[The Australian Panther]

I picked this out some time ago, otherwise, in view of the posts re posting a Western I probably would have chosen one.
The one I have chosen today is My Date #2 (Hillman) by Kirby and Simon's studio. Only went for 4 issues. Features Kirby, Dan Barry, Mike Suchorsky and Jack Keller, And that's all I will say about it for now.
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=41274

Please also feel free to read the whole run of the book and comment on that too.   

Enjoy!     

[SuperScrounge]

Binocular ad - Nicely drawn, but how poorly secured were the logs on the log train that one could fall off?

My Problem Date - The story is kind of all over the place. There's genius inventor Swifty Chase and his mooning over Sunny, but, despite this being Swifty's feature, that's the B plot. The A plot features House-Date Harry, who struck me as a very unrealistic type of character (were people like him common in the 1940s & uncommon now?) and his quest to loaf at the house of a pretty girl. Then the whole thing wraps up with the introduction of a comedy gang, a home-built helicopter and property damage. Not funny enough to be an Archie-type story, but not serious enough to... take seriously.

Ultra Violet - Kind of an odd premise. A girl's imagination turns her into a fantasy version of herself, but no one seems to see the change & realize it's her, and it doesn't drive the story, just helped with the resolution. It looked good, but the basic story and the fantasy element didn't come together very well.

Unusual Dates - Not bad.

Bathing Beauty Contest - Did this story have the wrong first page and title? There is no bathing beauty contest in the actual story. The actual story... ugh.

Dancing Lessons - Eh, I liked the punchline although the set-up was odd.

The Square Fairy Godmother - Interesting idea, but the story itself was just okay.

The Rosebud Sisters - Amusing.

Dippy - Cute pun.

Back cover ad - How times have changed. These days they'd have to make the machine gun look fake and the spies would have captured Junior and used him to get information out of his father. 

While it has some interesting moments, not enough to make me want to read the other issues.

[crashryan]

I hereby testify that I've never read an issue of, or even heard of, My Date. I'm commenting as I'm reading.

Swifty Chase--or is it House Date Harry? Who's the star here? This story is certainly an odd mess! Simon and Kirby seem not to have decided what kind of a story they were writing. A teen romance? An Archie-style comedy? A lighthearted adventure? A Dead End Kids pastiche? I get the feeling Kirby (for some reason I imagine Kirby had the stronger hand in this) was chuckling merrily as he drew each page. However I don't find it very funny. Just weird. Though I've never heard the term "house date," House Date Harry is a common type in radio and TV of the time: a moocher who gets himself invited to someone's house so he can raid their fridge. One more thing. This is the only time I've heard of a woman named Anthony. Was it another joke I missed? As the bottom line I conclude that Simon and Kirby had a tin ear for teen humor.

Ultra Violet: Oh, my, this book isn't looking promising. Lovely Dan Barry art, but for what purpose? This business of Violet's fantasies is confusing rather than amusing. Most "hero/ine fantasizes" stories end with the dreamer doing something embarrassing in the real world as s/he lives out the fantasy. This story wants it both ways. Nothing happens when Violet dreams of dating a dummy. But after she dreams that her servants toss David into the pool, the real world David is in the pool! How did he get there? As long as we're on the subject, it's hard to imagine that everyone in town knows Merrill but nobody knows he is rich and owns a fancy limo. Moral to this story: be a rich nice guy, not a rich jerk, but by all means be rich.

Fran Pickert: More nice Dan Barry artwork. He wrote a lot of his stuff. I wonder if he wrote this one. I love the fake teen slang: "Come on, let's grind some broadloom!" The story is your average teen romance, nothing special. At least it makes sense. Note that Barry gives a shout out to legendary art teacher George Bridgman by sneaking a copy of his book The Human Machine into the splash panel.

Ginny: I was confused by the "Bathing Beauty Contest" sign because it seems to be the story title. Then I saw it's just part of a single-panel joke symbolizing Aunt Fanny's uh-hep-ness. It isn't supposed to have anything to do with the story. At a swimsuit competition, the girls are wearing modern suits while Aunt Fanny wears a 19th-century model. Get it? Ha ha.

