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[The Australian Panther]

Thought for a change we'd have a look at some comic strips from the collection.
I chose 3 different ones, none of them familiar to me.
You can comment on only one of them, two of them or all three.

Flyin' Jenny 1942 0104-0517
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=27136

Frantic Stein 1
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=40575

Teena (1957
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=64664

Enjoy!

 

[Morgus]

All three were enjoyable for me, but in different ways.
FLYIN' JENNY I knew about from the Dennis Kitchen book he put out, and this was a great way to check the strip out. Keaton reminds me a lot of Bob Powell. You have to wonder what could have been. Great art.
FRANTIC STEIN made me wish that Mercer had a more uniform colour and texture to his art. You'd get great shading and style for a couple of panels and then nothing. Was it due to time constraints? Inability of the presses his clients used to reproduce the art? But if he had worked that out, he could have had something that approached TERRY AND THE PIRATES in terms of 40's noir. Mercer also ended his stories too soon. Lady Sienna was sexy and could have made a great recurring villain/femme fatale. The plot line was a lot like SON OF INGAGI a blacks-only horror film that came out in 1940, but is better and mentions lynching.
TEENA might have been the most influential of the lot. To my eyes, the style was copied a million times in lay outs for shampoo ads, clothing, and just about anything else that involved teen girl culture of the time.
Nice summer reads.

[SuperScrounge]

Flying Jenny

I first read Flying Jenny years ago when I was reading scans of Eastern Colors' Heroic Comics, at around the same time scans of the comic strip were available here so I could compare the HC reprints with the strips and was surprised at how edited the stories were. Basically romantic subplots were edited out and HC focused on the action/adventure plots.

This was a nice story. Wouldn't require much editing from the HC editors.  The main problem is that these are Sunday comics in black and white. It would have been nice to have seen this in color.


Frantic Stein

The first appearance of Lady Sienna sure seems inspired by Caniff's Dragon Lady, doesn't it?

How does Murgatroid kill three people at the same time?

Murgatroid kind of has the body proportions of Popeye's Sea Hag.

Interesting strip, although for being the title character Frantic is more of a supporting player. We know little about him, he doesn't seem to do much. We know know more about Darwyn and Lady Sienna then we do about Frantic.


Teena

Cute. An amusing little comic.

[Robb_K]

Teena - by Hilda Terry
I read Teena first, as I had seen it in newspapers in Denmark.  A clever strip, with a modern drawing style for its time, starting in 1944.  I never saw it in Canada, despite our importing many syndicated American comic strips.  And I never saw it on our visits to USA.  And, by the time we relocated there, that strip had finished its run.  Hilda Terry was from Massachusetts (New England), and her drawing style has the backgrounds make the town where Teena lives obviously suburban American.  The clothing of the characters is typically American from the late 1940s to the very early 1960s. The dialogue is generic "Whitbread American", with no regional accent, and no colloquial feel.  It is the bland "to the lowest common denominator", to be palatable and easily understandable to the largest audience, and so, could be marketed in foreign lands.  In the days just after World War II, to about the early 1960s, much of the rest of The World had a fascination with the new World military and economic power, The USA.  The nations more foreign to it were fascinated by US culture and entertainment media.  So, I am not sure why the foreign newspaper editors changed the monetary nomenclature from the original US dollars and Cents to Pounds, Shillings and Pence.  I don't know from which British Commonwealth country's printings these scans were made, but I would guess they are Australian, or possibly, South African.  I sincerely doubt they are British, as I don't remember ever seeing ANY US comic strip appearing in a British newspaper, or any kind of comics supplement booklet.  It makes no sense at all to change to British, Australian, or South African money, if there isn't a corresponding change to colloquial speech of the publishing nation.  But, I'm guessing that the real charm of this strip is that teenage girls in The British Isles, Canada, Australia, girls of European ancestry in South Africa, and those of Western and Northern Europe, have similar ways of thinking and acting, and would have appreciated the cleverness of this strip, and what hits home to them, emotionally, over and above the value of recognising the American feel to the strip.  So, why didn't they just leave the American money? Or, if they wanted to change to their local money, why did they not also change the American-style speech to a local or regional speech from their country???

