Police Comics #6
Cover probably Gill Fox, cartoonist responsible for Torchy, and quite a few one page features on sporting celebrities that pop up here and there in Quality comics. He never quite grasped the dynamics for convincing action heroes but at least his covers were striking and colourful.
The Firebrand. Signed Reed Crandall, and I have no reason to doubt those credits, realistic action figures and facial features, his best work was on the long-running Blackhawk series. Another millionaire playboy/masked vigilante, this time clad theatrically in red bandana and see- through shirt, his sidekick is an ex-boxer sidekick called Slugger who acts as butler, chauffeur, and extra muscle. Not entirely unique but the art carries it off. His last appearance is in #10, by which time Crandall seems to have quit the strip
711. Geo. Brenner's series about a man who allows himself to be framed and becomes a lifer, tunnels out of prison, and then goes about as a vigilante, naming himself by his prison number. Heaven knows why nobody connects the two, and lord only knows who created his purple costume or where he hides it. Brenner's artistic skills are limited, yet he served as Quality's art editor on a number of titles. Also responsible for The Clock, giving Brenner the chance to name the strip "The Clock Strikes." Over an astonishingly long run, his masked hero morphed into a Spirit clone in Crack Comics. (See Crack #28 for another steal from Kiss Of The Cobra.)
Eagle Evans. I'm not mad about aviation strips, apart from Blackhawk, Terry & the Pirates, and Greasemonkey Griffin, but this isn't too bad. The artist is Witmer Williams, a former Disney animator, and the illustrations for this strip are at least neat and tidy, though I couldn't tell you how accurate the planes are. Like Firebrand, it lasted ten issues, then from Police Comics #11 a lot of the regular strips changed, allowing Eisner's Spirit to join in the fun.
Chic Carter. Vernon Henkel's work has an Eisner-influenced style, though it gets a bit clunky in places. Nevertheless he did quite a bit of work for Quality including Space Legion, and The Whistler. As previously noted this story rips off Cornell Woolrich's Kiss Of The Cobra but I don't suppose American teenagers of the time were conversant with the works of the Master of Noir. Chic Carter later developed a mask and costume as The Sword.
Plastic Man. The story's silly and the artwork's still a "work in progress" but Jack Cole's malleable manhunter, IMHO, developed into one of the world's most unique superheroes. Copied in Marvel's Mr Fantastic and DC's Elongated Man, his powers of physical mimicry (including tricks like turning himself into a clothesline complete with washing) and his skill as a detective, combined with an off-the-wall sense of humour, make him stand out in comic's panoply of heroes. Besides, I have great affection for Woozy Winks, the most humanly fallible sidekick a superhero ever had. The Plas that I grew up with probably owes more to Andre LeBlanc and Alex Kotzky but Cole's kooky character, one of those rare heroes who lived without a secret identity, will always have a place in my heart.
Steel Kerrigan. Al Bryant turns in some very acceptable artwork on this action/detective series. Later he became the regular artist on Eisner's creation Doll Man, a forerunner of shrinking heroes like The Atom and Ant Man. Kerrigan is a standard action/detective type, but appropriate for a magazine called Police Comics.
The Mouthpiece. I find Fred Guardineer's art a little on the stiff side, and his hero here doesn't differ greatly from Eisner's Spirit, except for his lack of warmth and originality. #11 will see him replaced by the real thing. Guardineer created Merlin the Magician for Quality as well as his clone Zatara, still in the DC Universe. Derf og ot yaw!
Phantom Lady. The title of a Cornell Woolrich (doesn't that name get around?) mystery published under his pen name William Irish, this character was the work of Arthur Peddy and an unnamed writer, and features one of comicdom's earliest masked heroines, aided only by her ingenuity and her black light projector. In a later incarnation, the character was leased to Fox Publications and the art taken over by African American artist Matt Baker, a proponent of the "good girl" style where attractive female figures dominated the page. But let's not detract from this original version, where the lady's still attractive, adventurous, and worthy of attention.
The Human Bomb. Paul Gustavson was an extremely capable artist, and handled a number of Superhero and Comedy titles. I liked his heroes, like Alias The Spider, and he did a cracking job on Jack Cole's Quicksilver, but he had a habit of thinking it was funny just for people to have names like Heustace or Throckmorton. Still how many times have you read a line like "A giant vibrator! So that's what caused the earthquake!" Did the earth move for you, reader?
Burp the Twerp. I never really got into Jack Cole's one page gag features, of which he did many. I guess it boosted his pay packet although I think other things he did were more historically important. Burp is some kind of superhero parody whose powers were many and varied according to what joke Cole wanted to tell. But I'm still not laughing! The name of Dewey Drip's creator seems to have been lost to posterity, but I don't mind none.
Overall what strikes me most about Police Comics #6 is the overwhelming accuracy of the artwork by comparison to other mixed bag features of the day. It's almost all well executed, and (Cole excepted) anatomically correct. The stories may be the same throwaway rubbish as all kid's comics of that time, but it was all so well executed. Quality comics were well named, and the products of the Eisner/Iger studio stand the test of time far better than many of their imitators. I guess you could mark me down as a fan!
I'll look at The Window another day. Thanks for posting, QQ.
All the best
K1ngcat
Author
Topic: Reading Group #284 Cornell Woolrich stories (Read 3380 times)
