Print

[Robb_K]

Good morning in The UK and Europe, and greetings wherever else you may be.  This fortnight's theme will be Argo Publications' comic books, all of which are compilations of American newspaper strips.  Argo was established to bring newspaper strips to a wider audience.  Our two review books are Judge Parker #1 and Captain Easy # 1, by Roy Crane, both from 1956. 

Judge Parker's strip, was started by psychiatrist Nick Dallis, and drawn originally by former assistant on Buz Sawyer and Mary Worth, Dan Heilman.  It was started in 1952, seemingly as an attempt to mix the film success of Andy Hardy's judge father's guiding relationship with his son, and the interaction of the courts, criminal justice system, and police law enforcement with apprehending and sentencing criminals.  It tried to combine the temptations and hazards youth must navigate, with preteen boys' interest in action-based comics. 

It will be interesting to "Judge Parker" is too "preachy".  And if it were Roy Crane's earlier version of  "Captain Easy", it would have been interesting to determine if the latter was too heavily action-based, and the stories were too thin in plot and/or character development too be satisfying.  However, based on a cursory glance at its pages, it is clear that the latter comparison won't apply.  Rather, it would be more appropriate to compare to see which of the two is more "Soap Opra-ish".

Captain Easy was a very popular strip for many years, after that character was introduced into The "Wash Tubbs" strip, originally only intended to be a side character for that one story.  "Wash Tubbs" started in 1924, starring a short, plucky, young man, who was tired of a mundane, small town existence, and wanted to travel The World, and experience adventures.  It was popular in the 1920s and 1930s.  Captain Easy thrown in as a side character for one story, became so popular with readers, and so useful to Crane in moving Wash Tubbs' adventures along, that the author kept increasing Easy's role as a "Swashbuckling adventurer", and slowly phased Tubbs out, retiring him to marriage and a sedentary life, only appearing once in a great while, as a side character.  That situation was similar to what E.C. Segar did with Castor Oyl when his Popeye The Sailor came in and dominated his "Thimble Theatre".  Based on his ever-increasing popularity, Crane started Captain Easy's Sunday Page in 1933.  Crane retired in 1943, and Captain Easy continued on with other writers and artists.  The strips in this book were drawn by Leslie Turner(as signed), as they were published after Crane's retirement.

Judge Parker 1 can be found here:   https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=84987


Captain Easy 1 can be found here:   https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=28034



I look forward to reading all of your comments on the artwork, the stories, and the quality of the conversion from newspaper strip format to standard comic book format. 

For those of you who knew Captain Easy from his earlier, Roy Crane stories, or were expecting much more adventure and action from a character billed as a "Soldier Of Fortune", and think this later version of him is more of a "Soap Opera", feel free to review Argo's "Vic Flint #1", instead, or in addition.  It seems to have a plot with much more action.

[crashryan]

As it happened I read both of these books recently. The Argo newspaper strip books appeal to me. They tell complete stories unlike many Harvey series, the adaptations are respectful, and the printing is good.

Captain Easy #1

None of my family's newspapers carried NEA strips when I was growing up. My introduction to Wash Tubbs and Captain Easy came in the 1970s when various fan publishers began reprinting old daily strips. These reprints featured mostly Roy Crane's work. It wasn't until years later that I read Leslie Turner's stories, in a sadly short-lived zine called Big Fun Comics. I immediately fell in love with his version.

I believe no American newspaper strip had a more successful change of hands than Captain Easy did when Roy Crane turned it over to his friend and sometime assistant Leslie Turner. Their approaches were different. Crane's art was cartoonier and Turner favored character-driven mysteries over Crane's "lickety-pow" adventures. But the heart of the strip didn't change and Turner created many years' worth of good-looking, highly readable continuities.

Like many of Turner's mid-1950s tales, the Argo story leans toward soap opera in that the action revolves around personal relationships and domestic strife. This isn't to say that Turner never did action-adventure. One entertaining Big Fun continuity had Easy on the run across England, hunted as a murderer. But these smaller stories were becoming more common in 50s daily strips. This is a fair example of its type. I wonder if it would have worked better if we didn't know from the outset who the villain was and why she did what she did. However that may have been hard to sustain on a day-to-day basis. At any rate I wish we'd known more about Doris' husband. He's barely present and when he does show up he's a stereotyped distracted intellectual. Why did Doris marry him? Why did he marry Doris? Does he really love his son or merely tolerate him? I wound up feeling sorry that Doris got stuck with the guy. I don't think that was Turner's intention.

I admire Leslie Turner's artwork immensely. His style struck a fine balance between cartoony and realistic. He had a love for drawing diverse locales and his backgrounds are always a treat. Plus he drew pretty women. It's hard to see in this color comic, but Turner's mastery of Craftint shading was up there with Roy Crane's. The two grey tones gave his black-and-white panels a three-dimensional feeling. The comic book coloring job is very good. I'm glad that Argo avoided laying too much color over the grey tones. The two things don't always work well together.

