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[Robb_K]

This is an interesting book choice for me, given that I grew up in Canada, soon-after World War II, reading my next door neighbours (4 older male cousins)'s early and mid 1940s comics.  This series started as a Canadian "White", World War II comic book titled: "The Funny Comics With Dizzy Don", with a colour cover, but all inside pages were black and white, due to War supplies restrictions.  The first 20 issues, published by Bell Features, were black and white; so it was a nice bonus to finally get them in colour, starting with issue # 21.  Many of the Canadian comic book publishers that started up during the war, or greatly expanded their number of series due to importation of US publishers' comic books being prohibited, continued issuing their "homegrown" Canadian series after the war ended, through the remainder of 1945, and all of 1946.  By the end of 1946, most of The Canadian publishers found that they couldn't compete with the US publishers, even after exporting their lines to USA, to expand their market.  A couple (F.E. Howard/Bell Features and Maple Leaf Publications) lasted into 1947.  But, by the end of that year ALL The Canadian publishers were out of the business, except Howard, who exported a lot to USA.


This series is also interesting to me because it is based on a previous newspaper comedy one-page gag strip, drawn by Manny Easson, in a cartoony style; but Easson, who also wrote all the gags for his comic strip, AND his comic book series, attempts to use this dry-witted, understated comedian in private detective-style action stories - but it is drawn in a stiff style with little movement.  Although his stylised artwork isn't fluid and dynamic, and his stories are deliberately silly and tongue-in-cheek, somehow I always liked "Dizzy Don".  Maybe it's mostly nostalgia.   

Nevertheless, despite its weaknesses, I look forward to reading what all of you all will think of it. 

Here's a link to the book:  https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=27387

[SuperScrounge]

And this book has been picked before https://comicbookplus.com/forum/index.php?topic=11685.0

[Robb_K]

And this book has been picked before https://comicbookplus.com/forum/index.php?topic=11685.0

Thanks for that information.  I've chosen another book, replaced it in this thread's title (Dizzy Don 22), and changed my initial post to reflect the newly chosen book.

[Robb_K]

I am bumping this thread back to the top of the list, because it is this current week's book to review, as the book I listed earlier has already been reviewed 5 years ago, and has been removed as this 2 weeks' book. We've already lost one day of review time.  I didn't want more time lost.

[crashryan]

I'll comment on the book later, but in the meantime here's a post I found giving background on Dizzy Don and Manny Easson:

https://www.comicbookdaily.com/collecting-community/whites-tsunami-weca-splashes/manny-dizzy-don-easson/

[crashryan]

I don't know what to make of this. Judging by the article I linked to, Dizzy Don was fairly successful in Canada. The writer stresses Easson's humor, though, and if there's one thing this issue isn't, it's funny. Despite the cartoony artwork the stories are standard adventure/detective tales, complete with murders, dressed up with a few punned character names. When Easson tries to be funny, in Don's radio standup act, the jokes are awesomely bad.

Taken as comic book mystery stories, the two Dizzy Don tales are standard fare. The first one, "Helicopter Plant Mystery," is a bit better than the second.  It takes a while before we catch on to the gimmick. However "The Bandit of Elm City" is obvious from the moment Omar Meek enters on the fifth page. Rule #1 of "How to Spot the 'Mystery' Villain" states, "If a character keeps insisting someone else is guilty, that character is the guilty one." This rule has been field tested in countless serials and B-movies.

I can't decide whether I like the art or hate it. On the one hand it's super stiff and awkwardly posed. On the other hand this seems a deliberate choice by the artist. That would make the art "stylized." There is a certain ligne claire quality to the drawing, particularly the backgrounds and props. I just wish the figures were drawn better. On "The Bandit of Elm City" Easson seems to be going for a more realistic ambience, but this only makes Don's and Canary's character designs seem even more out of place.

Two things about this comic drove me absolutely crazy. First, the way that Don wears the same wide smile in almost every panel. Worse than that are the balloons. They look like thought balloons. I had to keep reminding myself the characters were speaking the words aloud. It's remarkable how such a simple thing interfered with enjoying the stories. By 1945 dialogue balloon conventions were pretty well set. I don't know why Easson decided to ignore them. At least he could have used standard pointers in place of smoke trails.

Bottom line is that the book is okay, but I have a nagging feeling that maybe I just don't get it.

