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[Robb_K]

Greetings fellow Reading Group Members,
This Fortnight's books to read and review are tiny, Great Comics Publications' two comic book series' last issues, Great Comics #3 from January 1942, and Choice Comics #3 from April 1942.  This obscure, tiny, early Golden Age publisher had only two comic book series operating only in 1941 and 1942, issuing only 3 issues, each.  I surmise that this publisher had no artists in its offices, but, rather had its books packaged (planned, drawn and bound and distributed) by The Harry A. Chesler Syndicate, who was one of the main comic book packaging firms in the beginning of The Golden Age of Comic Books in The USA.  I also assume that many, if not most or all of the stories were also written by Chesler's writers.  I make these assumptions based on the art style and layouts of the comic magazines' covers, as well as the writers of the stories and the artists who drew them.  To me, it's a shame that this publisher and its two series stopped after only 3 issues, each, because both series last issues were their best, by far. 

Great Comics #3:


You can find it using this link:   https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=26514


Choice Comics #3


You can find it using this link:   https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=29704


I look forward to reading your comments on them, and hope you get much enjoyment reading them.

Robb_K

[gregjh]

This cover art looks very interesting! I look forward to reading these.

[Robb_K]

I'm also looking forward to some discussion on how Harry Chesler's comic book packaging operation worked.  I'm sure that he had, several editorial artists in house, inside their offices, to handle editorial functions, and possibly, to draw some of the features in their own lines of comic book publications.  I know they also had a large studio crew under contract, with some working in their offices, and probably using some freelancers who worked from their homes, to provide artwork for some series. I also think they may have used some artists from Funnies, Inc. Studio (New York) when they were in a pinch and couldn't produce all the artwork they needed during an overload period.  I'd like to find out which artists worked for them in-house in their offices, and when they did.  And I also want to know who freelanced for them, and when, and which Funnies, Inc. artists worked on their series, and when.  I know Dick Ryan was an in-house artist for them for several years.

[mopee167]

CHESLER STUDIO

http://www.bailsprojects.com/bio.aspx?Name=CHESLER+STUDIO

[Robb_K]

CHESLER STUDIO

http://www.bailsprojects.com/bio.aspx?Name=CHESLER+STUDIO

Thanks, Mopee, for that link.  I didn't know that Cheslers studio and packaging service lasted all the way until 1953.  I thought they shut down in 1949.  They must have been quite a bit smaller in 1950-53. And their artist roster bears that out, with Charles Sultan as the only artist showing up listed for 1950-53, and Harry Chesler, himself, and Carl Forms the only writers, and "Blue Bolt" as the only series covering that late period, for Chesler's crew.  I didn't know they had so very many different artists working for them during 1935-49.  But I also knew yet at least a few that did, seem to be missing from the list (or perhaps they were never employed directly by the studio), but just hired, ad hoc in emergency situations?).

[mopee167]

There?s a bio of HARRY "A" CHESLER (1897-1981) here:

http://pulpartists.com/Chesler.html

[Robb_K]

There?s a bio of HARRY "A" CHESLER (1897-1981) here:

http://pulpartists.com/Chesler.html

Thanks for this link, too.  It adds several more artists to the list.  And it is interesting to read Harry Chesler's complete history.

[gregjh]

Well that was stark-raving bonkers!

I wonder if the writers and artists just decided to go as crazy as they could with their ideas and the result was very fun. The first story, featuring superheroes and a sniffer dog from Heaven kidnapping Hitler was so bizarre I couldn't help but enjoy it. Unlike most stories from the GA, which I feel are too long, this one seemed to have a minimum page count and the tale was actually a little too drawn-out. But how can you not love a story where Hitler picks up a phone and calls Mussolini while being bitten by a divine Labrador? Mussolini was, of course, stuffing his face with spaghetti.

In the second comic, I loved the idea of a some kind of lost city or lost world that acted as a kind of prison. It's a shame that more attention and detail wasn't added to the backgrounds once the protagonists escaped from the dungeon but I do understand artists had a time limit and perhaps weren't getting paid huge amounts. The potential for great stories in this setting must be almost endless. I wonder what could have been achieved with more time and more focused storylines.