In sum, not the world's most dramatic story, but solidly told and a pleasure to look at.

[crashryan]

Judge Parker #1

"One of America's greatest newspaper comics"? More like "one of America's more obscure newspaper comics."

Judge Parker appeared in the "other" newspaper (the one we didn't subscribe to) so I only saw a handful of disjointed episodes in the mid-to-late 1960s. The stories didn't make any sense and Harold LeDoux's artwork was dull, dull, dull. So the first thing that struck me when I read this Argo reprint was how good the art is.

From what I've read Dan Heilman had assisted on Buz Sawyer and Mary Worth before landing the Parker assignment. His style is an interesting mixture of Milton Caniff and the postwar soap style practiced by the likes of Ken Ernst and Leonard Starr. Don Markstein says that Heilman left Judge Parker in the mid-1960s to do a science fiction strip but died shortly thereafter at only 44 years of age.

The scripts were written by Nick Dallas, the psychiatrist-turned-writer whose stories for Apartment 3-G are usually worth reading. On the other hand he was also responsible for Rex Morgan, M.D., a medical soap opera that cured more than one case of insomnia.

This issue's story held my interest and offered a few mild twists. I was surprised to see so much alcohol abuse in an American newspaper comic. I suppose editors accepted it in the story's moralistic context. Although we've seen the social climbing mama once too often, the plot wasn't so bad. It was the characters I had a problem with.

Judge Parker himself is incredibly boring. Thankfully he doesn't do much preaching. In fact he doesn't do much at all except smoke his pipe. I'll give Dallas the benefit of the doubt and assume that in other stories Parker plays a more significant role. Dan Heilman's otherwise excellent art unfortunately doesn't help. Parker's inactivity, combined with Heilman's Caniffian quirk of having everyone speak with their mouths closed, makes the poor judge look like a wax dummy.

Author Dallas tries hard to give the kids realistic personalities. Parker's seventeen-year-old son Randy behaves like a real high school boy, bouncing from mood to mood, now dreamy and self-involved, now moralizing and pseudo-intellectual. Dallas overdoes it a bit but he makes an earnest effort. If only he'd have given some of that personality to Judge Parker.

This story adapts fairly well to comic book form. Dallas' script seems to have had more recap dialogue than Turners, so some of the panel-to-panel transitions are a bit clunky. However the story gives readers their money's worth. The abrupt ending is jarring. The main plot threads are tied up satisfactorily but the hurried conclusion has a strong "to be continued" aftertaste. Oh well, they had to end it somewhere.

Final judgement on the Judge: good story with excellent art. I would gladly read another Judge Parker comic, if only to see whether the esteemed gentleman ever opens his mouth.

[gregjh]

Judge Parker is interesting. Promising "wholesome family" stories is so non-edgy that it's almost edgy to the modern eye. I'm somewhat impressed that a fairly straightforward  and simple plot had enough turns to make an interesting narrative for an entire comic. The moment when Randy asks his father if he was a psychopathic personality seemed a bit incongruous, however! The characters are quite predictable  for their era but I do like the way Judge has wisdom and caring enough to help his son without being OTT about it.

[K1ngcat]

Judge Parker

So Argo promise "wholesome fun for the whole family." And wholesome it is, though I could hardly call it fun.  The man to man talk on the splash page is meant to intro us into the (otherwise unrelated) storyline, which deals with wholesome topics like bad parenting, teenage drinking, and murder accusations. I think the idea is to comfort middle class parents into believing that the American dream will really work for them and their children. No matter how awful things get, a steady head and a trust in the system will see you through to the rather abrupt end page.

My favourite line in the whole comic is "Fortunately Mrs Valentine, in a democracy such as ours, neither politics nor prestige can influence justice." Although I quite like "Social prestige comes as a reward for good citizenship." Hopefully you can feel my sarcasm from here. On the plus side, Judge Parker is a fairly decent man and an understanding parent, who doesn't seem to overly pressure his son, or expect too much of him, though god knows he's a humourless bugger and that pipe may have seemed more avuncular and less carcinogenic back in 1956.

The art is very neat and tidy in a sub-Caniff sort of style though as previously noted, everyone still manages to say a lot without opening their mouths. It's hard to get the feel of the whole thing on one issue, there seems to be more drama and excitement in #2 when a mob threatens to put a hit on the Judge, but I only skimmed it. Anyway, it's all very well executed, but it's not exactly my kinda comic.

More later
K1ngcat

[The Australian Panther]

The man to man talk on the splash page is meant to intro us into the (otherwise unrelated) storyline, which deals with wholesome topics like bad parenting, teenage drinking, and murder accusations. I think the idea is to comfort middle class parents into believing that the American dream will really work for them and their children. No matter how awful things get, a steady head and a trust in the system will see you through to the rather abrupt end page. 