Anyway Suchorsky's art is much better suited to the story than the art on the previous stories. Over-the-top posing matches an over-the-top script. I thought rubbing alcohol was poisonous, so I looked it up. It's certainly not good for you, but it won't necessarily kill you. The National Poison Control Center says: "Someone who swallows isopropyl alcohol can act drunk. Effects include sedation, slurred speech, unsteadiness when walking, and vomiting. Isopropyl alcohol is also extremely irritating to the digestive tract. Drinking a lot of it can cause vomiting, diarrhea, pain, and bleeding in the stomach and intestines. This can lead to dehydration, low blood pressure, shock, and coma." So I guess Aunt Fanny will survive as long as she goes easy on the stuff.

Lindy Hopp: Huh?

The Rosebud Sisters: I'm with Tabby. How in the world did they ever get into a magazine for teen-agers? This story scores high on the daffy meter, but the concept comes from so far out in left field that it doesn't work. Rocket powered car? Strong mental powers? Are these two women aliens? Do the townspeople know they are geniuses? This is the earliest Jack Keller art I've seen. He was really in Caniff mode. You could already tell that Keller liked cars. He draws a mean Buick. A nice Caddy, too.

Dippy: Groan.

Final judgement: From the too-realistic drawing and crime-comic coloring on the cover to the peculiar character concepts, I get the impression that Hillman wanted to publish a teen comic and didn't know how to do it. They turned the project over to their crime/adventure people and out came My Date. I enjoyed reading it but I can't say it's a very good comic.

[Robb_K]

I picked this out some time ago, otherwise, in view of the posts re posting a Western I probably would have chosen one.
The one I have chosen today is My Date #2 (Hillman) by Kirby and Simon's studio. Only went for 4 issues. Features Kirby, Dan Barry, Mike Suchorsky and Jack Keller, And that's all I will say about it for now.
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=41274

Please also feel free to read the whole run of the book and comment on that too.   Enjoy!

I wonder how many sales this publication got?  I'd have been surprised if they got many.  Clearly, these stories were written by people (men) who wrote about the worst stereotypes of young women, who were mainly awful, unsympathetic, non-empathetic, conniving, selfish, and shallow people.  There were some sympathetic characters in the stories, but, somehow, they weren't true protagonists followed throughout the stories.  Is this style what pre-teens and teenaged girls wanted to read in the late 1940s?

Although some of the stories had funny moments, but they were pretty much run-of-the-mill.  I found these stories not enjoyable enough to want to read more of this series.  The artwork was fairly good, but with nothing eye-catching, as is the norm in this genre.

I'll review the stories one-by-one, and add them to this post through modifications as I re-read each story.

Swifty Chase/HouseDateHarry
This story gives the impression of a pure comedic/fantasy, with little relation to the real World.  A young man  who is a lazy freeloader, who pretends to want to date a young woman so he can stay at her parents' house, eat his fill from their refrigerator, lie on her parents' sofa, and watch TV, wouldn't get very far with that, either with the young women, or, especially her parents.  That would be especially true if we are to believe he has the longtime citywide reputation for doing that.  So, he is an automatic "villain".  But, this story followed him around like he is the protagonist.  The so-called protagonist (good guy) is very weakly developed, and relatively late in the story, at that.  I found the "story" weak, not very interesting, and too unbelievable to be funny.  Everything is too predictable, once Harry's character is shown.  At least the morals of the story are correct - the selfish, greedy rich woman gets what she deserves, and the good-hearted, respectful, young man, finds the good-hearted, respectful girl (both of whom are good-looking, of course!).  And they avoid ending up with the selfish, greedy or shallow, narcissistic people as their dates.

Ultra Violet
Ha! Ha!  No one in town recognises the the fantasy version of the girl (lead character) as a changed version of herself!  This reminds me of Carl Barks having no one in Duckburg recognise Donald Duck or Uncle Scrooge when they simply wear a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles! 

I agree with Crash and SuperScrounge that this story is constructed poorly.  I don't know what story the writer is trying to tell the reader.  Too much magic with no indication why magical defiance of the physical laws of nature are able to be broken.

Fran Pickert/First Date/Unusual Dates
This story was pretty straightforward.  It was a common theme of the somewhat inward schoolgirl not fitting in, and then all the other students realise they'd been cruel, and they discover her "value", and do their best to try and befriend her, and make her feel welcomed (she becomes outgoing and popular. The artwork was a little above average.