The drawings, especially faces, were of a very high standard. The color was rich although I personally found the contrast a little uncomfortable for much of it.

In summary, these comics were very fun and I am glad I read them. Thank you!

[The Australian Panther]

'The Lost City or Lost World' The concept of a 'lost world or civilization - often just a city in a valley or a volcano - and often a remnant of an older civilization, Roman or Aztec or Viking or Medieval' was a common one in fiction, movies and comic books before the modern times when we have mapped everything by satellite. Want to go to Mecca, Greenland or the location of Doyles' The Lost World'? Just use Google Maps and Earth view.
Or book a tourist trip for your next holiday.
'Journey to the real Lost World: Eerie flat-topped mountain that can only be reached by three-day trek and inspired Conan Doyle's iconic novel '.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-2939355/Visit-real-Lost-World-haunting-Venezuelan-mountain-inspired-Sir-Arthur-Conan-Doyle-s-iconic-novel-reached-three-day-trek.html
And that novel inspired many movies including Jurassic Park [There is yet another Jurassic Park movie on the way!]
Yes, Conan Doyle with his Professor Challenger stories first used the term and popularized the concept.
Also Verne, H Rider Haggard and Rice Burrows used the concept many times.
It's used often in Golden Age comics and both DC and Marvel have used it in more modern times.
Come to think about it, Carl Barks and Floyd Gottfredson used the concept. Barks used it quite often!   
We have the 'Lost City' series compiled on CB+ here.
The Lost City Collection
https://comicbookplus.com/forum/index.php?action=post;topic=22064.0;last_msg=85648
We also have 2 archives of the Planet comics serial, 'The Lost World'
Lost World Archive Pt.1
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=27146
Lost World Archive Pt.2
Good backgrounding research done so far. I'll comment on the content of the books down the track a bit!
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=27145
   

   

[SuperScrounge]

I surmise that this publisher had no artists in its offices, but, rather had its books packaged (planned, drawn and bound and distributed) by The Harry A. Chesler Syndicate

According to Jerry Bails' Who's Who this was done by the Iger Studio.

Started to write up my thoughts, then my browser crashed and wiped my thoughts out. Durrrrrrrrrrr...  We'll see if I can remember what I wrote.

Great Comics #3

Futuro - Overpowered and poorly defined hero. For... reasons he takes Hitler on a visit to Hell to... I don't know, make Hitler have a change of heart and end the war, I guess? Gee, how did that work out? If you have the power to get Hitler, just kill him. What's the problem, Futuro? I was surprised that one of the Futurians died, but it's not like Truth had had any lines, unlike Faith and Justice, so... who cares? He's a Star trek redshirt. I can't imagine what the next story would have entailed. I mean once you've fought Hitler and Satan any other villain is pretty much downhill.

The Khaki Kid - I did not find the kid's clumsiness as amusing as the author seemed to think it was. Also was this camp next to a war zone or did war games use live ordnance?

The Great Zarro - The author did understand how to have action on every page, but not so much logic. Apparently either the author or editor decided that soldiers were more popular than superheros so Zarro was changed.

Willing Willie - Okay for a filler.

Kid Bagdad - About average for a VEP story.

Madame Strange - Ummmmm... a bit of a mixed bag. Does she have a secret identity? The villain knows she's a reporter, but members of the general public don't apparently know? Not really clear. Her riding crop seems like a cruel weapon for a hero. She has an interesting hero costume, but does it serve a useful purpose? Does she have powers or is she just an above average fighter? The attempts at humor kind of undercut the menace of the villain. I think this story needed a rewrite and a decision on whether this was to be serious or silly.

The Lost City - Quite a bit going on. How many chapters of the serial does this part cover? Seems like more than one. Not bad.

[Robb_K]

I surmise that this publisher had no artists in its offices, but, rather had its books packaged (planned, drawn and bound and distributed) by The Harry A. Chesler Syndicate

According to Jerry Bails' Who's Who this was done by the Iger Studio.

Great Comics #3

Kid Bagdad - About average for a VEP story.

Thanks, Scrounge, for providing that information about Iger producing their books, and the link to Bails' list of their artists and writers.  The artists match up better than Chesler's.

About Kid Bagdad......  Is an average VEP story good or bad? 