[paw broon]

Robb, British newspapers did indeed publish American strips. Rip Kirby being a prime example.  In fact, questions were raised in parliament about the strip:-
https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1947-11-28/debates/c9aedf9c-453f-4495-935f-249b5effd3dd/AmericanFiction(BritishMagazinePurchases)
Katzenjammer Kids also appeared.

[The Australian Panther]

Paw, I just read that exchange. What a load of time-wasting hot air!

[Morgus]

Can't you guys just SEE a Wally Wood mash up with those two? "Live War Surplus Ordinance: Rip Kirby Vs. The Katzenjammer Kids"?

I think I'd pay money for that.

[Robb_K]

I just noticed that this printed version of Teena was, as I had surmised, published in Australia.  So, I repeat my question of why the text wording remains almost totally American (except for changing the monetary nomenclature), and yet, was not adapted to colloquial Australian speech (vocabulary, grammar, choice of wording, use of regional idiomatic phrases, way of thinking, and sense of humour). Had this strip been printed in England, I am positive that its dialogue would have been changed to some form of middle class British speech (maybe a light generalised Southern accent, not quite BBC English, but also not too fixed on one geographic area.  That would be because most late teenaged girls would have been able to identify with the lead characters, and most males late teenage and older would likely think: "I remember dating girls exactly like that."  Leaving the American dialogue seems to be forcing the focus of the view of this strip as: "This is how the typical clever, materialistic, conniving, but insecure, upper middle class teenaged American girl behaves." (Which then can be compared just as a point of wonder and interest in their difference; or compared favourably or unfavourably to teens in Britain).

I brought up my point that a British publisher would likely have changed the dialogues to some form of British idiom, because my own original text submittals made to Danish Egmont Publishing, of Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge stories were required to be written in English, so they could be translated into the language of Egmonts foreign affiliates.  During a fairly short period during the 1990s, a British affiliate of Danish Egmont published a British "Donald Duck" (traditional US-style and format) comic book; and my fully-understandable English language dialogues were "translated" into a generalised Southern English, middle class speech that clearly differed from my mixed Canadian/American/European style of English.  So, I am wondering why the Australian publisher chose not to Aussify "Teena" for its own readers.

I'll be curious to read comments on this question from Australian Panther and our British members.

[Robb_K]

Robb, British newspapers did indeed publish American strips. Rip Kirby being a prime example.  In fact, questions were raised in parliament about the strip:-
https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1947-11-28/debates/c9aedf9c-453f-4495-935f-249b5effd3dd/AmericanFiction(BritishMagazinePurchases)
Katzenjammer Kids also appeared. 

The Katzenjammer Kids used a stereotyped German accent, so that may not have been changed.  But did the British publishers of the "Rip Kirby" strip "translate" the dialogues to some sort of British regional idiom? (i.e. Lowland Scottish with taste of Scots expressions in a Glasgow newspaper, or a Lancashirian accent in a Manchester paper, or Greater London generalised Southern speech in a London paper?  Was that generally done?  Or were most foreign-produced English language strips just left with their original "colonial English" text?

[crashryan]

Thanks for that link, Paw. A lot of blowhard fluff, to be sure, but I learned some interesting things. I'd no idea that American magazines resold their stories to British mags. Sounds like the rates were pretty good, too. I have a British book on commercial illustration that proves there were quite a few first-rate artists in the British magazines. I suppose this means the publishers didn't purchase the American art, just the story.

It's funny that, in complaining about British comic strips not being exported to the USA, the honorable Friend chose Jane as an example. That strip was legendary for removing the heroine's clothes at every opportunity. True, there was some decent cheesecake in American newspaper strips of the period. Leslie Turner and Alex Raymond occasionally provided gratuitous lingerie shots. But given the overwhelming conservatism of American newspaper editors, dear old Jane would never have made it past the proposal stage.

The Gentleman's main complaint, of course, was American immorality flooding England and corrupting its youth.

The roaring carnival of quick drinks, adolescent sex, bright lights and dimmed thinking, in which the characters in these stories play their roles, has little to do with the great problems facing this country and the world today.

By the way, having heard news clips of Parliamentary debates, I am awestruck by the amount of derision, scorn, and contempt Parliamentarians can load into their pronunciation of the words "honorable Friend."