[gregjh]

I personally enjoyed the artwork here. It may be stiff but it has the classical comic style which is part of the reason I read this stuff: nostalgia.The plot itself, I just didn't get it. It's regular detective stuff but it felt like a two-parter forced into one story and there was just no moment when I felt the mystery was  something I wanted to solve or when the main character was in danger, given that we were immediately informed the villain couldn't shoot (unless I missed something).

As an aside, in all these comics I enjoy the advertisements and seeing what kids of that era were being hyped for at the time.

[narfstar]

I started out thinking like Crash do I like the art or hate it. Reminded me somewhat of Helifant's art. Reactions were so inappropriate. Helicopters blows up with a guy shown blown out and the reaction is call a doc Mr. B fainted. They are talking about the blow up and Don is joking and the cop has a big smile on his face. Best part was Don referring to him as Mr Boo Hoo. Don constant smile was also very annoying. Can't say it leaves me wanting to read any more of Don's adventures

[SuperScrounge]

Helicopter Plant Mystery - Okay if simplistic story.

Silly Soozie - Uhh, yeah, at best kind of barely amusing.

Highway Patrol - There was a time when I loved reading these urban legend type things, but this was just pedestrian.

The Bandit of Elm City - It would seem that Dizzy has the power of luck being on his side when the writer can't figure out any other way of getting Dizzy out of a bad situation. The fate of the wolf just reeked of the writer not knowing how to get Dizzy out of the situation.

[Robb_K]

It's time for me to put in my 2 cents worth.  Upon reading these books and stories again, as an adult, I'm not sure what I ever saw in them (the weak attempt at humour, and the poor (albeit deliberately stylised artwork, caused me to also go back and look at the 20 Black & White issues).  It's a different look from that of the standard private detective mystery series, but artwork that is not as good as it could be, and removes action, doesn't add comedy, and doesn't fit with the stories is a major weakness.  And the attempt at adding humour (that doesn't exist, was a dismal failure.  Manny Easson tried to invent (out of the air - instead of developing it in the series' on-going story), a lead character that is a successful radio comedian, who is also a amateur mystery-solving genius, who regularly risks life and limb mixing with the dangerous scum of society, to assist the inept city police, usually without pay (once in a while he's glad to get an advertised cash reward). 

It seems that Easson fell into this opportunity, from having been an amateur joke writer/ single panel cartoonist, to become the writer/artist of a regular comic book, when, during World War II, Canadian comic book distributors were seeking Canadian authors and comic artists to produce home-grown comic books when the importation of US (and other foreign) books was prohibited.  It appears, from the lack of fit of his art style with the story genre, and his choice of setting for this chosen type of character, that Easson didn't have a clear vision of what he wanted to do, and why he should do that, as well as what group of potential readers would like such fare.  Vaudeville died for a reason.  The jokes are miserably dull and downright ridiculously stupid.  He could have used that to his advantage - but NOT to try to make the reader believe that act could make him successful with the general public.  It seems that there just weren't enough decently-talented Canadian cartoonists already plying their craft professionally at a marketable level to fill out the demand, and the local publishers and distributors were desperate to try to take advantage of the new void in the market.

As to the individual stories, "The Helicopter Plant Mystery" is the best of them.  It is a fairly standard comic book police/private detective mystery, complete with a murder and sabotage, and, thus, mortal danger to the
protagonist and others.  The answer wasn't given away very early, which holds the reader's interest.  But, the artwork, especially in the action scenes, being stiff, and Dizzy Don smiling on every panel, despite the call for different emotions, is maddening, and weakens potential interest.  Dizzy Don is also not a very empathetic character, who shows no emotion or interest when seeing a man blown away from a helicopter by an explosion.  He'd be a character the reader would want to hate, IF the stories and artwork had any relation to reality.

I guess I just was fascinated by the weird style of the artwork as a child, and wasn't good enough with language to realise just how awful the Vaudeville style jokes were. 

The "Silly Soozie" story was the typical child's mistaking of a coincidence scenario story, which had a fairly-much expected ending, and so, was fairly dull.  Soozie is also not a very sympathetic lead character.  I get the feeling that Easson just added this feature to give girls something for which they might have interest.

"The Bandit Of Elm City" was, by Far, the weaker of the two mystery stories. It didn't hold much interest because the guilty party was telegraphed way-yyyy too early.  And the story had even much less action than the first story.

The text filler, Highway Patrol story was boring, and would have been skipped by readers even more than the usual.