His artwork certainly has to be an acquired taste.  I've NEVER liked it.  But, I've hated it less and less over the years.  His stories are certainly zany and wild.  He had a very bizarre sense of humour.  Some of his stories are boring, and leave me flat.  But a few are so weird and unexpected that they have a sort of charm to them.  I can't say that I've ever laughed out loud from any of his scenes.  I HAVE chuckled a few times, and done several double takes on occasion.

[SuperScrounge]

Is an average VEP story good or bad?

I was trying to be nice. 

Not a big fan of VEP. I don't hate his work, but I don't think I've ever laughed out loud at his stuff. I think I preferred his covers to his stories, but it's been a while since I looked at those covers. Then again one-panel cartoons are a different beast than a multi-panel story.

[Robb_K]

The Lost City - Quite a bit going on. How many chapters of the serial does this part cover? Seems like more than one. Not bad.

It's not clear, but it must have continued.  Unfortunately, Great Comics Publications ended with this issue and Choice Comics #3, so, I don't know if any following chapters were published, or even drawn.  Some stories from this publisher were reprinted in new comic book collections during the modern comics era, 1980s or 1990s?  But, I don't know if this series was continued during The Golden Age, by a different publisher.  That's something I had hoped to find out by choosing these two books.

[crashryan]

I'll get to the comics shortly. In the meantime I wanted to provide a link to The Lost City, the indy serial from which the comic book feature is adapted. All 12 chapters are on YouTube. The quality is pretty bad, but the same can be said for the serial. It gets off to an interesting start. The electrical effects and the sets are darned good for a low-budget serial and there are even some nice directorial flourishes. The good ends there. The acting is atrocious and the story meanders aimlessly. The racism which played a part in so many jungle pictures of the time is dialed up to 11.

Apparently Sam Baker, who plays Hugo the giant slave, felt ashamed and guilty for years because he'd accepted the demeaning role. Hand-wringing Claudia Dell spent a little over a decade in Hollywood and wound up the receptionist in a hair salon. George Pre-Gabby Hayes plays a secondary villain. Kane Richmond is the hero with the Wildroot hair. I was unable to locate 496 of the "500 movie stars" promised on the comic book splash page. The most notable of the "stars" is William Boyd.

Boyd--William "Stage" Boyd, not William "Hopalong Cassidy" Boyd--chews the scenery as Zolok. Thanks to the lousy sound on the film his name often sounds like "Zoloft." Boyd was dying from alcoholism and his fellow actors reported that he was increasingly erratic and impossible to work with. Some historians speculate that one reason the story is so choppy is that the screenwriters had to work around Boyd's problems. Be that as it may I can't imagine the story would have been much better had Boyd been on an even keel. At any rate, he died shortly after making this turkey.

As with most serials, the first episode is longer than the rest. Most of the interesting stuff happens in that chapter. Subsequent chapters, though half as long, seem even longer thanks to padding, stock footage, and endless sequences of the leads wandering through the jungle. The link below leads to a compilation of the first six episodes. The final six are in another video. There is a video containing all twelve. Believe me, you won't want to sit still for four hours watching them. And if you've already read the comic adaptation I know you'll be disappointed to learn that "Six-Arms Crusher" does not appear.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXjqgK0MYy4

[K1ngcat]

The Futuro story  is very odd, especially where he repeatedly claims "You cannot see me because I am Futuro"  suggesting he's invisible because he's existing in an alternative time-line? He heads a squad of invisible heroes called Futurians who seem to rely heavily on 'cosmic gas' and can fly but aren't invulnerable, as one soon gets picked off by Nazi guns. Oh and he has a very rude wolfhound who thinks out loud.

Hitler is, as usual in comics of this type, a cowardly buffoon who thinks only of his own safety, though he does raise a few smiles along the way. But after going through all the trouble of taking him to meet Satan, Futuro just takes him back to receive justice at the hands of mankind. It seems like wasted time.

Rudy Palais' art is creative but tremendously busy, and the colouring seems a bit confusing as it veers from pastel shades to heavy reds and blues. And in what universe did Hitler have a bright yellow and green uniform? It's all very amusing but doesn't really get anywhere.