On the matter of localizing imported comic strips, Tiffany Jones ran over here for a couple of years during the Swinging 60s. The syndicate carefully covered the breasts, expanded the underwear, and removed the u from or words. Occasionally they'd let a Britishism stand. I remember that when a baby was abandoned on Tiffany's doorstep, she asked her sidekick to "pop round to the chemist's for a packet of disposable nappies." British program(mes) weren't common on TV at the time, and I'm sure I wasn't the only who didn't understand that she was saying to "run down to the drugstore for some disposable diapers."

Don't you think that most choices of whether or how much to localize a strip boils down to money? It was fairly simple to paste an "honor" over an "honour" but adapting the dialogue to fit the home market meant re-lettering much of the strip. That's easy in the computer age but required much cutting and pasting back then. Add to this the fact that many newspaper strip proof sheets went out at printed size. Re-jiggering the lettering at this small scale always looked like hell.

Then, too, one can't overlook the "exotic" appeal of American comic strips. It's similar to the way Japanese cartooning has conquered the world in more recent times.

[Robb_K]

On the matter of localizing imported comic strips, Tiffany Jones ran over here for a couple of years during the Swinging 60s. The syndicate carefully covered the breasts, expanded the underwear, and removed the u from or words. Occasionally they'd let a Britishism stand. I remember that when a baby was abandoned on Tiffany's doorstep, she asked her sidekick to "pop round to the chemist's for a packet of disposable nappies." British program(mes) weren't common on TV at the time, and I'm sure I wasn't the only who didn't understand that she was saying to "run down to the drugstore for some disposable diapers."

Don't you think that most choices of whether or how much to localize a strip boils down to money? It was fairly simple to paste an "honor" over an "honour" but adapting the dialogue to fit the home market meant re-lettering much of the strip. That's easy in the computer age but required much cutting and pasting back then. Add to this the fact that many newspaper strip proof sheets went out at printed size. Re-jiggering the lettering at this small scale always looked like hell.

Then, too, one can't overlook the "exotic" appeal of American comic strips. It's similar to the way Japanese cartooning has conquered the world in more recent times.

Those are my points.  The choice is really to have your in-house story editor (and with some luck, also a story writer for his publisher) re-do the entire dialogue, just blanking out the balloons and relettering everything.  Then, it looks fine.  Otherwise, IF the publisher cannot afford the cost to pay for the new scripting and lettering, then only pick up the foreign strip, and leave it as is, and run it for its exotic interest.  I dare say there is enough Americana in British film/video/TV/radio and print media to have newspaper strip readers get the gist of the humour, and if they are conscientious, learn lots of American idiomatic phrases and ways of speaking.  The British newspaper strip, "Andy Capp" had a great long run in US newspapers, and was very popular.  Had US publishers changed its dialogues to 100% colloquial American idiom, the strip would have been totally worthless.  So, "Teena" was fine left with its original US wording.  But, with the characters dressing, acting, and speaking"American", and the backgrounds depicting American locales, what was the point of just changing the money system?  The Aussie reader would know the characters were Americans in USA, - not Australians in Australia.

[The Australian Panther]

I am wondering why the Australian publisher chose not to Aussify "Teena" for its own readers. 

I'm not aware that in any medium, dialogue or vocabulary was ever changed  or 'Aussified.'  'Aussified?!' for the local market. We were flooded with US comics after WWII [killed the local industry] and I grew up with Harvey, Dell, Disney comics - US originals - but at the same time we also had the British papers. Oh and Newspapers carried both US and British strips and sone OS strips.  Books? American bestsellers and also a great deal of British - Enid Blyton, Biggles, Agatha Christie.  Vocabularies  from both countries were foreign, and you knew that but it didn't matter.
Anybody translating 'Donald Duck' into 'British', must have been an individual decision by someone with a screw-loose.
[Reading Paw's Hansard extract is an eye-opener. There were also in Australia people in politics and 'in authority' with similar attitudes. But it seems that eventually the economic benefits of marketing British and US material was stronger.
We got also - US TV shows on the commercial channels and British on the ABC. We were truly mulitcultural!
Before I was 5 years old, the dominant cultural English language influence was British. But already giving way mightily to the American, which was more dominant from mid-50s to the 60's. And hasn't looked back.         

[Robb_K]

I am wondering why the Australian publisher chose not to Aussify "Teena" for its own readers. 