Ginny
This story is a standard teenage "caper" story, similar to many of the scrapes Archie, Wilbur, Henry Aldrich, and Andy Hardy got into - situations in which they need to keep an adult away from finding out what mischief they are up to, at all cost, to avoid a disaster.  Of course, they fail, - but, like magic, the results are much better for them in failing than if they had succeeded.  And there is the preachy moral lesson, that it is better to tell the truth, or let yourself be vulnerable, than to hide from guessed, but far from certain, bad results.  The artwork was good.

Lindy Hopp Gag
This is a dull, unfunny gag.  The artwork is below par, too simple, with virtually no background details.

The Rosebud Sisters
A story about VERY resourceful old ladies, who must be advanced scientists or witches who can work magic, as a horseless carriage made between 1895 and 1905 couldn't move much more than 20 mph, let alone 140, unless they took out the original engine, and replaced it with a mini-rocket engine, which would have shaken the 1890s auto body so strongly, that the car would have fallen apart at that speed.


Dippy Gag
This was a silly, expected, pun gag, drawn weakly, as quickly as possible, with no background detail.

[Electricmastro]

I wonder how many sales this publication got?  I'd have been surprised if they got many.

From what I understand, publishers would gauge the success of a title after three issues of it were published, then decide whether or not to considerably change it up or cancel it entirely.

[Robb_K]

I wonder how many sales this publication got?  I'd have been surprised if they got many.

From what I understand, publishers would gauge the success of a title after three issues of it were published, then deciding whether or not to considerably change it up or cancel it entirely.

They only issued 4 books, so it must have sold fairly poorly, or the story writers ran out of story ideas for a genre which their hearts were not in in the first place.

[Electricmastro]

I wonder how many sales this publication got?  I'd have been surprised if they got many.

From what I understand, publishers would gauge the success of a title after three issues of it were published, then deciding whether or not to considerably change it up or cancel it entirely.

They only issued 4 books, so it must have sold fairly poorly, or the story writers ran out of story ideas for a genre which their hearts were not in in the first place.

I suppose Jack Kirby is the king of everything except teen humor romance comics then. Haha.

[Robb_K]

I wonder how many sales this publication got?  I'd have been surprised if they got many.

From what I understand, publishers would gauge the success of a title after three issues of it were published, then deciding whether or not to considerably change it up or cancel it entirely.

They only issued 4 books, so it must have sold fairly poorly, or the story writers ran out of story ideas for a genre which their hearts were not in in the first place.

I suppose Jack Kirby is the king of everything except teen humor romance comics then. Haha.

Everything else would include the "Funny Animal" genre.  I never heard of Kirby doing any funny animal work.  I know Frazetta did.  Did Kirby actually draw any funny animal comics???

[Electricmastro]

I wonder how many sales this publication got?  I'd have been surprised if they got many.

From what I understand, publishers would gauge the success of a title after three issues of it were published, then deciding whether or not to considerably change it up or cancel it entirely.

They only issued 4 books, so it must have sold fairly poorly, or the story writers ran out of story ideas for a genre which their hearts were not in in the first place.

I suppose Jack Kirby is the king of everything except teen humor romance comics then. Haha.

Everything else would include the "Funny Animal" genre.  I never heard of Kirby doing any funny animal work.  I know Frazetta did.  Did Kirby actually draw any funny animal comics???

Yep, drew a quite a few of them for Hillman

[Robb_K]

I'm getting senile.  I DO remember reading that Kirby drew "Lockjaw The Alligator", and "Earl The Rich Rabbit".  Did he draw funny animals for any other publishers?

[SuperScrounge]

While not technically funny animals there was his Kamandi series for DC which featured serious anthropomorphic animals.

[Robb_K]

I'm now bumping this thread to the top because I have finished all my reviews of stories in "My Date #2", and as I did it through making modifications to an earlier post, there is no notification that I've made a new post.  So please take a look at my long post above.

[The Australian Panther]

Believe it or not, I just lost the post without saving it and it was almost finished.
Screams silently!
There hasn't been  been much response to this post, which I have to admit is a little disappointing. But Hey, You can't win 'em all!
Why did I choose this particular book? Well I like to highlight books that are obscure or unusual, and this one fits that category.
Context.
https://kirbymuseum.org/blogs/simonandkirby/archives/1114

My Date was a short-lived comic that Simon and Kirby produced for Hillman Publications in 1947. Perhaps mislead by the comics title, some today hold the belief that My Date was the first romance comic book. As I discussed in a post on this topic (The First Romance Comic) it is not a romance comic at all but rather Simon and Kirby

[The Australian Panther]

The  Reading Group is due for change-over on Monday 5th October. I think Andrew is going to be here. Maybe with Mark's suggested Western.
Cheers!