The Khaki Kid, though it's written for laughs, actually looks a lot more credible, with simpler art and natural tones. The Great Zarro looks like a superhero and seems to have a big fan following but doesn't do much more more than sock people in the chops, what's so great about that? And "Rags"? That's a dog's name. No wonder it's his last appearance!

Kid Baghdad does nothing for me. Madame Strange is at least unusual, though a riding crop is a rather cruel weapon for a lady, unless she's that other kind of Madame! The Octopus (sadly not the same foe the Spirit  faced) is very weird with his claw hand and his perpetually open, buck toothed mouth. Is he meant to be deformed or is he just a very ugly racist stereotype? Still, anyone who can fly an aeroplane by touch alone is unusually talented.

I skipped past Willing Willie (ooh-er, Matron!) to get to the Lost City, heavens, what a mish-mash of ideas. Electric storms, magnetic detectors, treacherous companions, mad scientists, crippled servants, and big black zombies who roar like lions and walk "like nothing human." I hope the film was better, though I expect it wasn't. Yet I can't wait to see what happens in part two!

Overall, one of those mixed-bag comics the age excelled in, fast and furious action, instantly forgettable, yet great fun. Looking forward to the next one...

[Captain Audio]

The Octopus (sadly not the same foe the Spirit  faced) is very weird with his claw hand and his perpetually open, buck toothed mouth. Is he meant to be deformed or is he just a very ugly racist stereotype?

Only bad guy I saw matching that description looked white to me, white skin and brown hair.

It was long a given that facial deformity was a sign of a criminal mind, and there was something to that.
A friend of my oldeer brother was a complusive arsonist and forger. He also had a badly deformed jaw and had a genius IQ. While in a federal prision a program to repair facial disfigurements of career criminals was instituted.
The Movie "Johnny Handsome" was based on such a program.

They operated on his face and he earned an early release. Last I heard he was a very successful business man. He had sent me a gold and jeweled tie clasp along with an expensive tie as a H S graduation present.

[K1ngcat]

Lost City part two is a bit confusing for me on the art side ( the plot's already confusing enough.) Colton and Reynolds look quite different, unless they're aging prematurely from the stress. Now they're in green and orange, one has shorts and the other has trousers that change length at the artist's whim (last two panels on page 4.) Otherwise it's all quite exciting as it jumps from one cliffhanger situation to another.

The Six Arms Crusher is a fantastic creation ( beautiful musculature) and it's interesting the comics had carte blanche to invent characters not in the movie.  But strange it only bruises Natcha yet nearly kills Zolok. Oh well, as there's no #4, the adventure has to end there. I could've stood another episode or two...

Rex is a truly heroic dog who risks life and limb fighting big cats while the humans leave him to it. Bastards! 
Is Rey Isip any relation to (or a nom de plume of) Pagsilang Isip? I see some similarities.

G-men vs. Crime is a nice plug for the FBI, not very engaging but at least it's soon over. Decent enough art though.

Shanghai Shea is more enjoyable, and Wing Low, stereotyped as he may be, is a little less offensive than Chop Chop in Blackhawks. Unfortunately the missing pages tip us straight into the middle of Kangaroo Man, who, somewhat disappointingly, is not a man dressed like a kangaroo, a man with the powers of a kangaroo, or a man trapped in a kangaroo's body.

I'm sufficiently ignorant of kangaroos to know whether they do make a noise like "rsp, rsp" or not but this one seems pretty fond of it. Still, his thoughts come across as clear as those of Futuro's hound Nimbus. And after saving everybody's bacon all he wants is an apple? These humans really don't appreciate their animals!

Junior Wizard is mildly more amusing than the previous VEP outing as he discovers the pitfalls of Hank Pym's powers. Next time eat the hot dog first, silly! But after that I lost my patience with all the cartoons and bailed out on Choice #3. Not quite as entertaining as Great #3, but still worth a look. I can see how they both looked potentially Chesler-ish though lacking his "World's Greatest Comics" boast.

Thanks Robb for drawing my attention to this pair, and to all the members who contributed more informative postings than I have, it's always good to learn more about the history of the medium.

All the best
K1ngcat

[Robb_K]

I can see how they both looked potentially Chesler-ish though lacking his "World's Greatest Comics" boast.