I'm not aware that in any medium, dialogue or vocabulary was ever changed  or 'Aussified.'  'Aussified?!' for the local market. We were flooded with US comics after WWII [killed the local industry] and I grew up with Harvey, Dell, Disney comics - US originals - but at the same time we also had the British papers. Oh and Newspapers carried both US and British strips and sone OS strips.  Books? American bestsellers and also a great deal of British - Enid Blyton, Biggles, Agatha Christie.  Vocabularies  from both countries were foreign, and you knew that but it didn't matter.
Anybody translating 'Donald Duck' into 'British', must have been an individual decision by someone with a screw-loose.
[Reading Paw's Hansard extract is an eye-opener. There were also in Australia people in politics and 'in authority' with similar attitudes. But it seems that eventually the economic benefits of marketing British and US material was stronger.
We got also - US TV shows on the commercial channels and British on the ABC. We were truly mulitcultural!
Before I was 5 years old, the dominant cultural English language influence was British. But already giving way mightily to the American, which was more dominant from mid-50s to the 60's. And hasn't looked back.         

Yes, I knew The Australians were aware of the differences between their culture and those of Britain and USA.  I was not trying to "insult" the 'Worldliness" of the basic Australian readership.  I am more, or less, shocked that they bothered to change the money system in the strip to Australian, but, for some unknown reason, they had no problem with the 'Americana" covering all other aspects of the background/setting and speech and actions of the characters yells loudly: "THESE ARE AMERICANS, LOCATED IN USA!" . 

It would have been A LOT more sensible to print the strip just as it came to them.  Any Australians who might have been tempted to read "Teena" would have known that the monetary system in USA involved Dollars and cents, rather than Pounds, Shillings, and Pence.

Have you got a theory as to why the editor made such a nonsensical decision?

[The Australian Panther]

The 'Teena' strip is dated 1957. By, I think, 1966 the Australian system was also Dollars and cents, much to my Father's disgust!
As to who changed the currency in the strip in 1957? Could have been anybody. Could have been a newspaper editor, could have been the Syndicate before they sold the strip to an Australian publisher.
But it was definitely atypical. There probably was never a Newspaper editor or proprietor who overestimated the intelligence of his/her readership.

  I was not trying to "insult" the 'Worldliness" of the basic Australian readership.

   
Furthest thought from my mind. 
The biggest negative about the whole thing is that Australian content providers took the easy way out and ceased to provide much work for Australian creators.
But we weren't the only ones. 

[Robb_K]

The 'Teena' strip is dated 1957. By, I think, 1966 the Australian system was also Dollars and cents, much to my Father's disgust!
As to who changed the currency in the strip in 1957? Could have been anybody. Could have been a newspaper editor, could have been the Syndicate before they sold the strip to an Australian publisher.
But it was definitely atypical. There probably was never a Newspaper editor or proprietor who overestimated the intelligence of his/her readership.

  I was not trying to "insult" the 'Worldliness" of the basic Australian readership.

   
Furthest thought from my mind. 
The biggest negative about the whole thing is that Australian content providers took the easy way out and ceased to provide much work for Australian creators.
But we weren't the only ones.

Also true for Canada after WWII.  But, Canadian publishers had no chance, whatever, to compete with the flood of full colour US comic books that were imported in.  At first, a few of the largest Canadian publishers tried to stay competitive by providing full colour books, too.  But, that high cost killed them.  Most of them went bankrupt.  The only way to stay alive was to have Parliament make new laws that allowed foreign books to be imported in, but requiring them to be distributed by Canadian distributing companies, and packaged in Canada by Canadian publishers, who paid for the franchises to sell those comic book series inside Canada.  That allowed the Canadian publishers to put in their own local/regional/national advertising, as well as adding a few one-page gag cartoons on the black and white cover insides.  That was basically all that could be afforded, as the newsprint insides were printed in USA, and shipped into Canada (generally also along with the plates for the covers, which were printed in Canada. Those one-page gags were drawn by artists who wanted to stay home in Canada.  But, most of the bigger artistic talents chose to leave to USA to work for the comic book art studios in USA, or directly for the US publishers who had their own staffs of artists, in-house.  With USA always having from 6 to 8 times the Canadian population as a market, there has always been a drain of the upper levels of talent in almost every field of career, from Canada to USA, for those people to assure a solid economic future for their families.  It is a tough temptation to resist (especially given that most of The US climate is more benign than suffering through Canadas cold winters.