[narfstar]

Going against the grain I want to read the other adventures of House Date Harry and Ultra Violet. It stupid enough to be funny to me.

[lyons]

Joe Simon and Jack Kirby launched the romance genre in 1947 with the publication of 'Young Romance.'  By 1950, 1 in 5 comic books (150 titles) were romance comics.  The 'love glut' had begun - and faltering superhero titles were quickly replaced by the launch of new romance titles.  An interesting read.  Thanks Panther.

[BlackCat]

I only really had time to read the Simon and Kirby input, but I really enjoyed it. I thought it was upbeat, lightweight, cartoony and fun. I could see that there were lots of different elements in the artwork - some romance, some kid gang, some superhero, etc. I enjoyed the flying taxi and the part it played in the fight scene. It reminded me of the 'Whiz Wagon' from Kirby's Jimmy Olsen or the Fantasi-car from the Fantastic Four. In this vein, it was also interesting that the local newspaper was referred to as 'the Daily Bugle'. And all of this in 1947. The style also owed something to movie theater cartoons of the period.

And I also liked Joe Simon's script for it. Fast-paced and multi-faceted, with a number of different little storylines all converging at the end.

Nice!^^   

[The Australian Panther]

Excellent sharp, brief analysis. Well observed, BlackCat!

I enjoyed the flying taxi and the part it played in the fight scene. It reminded me of the 'Whiz Wagon' from Kirby's Jimmy Olsen or the Fantasi-car from the Fantastic Four.

Spot on! You have highlighted one of Kirby's characteristics that often gets overlooked. Many of his characters have vehicles. Even Galactus had a vehicle. And the Silver Surfer has a board. Orian anybody?  Oddly, that's quite rare in most Superhero stories. Does Superman even have a drivers license? Batman and the Green Hornet have cars, but that's about it. I have wondered about that. [coming from a country where getting a drivers license when you turn 16 is a rite of passage. Turning up to school in your own car is the icing on the cake of course. I didn't manage that.] I put it down to the fact that most writers [particularly US Golden Age writers were from the vicinity of the city of New York and rarely drove.
Just triggered my memory.
The Forever People's vehicle, sort of an updated Fantasticar. That enormous thing the 'Hairies' drove on the 'Zoomway' and the Newsboy Legion's new wagon in Jimmy Olsen. Captain Victory's Spaceship. The Challengers had their own plane.
Did Kirby introduce in the 50's Green Arrow, the Arrowcar and the Arrowplane? 
Enough already!   
 

[BlackCat]

You have highlighted one of Kirby's characteristics that often gets overlooked. Many of his characters have vehicles....The Forever People's vehicle, sort of an updated Fantasticar. That enormous thing the 'Hairies' drove on the 'Zoomway' and the Newsboy Legion's new wagon in Jimmy Olsen.

I've always really liked the 'Zoomway' and the 'Hairies' and 'The Mountain of Judgement' which they drove. And yes, you're right about the 'Super Cycle' which was the vehicle for the Forever People.

Kirby would often design these vehicles for getting a group (or gang) of characters from A to B. And the flying taxi in 'My Date' is another example of it. The Green Arrow had a car when Kirby was drawing the comic in the late fifties.

I don't know everything about Kirby, by quite a long chalk, but my understanding is that he could drive but rarely drove in practice. He left the driving to Roz (his wife). The reason for this being that his mind would wander, when he was behind the wheel, from idea to idea for comic books. And that made him feel unsafe in actually driving the car.

I think that when he lived in New York, he would take the train into the Marvel offices. But this would only happen maybe once a week, or once a fortnight, or so.

[SuperScrounge]

Does Superman even have a drivers license?

Probably not, but Clark Kent does. 

Batman and the Green Hornet have cars, but that's about it.

Oh no. Wonder Woman's invisible plane, The Star-Spangled Kid & Stripesy's Star-Rocket Racer, Vigilante traded in his horse for a motorcycle, Spy Smasher had the Gyrosub, etc.

Did Kirby introduce in the 50's Green Arrow, the Arrowcar and the Arrowplane?