Thanks Robb for drawing my attention to this pair, and to all the members who contributed more informative postings than I have, it's always good to learn more about the history of the medium.

All the best
K1ngcat

Even IF Great and Choice Comics were packaged by Chesler, books packaged for other publishers wouldn't have Chesler's own company's series' claim to be "The World's Greatest Comics", as the readers have no way of knowing that Chesler provided artwork, colouring and binding services for this other publisher, and that slogan was a trademark reserved only for their own publications.

[SuperScrounge]

Choice Comics #3

Lost City - Exciting continuation, although does seem to fall into an escape-get captured, escape-get captured rhythm. Shame to hear the movie doesn't have a 6-Arms Crusher, although I imagine that would be tough (& expensive) effect for a movie serial to pull off.

Rex the Seeing Eye Dog - Nice action, although, at least once, it seems like the artist drew Rex with Dan when he was supposed to be with Laura. Not an expert on this, but aren't seeing-eyes dogs trained to stay with the blind person, not go off and fight a leopard?

G-Men vs Crime - The Brady Gang name brought to mind the Brady Bunch committing crimes.    Okay true tale.

Shanghai Shea - The plan with the camera seems a bit daft, why wouldn't the Japanese be suspicious of an enemy pilot having a Japanese camera and the photos it has? Sadly the ending was missing.

Kangaroo Man - Okay. Shame the first 2 pages are missing.

Junior Wizard - Okay story, but Junior does seem to have a problem with taking untested pills for the heck of it. He'll probably end up with a drug addiction problem. 

Speedy 1 - Okay.

Dreamy Daisy - Standard, if cliched, dream judgement type story.

Speedy 2 - Not quite as good as the first Speedy story.

Peter the Pooch - Oh, golly, oh, gee, a story told in poetry. No praise is to be sung, this is for the very young.

[SuperScrounge]

Is Rey Isip any relation to (or a nom de plume of) Pagsilang Isip?

Rey is his middle name. https://www.comics.org/creator/10082/

[K1ngcat]

Is Rey Isip any relation to (or a nom de plume of) Pagsilang Isip?

Rey is his middle name. https://www.comics.org/creator/10082/

Thanks for that, SS!
BTW has anyone looked at Great Comics #1 & #2? Madame Strange is clad in what appears to be a very Wonder Woman - like outfit,  with a tendency towards a Good Girl art style.  And no riding crop at all.
And in Choice Comics #1 & #2, Jerry Iger is revealed as creator of Kangaroo Man. It's all fascinating stuff!

[crashryan]

Great Comics #3

The cover and lead story are full of Eisner-Fine / Iger influence. It hadn't occurred to me til now that Rudy Palais' manic layouts and drawing style might have been shaped by Lou Fine's Ray and Black Condor artwork. The splayed-out action poses, the caricatured bad guy faces, the elaborately-rendered drapery, and the panel-bursting layouts are Fine's superhero-story tricks pushed to the extreme.

In the lead story Palais' mania matches perfectly the berserk script. The writer must have been on his fiftieth cup of coffee when he typed this out. One crazy concept follows another with no effort put into making the story coherent. Almost every panel contradicts the one before it. Futuro, invisible but tangible, is able to cross the boundary between Earth and Hell yet is stopped by a closed door and needs a super dog to locate Hitler. Satan is supposedly the king of evil yet he tries to keep Hitler out of Hell, then teams up with Futuro to harass Hitler, then teams up with Hitler to learn Futuro's "strange power." When Futuro finally captures Hitler, he takes Adolf back to Earth "to face the justice of mankind." Wha...?

I also wonder about the Futurians, who seem like gods but can be brought down by a lucky antiaircraft shell. Note the symbolism: the first Futurian to fall to the Fascists is Truth. I guess they had Fox News back then, too.

Rudy Palais gives us some interesting effects. Most notable is how Futuro pulls Hitler down through the "bottom" of the water to get to Hell. Palais really likes head-over-heels tumbles. He also uses wild layouts to cop out on some shots, like the first panel of our page 9, where we're supposed to see imprisoned souls grabbing at Adolf but all we get is a bunch of disembodied hands.

In sum, the story and art are so deranged that I can't help but give the story points for sheer lunacy.