The difference between the situation for Canadas artists and Australias was that Australia is half-way across The World from the bigger markets of USA and Britain.  During The Golden Age of Comic books, when airplane flights were a lot more expensive relative to now, Canadian artists who immigrated to USA for work had a big advantage over Australians, as most of those from Ontario, Quebec, and The Maritime Provinces could return home for periodic visits driving a car, or taking a train or two from New York City in a matter of hours, or, at worst, in the same day.  Whereas Australians, working in USA or Britain, saw their families back home, very few times over a several year period.

[paw broon]

As for Australia being on the other side of the world, Australian comics turned up in Scotland - probably in other parts of the UK also - and they got here as ballast - there's that word again - on ships.  As part of the commonwealth, it's not strange that Australian comics appeared in local newsagents but I don't remember ever seeing Canadian comics.
Before American comics were distributed in the UK, some newsagents and corner shops and The Barras in Glasgow had Australian comics and those British comics which were designed to look like American comics. 
When I started making trips to London marts, there were always a couple of dealers who had small selections of Australian and NZ comics as well as the old British titles.
I don't know why a newspaper would go to the trouble of changing references in a strip, or money.  American strips were American and I know that thanks to films and tv people were very familiar with the dollar and Americanisms and spelling. 

[Robb_K]

As for Australia being on the other side of the world, Australian comics turned up in Scotland - probably in other parts of the UK also - and they got here as ballast - there's that word again - on ships.  As part of the commonwealth, it's not strange that Australian comics appeared in local newsagents but I don't remember ever seeing Canadian comics.
Before American comics were distributed in the UK, some newsagents and corner shops and The Barras in Glasgow had Australian comics and those British comics which were designed to look like American comics. 
When I started making trips to London marts, there were always a couple of dealers who had small selections of Australian and NZ comics as well as the old British titles.
I don't know why a newspaper would go to the trouble of changing references in a strip, or money.  American strips were American and I know that thanks to films and tv people were very familiar with the dollar and Americanisms and spelling.   

Clearly, the changing of the monetary nomenclature was an unusual editorial error in judgement. 

As far as your seeing (noticing) Australian comic books and not remembering ever having seen Canadian books, the fact is that most post WWII Canadian comic books looked virtually identical to their analogous US printings.  That is because their front covers were printed using the plates from the US printing, and the entire insides were printed and bound in USA, so, the only Canadian-produced portion of those books were the back cover, and 2 inside covers, which usually contained a subscription advert for the Canadian series or another series distributed by that Canadian distributor/publisher, and either one or two one-page gag cartoons by the Canadian publisher's in-house artist/writer, or another advert or two.  So, given that the books printed price was 10 cents, 15 cents or 25 cents (similar to US prices using a similar monetary system) you would not be able to tell it was a Canadian publication, unless you looked inside and read the indicia on the inside front cover, which was printed in a very small size.  Probably many thousands of post WWII Canadian books were shipped to The UK as ballast, and when you saw them you thought they were American.  Furthermore, 3 of The Big Four Canadian Comic Book Publishers, Bell Features, Anglo-American, and Maple Leaf Publishing, marketed a handful of their Canadian series both to Canada AND The UK during late 1945 through 1947.  Books marketed to both countries had both the Canadian and UK prices on the cover.  But, those books did not sell very well in The UK, and maybe they didnt get to many locations in Scotland. 

On the other hand, comic books from Australia were a lot easier to distinguish from the American books, because the Australian publishers always had light-coloured insignia boxes in the upper left corner of the front cover, where the name of the publisher was very prominent and clear (and was clearly NOT the same as the US publishers insignia decals (Dell, Archie Series, DC, EC, Avon, Charlton, Fox, Harvey, ME, Quality, St.John, etc.).  And the biggest initial giveaway was the Australian price (usually ranging from 6 to 9D, with the large uppercase D catching the eye right away).  So, a casual glance would tell you when you were looking at an Australian book, whereas in most cases, you needed to open a book and wade through the indicia to identify a book as Canadian.  In addition, at least for animated cartoon-based, funny animal, and cartoony human comedy reprintings of US books, The Australian publisher had their own artists draw up new front cover drawings.  And those artists were, on the whole, substantially inferior to the original US animation artists at drawing those characters.  So the artwork on the great majority of the Australian covers on those series books looked like they were drawn by hobbyists.  So, the trained eye would be drawn directly to them, and they would be recognized instantly to be Australian.  I have no idea how Australian publishers handled the covers of reprinted US more realistic genres books.  But, I imagine the artwork on those was, overall, fairly good, as most of the Australian books that I have seen of those genres, that originally were Australian productions, had good to excellent quality artwork.

