars out again. Another 3-page single gag driven "story", for really young kids. I never understood why Fox and so many other early 1940s publishers mixed little children's stories in with their other genres in the same books, aimed at teens, late teens, and, even possibly some adult readers.
Sis and Jr.2-page gag that's not funny and makes no sense.
Prof. NudnikSilly 1-page gag that makes no sense, and so, isn't funny. I didn't like such attempts at humour in the 1940s, and I still don't.
KarrotsYet another 3-page gag-driven, boring, unfunny, poorly-drawn so-called "story". Wow! Could they have come up with anything worse???
Mike The MPDecent gag, but pretty illogical, because the MP's oral testimony would have been enough to convict the bully.
Gussie The GobSentimental little vignette. Not much to it. Not funny. Heartwarming, I suppose. But, is that what kids are looking for in a comic book?
Red KamphorTerrible "Story"! Why would someone try to portray such a story plot in just 2 pages. We never see the poor family in their miserable plight, so we can identify with them and feel empathy. We don't have time to build up hatred and disgust for the bully Red Kamphor. He's the billed "star". Yet, he has only a slight part in this story. What little space the author has to show anything is wasted on inane attempts at dialogue. Totally ridiculous.
Crime in No. 9Again, a paltry 3 pages to tell a story. Fairly inventive idea of a formula that can shrink a human temporarily, who can be used to commit a crime. I'd have wanted an 8 to 10-page story for this plot, to be able to build in background, make the characters funnier, show motivations, build up suspense, show a great splash panel scene in the climax, etc. I'd have added an unexpected ending that is more funny than that one.
Green MaskA mild mannered, well meaning young teen hates crime and wrongdoing so much that when he sees it, he screams "Eeeyow!" and that magically transforms him into a fully mature, stronger "Champion of The Oppressed" - The Green Mask! - completely with a cost free caped uniform, which materialises onto his body (and may not need to be cleaned and pressed!). Where have I heard such a story before? Shazam! Silly that the clearance atop a train car and below the tunnels or bridges is so very narrow that people lying absolutely flat atop the car roof would be killed by hitting the ceiling. So The Green Mask has to jump from the car all the way to the top of the bridge, and the girl succeeds in accomplishing that, as well. Not remotely believable. Then, after the train passes, they both jump down to the roof of the fast-moving train. Again, not believable. A farmer named "Plough"! I bet he listened to a lot of razzing in his time. WOW! What suspense. The villain exposing a bunch of kids to radio-active radium! And Green Mask uses his super sppeed and strength to plough all Mr. Plough's fields fast! Amazing help to The USA's War effort on The Home Front! Makes one proud to be an American!
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Topic: #219--All Good Comics!!!!! (Read 3295 times)