"The Khaki Kid" comes across as a simple-minded screwup. The soldiers are jerks. Waste of pages.

"The Great Zarro" dumps his costume and becomes just another two-fisted guy in Army duds. Result: a generic story repeated a thousand times in Golden Age comics. I like how Rags crawls onto the wing of their plane and waves a jaunty farewell before hitting the silk. He should have been blown off the moment he stepped out of the cockpit.

Let's pretend "Willing Willie" never happened. The art in "Kid Bagdad" isn't quite as crude as other VEP strips, but that's not saying much. The rhyming captions don't help. After reading the story I didn't feel like learning about "The Dizzy Dwarf of the Desert" or any of those other tales.

Like the Great Zarro "Madame Strange" has traded in her super-suit. She replaces it a sort-of costume...jodhpurs, boots, cape...and a riding crop. Changing costumes seems to have made our "girl reporter" meaner. She really seems to enjoy dealing out "the scars of my crop." The messy story may have been written by the guy who wrote "Futuro." It's not as crazy but just as incoherent. Most GA comics caricatured their villains, especially Asians. However here the caricatures are so grotesque that I can't tell if The Octopus is supposed to be Japanese or if he's even human. His henchmen are even weirder. In the first panel of page 47 they look like comedy-relief trolls.

At last we've reached the feature presentation:

The Lost City!

A comment from one of the other members about the comic adaptation taking liberties with the original set me to thinking. The more I thought, the odder it seems that this adaptation exists. Consider that the serial, an independent production and not an especially successful one, was released in 1935. This comic dates from 1942. Seven years after the serial came out. I know that hinterland theaters kept playing old serials for years after their release. But comic book movie adaptations were intended to encourage readers to go see the real thing. Did the studio feel their seven-year-old serial was still in circulation in enough markets to justify a comic adaptation?

Producer Sherman S. Krellberg seems to have been something of a hustler. He'd released a feature version of The Lost City the same year as the serial. He recut the footage for a new feature which was released in 1940. Was the comic adaptation supposed to hype that version? If so, how likely was it the feature would still be on screens two years after its release? Maybe the adaptation was commissioned to coincide with the 1940 feature but for one reason or another was never published. In this scenario the Great Comics people came by the material secondhand. I wonder if the final part(s) were even finished. I'd love to find out. Wikipedia says the Library of Congress has a collection of Krellberg's papers. Maybe the answers are hidden there.

[crashryan]

Choice Comics #3

Wow! That's some cover. Crowded as heck but bursting with energy. It might look better in black and white. The color makes it harder to tell the players from the Crusher. I sorely wish 6-Arms Crusher had been in the serial. I'd love to see how they would have pulled it off. Glued-on prosthetic arms? Two more guys standing behind him and shot with a lens that flattened the image?

I continue to be curious about how the serial wound up in this short-lived comic. Another item occurred to me: not only was the serial produced in 1935, seven years before the comic, but also head villain William "Stage" Boyd died of alcoholism that same year (I suspect if the booze hadn't killed him he'd have died anyway from shame over making this turkey). Let's say the comic's target audience was 12-year-old boys. Ol' Stage died when they were five years old. Why would 1942 preteens care if the picture starred William "Stage" Boyd? They'd never heard of him. Maybe the publishers sneakily hoped to lure readers by association with that other (living) Boyd, Hopalong Cassidy. To me all the comic's ballyhoo about the picture--the 3-1/2 star Daily News review, the claim of "500 movie stars," the hype about Boyd--sounds like the producer wrote it to promote the film. Which, as I speculated in my previous post, may not have been in general circulation when the comic hit the newsstands. This would support the premise that the Lost City content was left over from an earlier, unrealized project.

Pity the kids who wanted to see how it ended. The next issues never came out. Poor tykes had to wait forever--they had no Choice.

Rex the Seeing-Eye Dog is okay as a heroic-dog story, but as has been pointed out, as a seeing-eye dog Rex should remain with his master rather than running all over the place. Unfortunately Pagsilan Isip's art totally undermines the script. The main action is on our pages 20 and 21, when the leopard invades the circus tent. At least I presume that's what happens based on the dialogue. During the entire sequence where Laura is threatened by the leopard, we never see it! Not until Rex arrives do we see the animal, and Isip's layouts have been so vague that we've no idea where anyone is. If you look sharp you'll see Laura lying on the ground in the lower left corner of panel 5, and the net seems to be trapping her, not the cat. The dark coloring makes it even more difficult to sort out who is who and who is where.