[K1ngcat]

Flyin' Jenny is beautifully executed but somehow failed to draw me in. Teena is amusing,  but it's Frantic Stein who really captured my attention.

Stein's an unusual name for an African-American, maybe some Jewish ancestry?    Actually the whole strip is fairly imaginative, but "frantic" appears to be the watchword, as all these stories are rushed through at such a hectic pace that there's hardly any time for the characters or plot to develop before we're whisked on to another adventure. The artwork's rather variable - sometimes it's little more than workmanlike, yet at other times quite striking, as witness the portrait of Darwyn at the end of page 5. No writer is credited, so I have to assume it was all Mercer's work. I was interested enough to read the second set of strips, and found that Frantic and his GF were now FBI agents and their first adventure took no more than three pages. IMHO that's moving a bit too fast!

Now it must've been fairly bold to put out a story dealing with racial hatred in the forties, even in a strip written by a black artist and aimed at a specifically black audience. I doubt if there'd be a white newspaper owner of the day who'd've printed it. But who or what is Murgatroid? A deformed human or some frightful product of Lady Sienna's scientific experiments? And I'm perplexed by the fact that Frantic doesn't recognise his former flame until they kiss - has she changed her name or appearance so much?

I get the impression Mercer had been reading Eisner or Caniff, the characters have some unlikely names and there's always romance at play in the background, however dramatic the main action is. But though I quite like the overall intent of the strip, I do wish there'd been more attention to explanation and development. Having said that, it's a groundbreaking piece of work nonetheless, and deserves recognition. I'm glad CB+ has been able to find some Frantic Stein to preserve for posterity.

All the best
K1ngcat

[Robb_K]

Flyin' Jenny - Written by ex-WWII pilot, Frank Wead, Drawn by Russell Keaton

The artwork on this strip is excellent.  The staging is very good, as well.  The story holds some interest.  We have only seen the very beginning.  So it is difficult to determine what I will think of the strip, or at least its first adventure, overall. 

I was somewhat surprised that The US Navy was willing to go on with the testing of the airplanes after one of the two finalists was found cheating, using deadly sabotage, that might have led to the rival manufacturer's test pilot being killed (and, thus, considered a murder, by law).  I would have guessed that The US Navy would not have wanted the scandal of handing out a monstrous contract to provide many combat planes to felons who, feeling that their plane may not be the best, would risk killing an innocent test pilot, to ensure their winning the contract.  I would have guessed that The Naval officials would have stopped the competition, disqualified the company owned by the felon, and just tested the plane of the remaining entrant in the last test, to see if it would perform adequately, and if so, award the contract to that firm.

Having a romantic interest between a test pilot of one firm, and the aircraft designer from its rival competitor  is a situation with great possibilities.  But the author did not use it as effectively as he could have.  Also, the rebellious, wisecracking boy, Cyril, does not seem to fit so well into the story, other than using him to catch the cheating plane manufacturer.  But, I understand that it is difficult to build in much background into an action-based series, while getting enough action into each weekly page, when 4 out of a potential 12 panels (a full third) are used up in presenting cut-out dresses for a Jenny paper doll, sent in by dress designer wannabes on most of the pages.  I have much respect for comic strip writers and artists.  I think it is much more difficult to design and plan out a story delivered little by little, in small pieces.  I would want to have already completed the entire story in storyboards before parceling it into the individual weekly pages.  Then, there is a LOT of extra work planning the beginning page mini-splash panels, and yet more difficult, making sure there is highly-suspenseful ending panel (page turner) for each weekly page.  Then, you need to work backwards into the episode to determine how many panels fit best based on what part of the story you want to illustrate and how much room there is left to fit it in, keeping the suspense point as the last panel.   A good rule of thumb for this type of strip would be averaging about 10 panels per page.  So, for a 32-page full book, epic story I would like to draw and write for a comic book, with 8 panels per page, I would use roughly 27 weekly strip pages, requiring 27 different suspenseful last panels (which need to be MORE suspenseful than page ending panels in the totally intact, comic book story.  That is because the comic book reader just has to wait a couple seconds until he or she has turned the page to see what happens next, but the strip reader has to wait a full week to find out, and so, it is crucial for the strips writer and artist to get the readers to want to read the next episode, so they can continue to sell the strip to the newspaper syndicate.  So, more care and planning work goes into the staging of panels and planning of pages for the newspaper strip, than is needed for the comic book story.