All in all, I'm shocked that Manny Easson's "Dizzy Don" lasted for 24 issues, plus 3 or 4 auxiliary books
(Joke book, Colouring book, games book, etc.).

But, as USA has always had about 5 times as many people and that many times or more size of national economy, and stolen away many (if not most) of our most talented Canadian artists, writers, singers, actors, etc.  We go a little overboard on touting and appreciating those who stay in Canada, and produce for their own country's people.

[The Australian Panther]

I looked at this one a week ago and let it stew in the back of my head. [Interesting metaphor I just came up with, no?]
Dizzy Don:- Names should be apt, in what way is he 'Dizzy?'
Firstly, to me, the idiosyncrasy of Easson's use of word balloons makes the book nearly unreadable for me.
The convention is that you have sharp arrow-like appendages joining the balloon to the speaker and a series of dots doing the same thing for thought balloons. 
Clearly, throughout the story, sometimes the characters are speaking and sometimes they are thinking.  It's impossible to tell which is which. You also can't tell by the drawing. The characters are either directly facing the viewer or are side on. Dizzy Don constantly smiles, which is irritating and conveys nothing of what he is doing or thinking, so there is no dramatic tension at all. Manny Easson's faces are generic in the extreme and have no character really.   
[b]Silly Soozie.[/b] This is 5 pages for a gag that needed only two at most. Nether the art or the dialogue give Soozie any distinctive character.  You are a child and you read that. Message:- Girls aren't good enough to be detectives. Hence the name, 'Silly' Soozie. 
'Snore and Yawn furnace repairs?'
The Bandit of Elm city:- The villain rings the police out of consideration for the bank staff he locked in a vault? And something that is consistent, through Manny Essen's work, much of the dialogue is superfluous.

CB+ has only two books from F.E. Howard Publications. The other is Super Duper Comics #3 [which is of historical importance as it has the first appearance of Mr Monster.]
In contrast to Dizzy Dan, this is a conventionally produced and edited comic. And a reasonably good one.
Searching for F. E. Howard brought me right back here to CB+. Couldn't find anything else.

It seems that Easson fell into this opportunity, from having been an amateur joke writer/ single panel cartoonist, to become the writer/artist of a regular comic book,

 
I'm assuming he must have had some clout, been reasonably well-known and refused editorial interference.
As a kid, I might have bought one copy but never a second.
Interesting book. Sometimes books, comics, TV and films are valuable for what you can learn about what not to do!

Cheers!           

[gregjh]

I would just like to say to everyone, especially Robb and TAP, that I really enjoy and benefit from the detailed feedback they give. As someone who has never been gifted with talent or insight in the world of drawing or painting, or even in comics beyond your typical superhero-loving childhood, the thoughts of people who are provides me with a new perspective.

[The Australian Panther]

Gregjh wrote:-

As someone who has never been gifted with talent or insight in the world of drawing or painting, or even in comics beyond your typical superhero-loving childhood, the thoughts of people who are provides me with a new perspective. 

Well, that kind of feedback is appreciated and gratifying. I often wonder if people don't think I'm just a windbag, so thanks. As far as perspective, Robb is a comics professional. I am not, but I have the background of a degree in Fine Art and a life 'wasted' reading too many comics, reading too many books  and watching too many Movies and TV shows.
But please don't ever hesitate in making your opinion known. Everybody learns from hearing from those with a different perspective. Our opinions are just opinions and no more valuable than anybody else's.
Robb wrote:-

But, as USA has always had about 5 times as many people and that many times or more size of national economy, and stolen away many (if not most) of our most talented Canadian artists, writers, singers, actors, etc. 

Well, as an Australian, we have the same perspective. But I like to think of it as Australian creators punching above their weight.
It amuses me when the US media lauds someone as being American - who is actually Aussie or Kiwi.
Our actors, in particular, are good at faking accents, and thus there are many more of them in Hollywood than you would suspect.
But what is an American anyway?
If We look at comics, the industry wouldn't exist without the Jewish, Italian, Spanish and Polish Americans - to give a few examples.
Hollywood? From day one there have been people of European, English, Chines and yes even Canadian and Australian extraction in often highly influential positions.               

[lyons]

I like the simplicity of Manny Easson's Dizzy Don artwork - the trademark straw boater firmly positioned on his noodle is a winner.  The winding stories and interesting characters that accompany Easson's great artwork was popular enough to be rewarded with a Big Little Book and coloring book.  A good read.  Thanks Robb_K.