G-Men vs Crime moves so fast that I'll reverse my usual preference and say the script needed more captions and dialogue to clarify the action. The art isn't bad but could have used background detail in places.

Shanghai Shea lets us see some rare "ordinary" good guy Asians. Though the Chinese were on our side, way too many GA stories acknowledged the existence only of sexy Chinese babes and elder gentlemen in conical hats. While on the subject, it's funny how Wing Low's English improves as he goes into action. Alas, we never see how this turns out. I suspect our heroes get out of their jam alive. By the way, the first occurrence I've found of the "Wing Low" pun for a Chinese aviator was in 1913, where it appeared as "Wun Wing Low."

Kangaroo Man is really "Kangaroo with Man Sidekick." For some reason this feature's gimmick appeals to me. The smart-aleck thought balloons work much better for Bingo the Kangaroo than they did for Futuro's dog, probably because the story is smaller and lighter. If the plots were stronger I'd like to see more stories about Bingo and Company. Once more cop-out layouts spoil otherwise decent drawing. I'll be darned if I can figure out where everyone is on page 35.

Junior Wizard, the kid hero with a drug habit. All VEP's stories bounce from one incident to another, then end. Heaven knows GA comics had plenty of simple stories, but VEP's seem more rudimentary than most. Maybe it's the art that gives that impression. Incidentally, how does being a giant allow you to walk on water (page 40)? On the next page, if he's standing "in the middle of the ocean" Junior would have to be miles high for the water to come only to his ankles. Even fantasy stories need some hint of reality.

Speedy: A tip of the Hatlo Hat to Jack West (real name?) for earning a few extra bucks by stretching a single-page gag onto two pages.

Dreamy Daisy isn't typical VEP. With better art it would have been truly nightmarish. Reading it I was thinking how the story would have made a good early Fleischer cartoon.

Speedy: It's two for two for Mr West. The weaker the gag, the more the panels, I always say.

Peter the Pooch: I like the cartoon tiger and elephant but not much else.

That's a really nice wash drawing of Futuro on the inside back cover. Wonder who did it.

Here endeth the career of Great Comics Publications. Definitely worth the read if only for Futuro vs Hitler.

[K1ngcat]

Great Comics #3

The cover and lead story are full of Eisner-Fine / Iger influence. It hadn't occurred to me til now that Rudy Palais' manic layouts and drawing style might have been shaped by Lou Fine's Ray and Black Condor artwork.

Most GA comics caricatured their villains, especially Asians. However here the caricatures are so grotesque that I can't tell if The Octopus is supposed to be Japanese or if he's even human. His henchmen are even weirder. In the first panel of page 47 they look like comedy-relief trolls.

Your mention of the Black Condor is very timely considering the recent posting of Crack Comics #17, giving an excellent example of Lou Fine's beautiful artwork. It hadn't occurred to me before, but I can see the comparison, and what you think Rudy Palais was going for. I have to say I much prefer the style he developed for horror comics, was it with ACG?

I was also uncertain what to make of the Octopus. Not sure I understood the suggestion that he was meant to be white, either. Anyway, not a patch on Eisner's Octopus, or his fore-runner The Squid, who has also recently returned to CB+, albeit in black and white. Some artists do get the idea that a villain whose face you never see is scarier than the most gruesome deformities.

Thanks for your comments, crash.
All the best
K1ngcat

[The Australian Panther]

  Some artists do get the idea that a villain whose face you never see is scarier than the most gruesome deformities.

But of course! That way its all in your imagination - and way scarier than any drawing.
Gold Key's Dr Solar had a villain, Nuro. You only saw his hands and he was always stroking a white cat.
Pretty sure they swiped this concept for James Bond's Ernst Stavro Blofeld, when it came to the screen.
Who says screenwriters don't read comics?
And while I'm on that, Dr Doom way precedes Darth Vader.
cheers!