I like the story enough to read the next year page compilation.  It is not highly memorable, so far.  But the artwork is great, and the story is interesting enough for me to look at at least one more year.

[Robb_K]

Frantic Stein - Drawn and Written by George Mercer

The artwork is decent, and the writing is interesting and entertaining.  It is also very fast-moving for a comic strip.  It had a very, very controversial theme.  So it is easy to understand why it didn't last very long.  An awful lot of wealthy and powerful Caucasians who didn't like African-Americans stirring up trouble probably put pressure on the Black Press to not carry that strip.  I agree with Kingcat that the story moves way too fast, giving no time to develop the protagonists background and character.  His ex-ladyfriend is a scientist who produces a giant Frankenstein-type "monster", and we learn absolutely NOTHING about it.  It is something like what The Golem was for oppressed Jews of medieval and Renaissance period Eastern Europe (a revenge machine).  It is VERY disappointing that the most interesting aspect of this story (and series) was barely touched upon.  We also learn almost nothing about the so-called hero/protagonist (namesake of the series), which is also disappointing, and a grievous unprofessional error by the series creator.  Being a vehicle for shouting out the great wrongs of bigotry against people of colour in The USA in those times was a great positive for the strip, but, as we see by its extremely short run, it was doomed to failure even before it started.  What a shame.  Good that at least a few stories were found and added to this website for posterity, and for many people to learn about it.

[The Australian Panther]

Flyin' Jenny 1942 0104-0517
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=27136
About:-
Here is a site with a few 'flyin jenny' strips
https://www.airplanesandrockets.com/magazines/flyin-jenny/flyin-jenny-comic-baltimore-morning-sun-january-23-1944.htm

"Flyin' Jenny," whose real name was Virginia Dare (what's in a name?), was a test pilot for Starcraft Aviation Factory who divided her time between wringing out new airplane designs and chasing bad guys. She was the creation of artist and storyteller Russell Keaton. 

So, Random observations.
As trainman786 noted, the advisor and collaborator on the strip was Frank Wead, enough of a pilot/celebrity that John Wayne played him in a movie.
So there is a lot of accurate jargon in the script.
'Hold this slip to the last second' 'kick her straight and nurse her on' , 'Hot Papas' - and that's just the opening strip. Also there are contemporary references which would be incomprehensible to many today,
'as curious about her as the world is about Hess.' obviously referring to Rudolph Hess's strange flight from Nazi Germany to Britain, still somewhat a mystery even today.
The fashion page is an interesting addition to an aviation strip, wonder whose idea that was?
I like the fact that the writer throws cracks and jokes in to flesh out the basics of the plot.
'You must come home and study your Latin verbs' "Why? the people I know speak American.' 
'Your mother wants you to study your Greek, Cyril?' 'Why? I'm not opening a restaurant!'
An obviously very technical and accurate story. I enjoyed it. But 'Spinner' was portrayed as a likeable opponent, so his arrest jarred. I think he was framed.
Stop press!
Gladys Parker
https://www.lambiek.net/artists/p/parker_gladys.htm

  During the second World War, Gladys Parker came up with 'Mopsy', a girl who made her own contribution to the war effort by appearing as a nurse, soldier or engineer. 'Mopsy' ran from 1939 until 1965. Gladys Parker also took over the war-strip 'Flyin' Jenny' from Russell Keaton in 1942, until 1944, when his assistant Marc Swayze took over.

Together with Dot Cochran, Ethel Hays, Virginia Huget, Fay King, Virginia Krausmann and Dorothy Urfer, Gladys Parker counts as a pioneer of female cartooning, gracing newspaper pages of the 1920s and 1930s with sophisticated and witty society girls.

This strip is 1942 so I'm thinking that this artwork is in fact Gladys Parker and that would explain the fashion pages!
And Kitchen Sink have published a collection.
The Aviation Art of Russell Keaton Hardcover ? November 1, 1995
https://www.amazon.com/Aviation-Art-Russell-Keaton/dp/0878163891
Cheers!