The Arrowcar predates Kirby. Not sure about the Arrowplane.

[The Australian Panther]

well remembered Scrounge. That plane turned up recently in some DC comic that I read but can't right now remember, but someone else was at the wheel. Have they used it in the movies yet? Have seen most of the first and none of the second.
Speaking of vehicles, this has always puzzled me. Green Lantern can just will himself from place to place across the universe. But he gains the ring in the first place from Abin Sur who is in a spaceship which crashes. The origin has been ret-conned a few times, but that has never made sense. In Geoff Johns' ret-con, He has Atrocitus as a passenger. But Green Lanterns generally don't need spaceships to carry people around with them. And in any case, why wouldn't his ring prevent the Spaceship from crashing?
I've always wondered why those rngs aren't programmed to protect the ring-bearers from harm. [And their own stupidity] But thinking too hard about the logic of Silver Age Green Lantern [and don't get me wrong, I like the character] just gives me a headache.
I'm enjoying Grant Morrison's run on the character, but man, is it out there. He is obviously having a ball and throwing the whole Green Lantern mythos as far out there as he can. Much of it, to me, is reminiscent of Alan Moore's SUPREME run. That may give you an idea, if you haven't read it.           

[Captain Audio]

well remembered Scrounge. That plane turned up recently in some DC comic that I read but can't right now remember, but someone else was at the wheel. Have they used it in the movies yet? Have seen most of the first and none of the second.
Speaking of vehicles, this has always puzzled me. Green Lantern can just will himself from place to place across the universe. But he gains the ring in the first place from Abin Sur who is in a spaceship which crashes. The origin has been ret-conned a few times, but that has never made sense. In Geoff Johns' ret-con, He has Atrocitus as a passenger. But Green Lanterns generally don't need spaceships to carry people around with them. And in any case, why wouldn't his ring prevent the Spaceship from crashing?
I've always wondered why those rngs aren't programmed to protect the ring-bearers from harm. [And their own stupidity] But thinking too hard about the logic of Silver Age Green Lantern [and don't get me wrong, I like the character] just gives me a headache.
I'm enjoying Grant Morrison's run on the character, but man, is it out there. He is obviously having a ball and throwing the whole Green Lantern mythos as far out there as he can. Much of it, to me, is reminiscent of Alan Moore's SUPREME run. That may give you an idea, if you haven't read it.         

I was under the impression that the spaceship crashed because the pilot was dying, not the other way around.
You can figure that if a Green Lantern had to take a lot of equipment along on a mission it would be better to have some vehicle to carry and store these in safe conditions and to act as a base of operations on a planet with hostile environment. Also the ring must be recharged now and then so running low on power would make a safe place to retreat a good idea.
A place to secure prisoners is also a possibility.
If an emergency came up the Green Lantern could set the controls on automatic to send them on their way and he could catch up later after dealing with the problem.


PS
"The Arrow-Plane was later used for a mission by Roy Harper and the Titans, when they battled Vandal Savage in Russia."

https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Arrowplane

[SuperScrounge]

well remembered Scrounge. That plane turned up recently in some DC comic that I read but can't right now remember, but someone else was at the wheel. Have they used it in the movies yet?

No, not in the first movie. I don't think the sequel has been released yet.

Speaking of vehicles, this has always puzzled me. Green Lantern can just will himself from place to place across the universe. But he gains the ring in the first place from Abin Sur who is in a spaceship which crashes. The origin has been ret-conned a few times, but that has never made sense.

I wonder if John Broome was even thinking about Green Lanterns flying through space with just their rings when he "borrowed" the origin from Lensman.

The first explanation by Gardner Fox appeared in Green Lantern #16 and involved energy beings kidnapping/forcing Abin Sur to free their fellows that he had imprisoned. Don't have the story available at the moment, but if I remember correctly they had taken control of his body, but not his mind and he convinced them he needed the ship (I think he counted on his power ring running out of power to break their control) he defeated the aliens just before he hit Earth's yellow layer.

Years later Alan Moore wrote an annual where a captured Sinestro was telling a fellow prisoner (the sentient space sector 3600) stories of Green Lantern failure and he had Abin Sur encounter Atrocitus who told him a prediction of dying in space and this developed into a fear, yadda yadda yadda, and because so many younger writers thought anything Alan Moore wrote was the bestest thing evar that retcon was made canon. *shrug*