[The Australian Panther]

Frantic Stein 1
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=40575

My searches for 'Frantic Stein' only bring me right back to CB+, so there's not much info out there.
It reads like it was done by someone working on his own, working out what to do by himself.
The words carry the story, but there is very little visual action.
And yes, the story is complete in 12 days, under two weeks, I guess no Sundays. This might set some kind of record.
Both stories are, as narratives, by the numbers and pretty ordinary.
The second stands out because of its controversial subject matter.
The art is not bad.
I would like to know more about George Mercer and how long 'Frantic Stein' run for?   
It;s great that CB+ has preserved the strip.     

[The Australian Panther]

Teena (1957
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=64664

This looks familiar, I believe I saw this in some Australian magazine or newspaper back in the day.

Hilda Terry (June 15, 1914 ? October 13, 2006) was an American cartoonist best known as the creator of the comic strip Teena, which ran in newspapers from 1944 to 1966. In 1950, she became the first woman allowed to join the National Cartoonists Society.

https://womenincomics.fandom.com/wiki/Hilda_Terry

Are these Sundays? They are not strips. They may have been published on their own in the 'Women's' section? These are well-observed portraits of teenage female behavior. The visual style suits the mood of the cartoons. 
Personal Observation.
The cartoon on page #7 has the girls being offered a number of things to do, but are too bored and listless to do any of them. However, when the sun comes out, they perk up an do all of the activities. This is quite accurate. I am living where we have had rain and wind and cold and cloudy skies for most of the year. So most of the time I have no inclination to get active, but when the sun is out all day, its a different matter, suddenly I do things I have been putting off for ages and am in a more positive mood.
That is what you have to do with a strip like this, the reader should feel that the situations and the behaviour are accurately observed.
I enjoyed this, as I have all of the three strips I picked, and as often happened, I learned quite a few things I did not previously knew.
So, over to Robb for the next one.             

[Robb_K]

Teena (1957
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=64664

This looks familiar, I believe I saw this in some Australian magazine or newspaper back in the day.

Hilda Terry (June 15, 1914 ? October 13, 2006) was an American cartoonist best known as the creator of the comic strip Teena, which ran in newspapers from 1944 to 1966. In 1950, she became the first woman allowed to join the National Cartoonists Society.

https://womenincomics.fandom.com/wiki/Hilda_Terry

Are these Sundays? They are not strips. They may have been published on their own in the 'Women's' section? These are well-observed portraits of teenage female behavior. The visual style suits the mood of the cartoons. 
Personal Observation.
The cartoon on page #7 has the girls being offered a number of things to do, but are too bored and listless to do any of them. However, when the sun comes out, they perk up an do all of the activities. This is quite accurate. I am living where we have had rain and wind and cold and cloudy skies for most of the year. So most of the time I have no inclination to get active, but when the sun is out all day, its a different matter, suddenly I do things I have been putting off for ages and am in a more positive mood.
That is what you have to do with a strip like this, the reader should feel that the situations and the behaviour are accurately observed.
I enjoyed this, as I have all of the three strips I picked, and as often happened, I learned quite a few things I did not previously knew.
So, over to Robb for the next one.           

We got this set from an Australian publication.  So these are in the format that they appeared in the newspapers or magazines in Australia.  I had assumed they were Sunday strips, as they have too many panels to have been a daily horizontal strip.  Perhaps they appeared in a women's section of the newspapers (a Clothing/Style Section)?  But why would you have seen them there?  Maybe they were just one of the Sunday half-page strips in The Comics Section?

[The Australian Panther]

But why would you have seen them there?

That's easy. My mother and my grandmother were both readers and in those days some women's magazines had comic strips in 'children's sections'. Those magazines were where I was first exposed to both Mandrake and the Phantom for a start.
Also it was common to have women's magazines in Doctors and Dentists waiting rooms. Still is, actually. And comics.
I first read Barks story about,  ' the Terries and the Frmies' in a doctor's waiting room. When I think of that story, I remember where and when I read it, what the room looked like, and the location of the Doctors rooms including the street outside.   

They are not strips.

There are also cartoons not published as strips but as stand-alones. I can think of 'Family Circus' and 'Far Side' as two examples. The fact that they were posted in that format would also indicate that they were published that way.
To my eyes, they look like they were designed to be published that way.
cheers!