Seduction of the innocent came out in 1954.
This book was published in 1956. I'm thinking that this strip and the ARGO company is a reaction to that.
Lets put out some comics and strips that are wholesome and appeal to the parents. There may have been pressure on the strips from the Newspaper syndicate and the publishers too.
It's always a mistake not to appeal directly to the consumer, in this case those who buy the comics, who were highly unlikely to be impressed.
This is the mistake Hollywood and the big two are making right now, ignoring the fans and going WOKE.
cheers.   

[K1ngcat]

Captain Easy

I find this a lot easier to take. Turner's art isn't as stiff as Heilman's, and there's a nice blend between the realistic and the cartoony. He also uses "halftone" to great effect, and the colours are well chosen, not obscuring too much detail. Easy here seems to be portrayed as a good-hearted drifter, going around righting wrongs as and where he finds them (though heaven knows how he survives, perhaps a military pension?) He certainly seems to win people's trust pretty easily, and trust, or the lack of it, seems to be the matter at the heart of the plot here.

The single panel in the top right of the first page seems out of place in the chronology of the story- it looks as if it should have been in the last page, not the first, and does give away some part of the plot, making me wonder what  it's purpose was. Otherwise, the tale is a rather gentle whodunnit, though the reader has a good idea of who's doing what from a fairly early stage.  I'm surprised at Easy making himself a guinea pig for unknown pharmaceuticals, and I'd hope that no young readers copied his actions. That wouldn't be wholesome at all! 

All the filler pages that come after the story are amusing yet somehow bizarre. Though I wouldn't personally volunteer to be fondled by an octopus, I think I'd prefer that to trying to bite it's eyes out. I mean, really, who is that information aimed at? All that aside, I see CB+ has some more Captain Easy elsewhere, I might be tempted to give them a whirl.

Nice choice, Robb, many thanks.
All the best
K1ngcat

[The Australian Panther]

Judge Parker 1
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=84987
Back when I was a kid and regularly reading newspaper strips, and when there were still 'dramatic'; newspaper strips to read, this kind, 'Soap Opera' type things, were the ones I found it hard to like.
I think because it comes across as a lecture and nobody likes being lectured. 
Our main newspaper Ran Juliet Jones which was good for the art, [Stan Drake] otherwise I could do without it.
Digression. I notice we have no Juliet Jones on CB+. Is that still under copyright?
So, to the book.
The BnW logo and the all white background of the cover make the book look cheap.
And no colour on the inside cover. 
On the cover, the Judge is staring into space and the woman in the Witness chair is apparently asleep.
I would just have to pick that up off the newsstand.
Man to Man talk or Man to dog talk?
Temptation, thy name is female.
'Randy' is portrayed as doing the right thing, so how come he comes across as a spineless wimp in his first conversation with Kathy? 
The story is well-thought-out, well-paced and develops well. 
The narrative is really about snobbery and the corruption that comes with power and the ability to use it as a means to 'save face'.
I felt that the abrupt ending might mean that in the original strip, the story goes on with the father questioning the coroner's verdict.
Even so, Newspaper strips at the time were read by adults, but I can't see many teenagers picking this one up.           

[Quirky Quokka]

Judge Parker

I hadn't heard of this one, but it does seem to be banking on the popularity of the old Andy Hardy movies. The Judge, the teenage son, the older sister, the cook/housekeeper - all fairly similar to the movies. The only overt difference is that Andy's mother was in those old movies, whereas Judge Parker is a widower in this one. For me, the comic doesn't have the charm of the originals. It's okay, but not all that memorable.

A few questions/comments about the story:

On p. 7, why does Randy call the housekeeper Mrs Benson in one frame, and the more informal Lila in the next frame? Just a proofreading error, or is Randy being impolite and overly familiar?

Later on p. 7, Judge Parker refers to St Paul's words about it not being well for man to live alone, but I think he's referring to the passage in Genesis 2:18 which was not written by St Paul.

p. 13 - Why does Randy think he's a psychopath, and why is Judge Parker smoking a pipe at 2.30 in the morning?

p. 24 - Why wasn't Kathy at least taken to the hospital for observation after almost drowning?

p. 26 - When Kathy's mother tells Judge Parker that Kathy is being implicated in the death of Dave, she's worried because Dave's father is a 'politically powerful man'. Judge Parker reassures her by saying, 'Fortunately, Mrs Valentine, in a democracy like ours, neither politics nor prestige can influence justice.'  If only that was true.

Award for worst dialogue - p. 12


Kathy: Are ... are you angry with me, Randy?

Randy: No! Women do foolish things sometimes and ... well ... and we men have to ... sort of protect them ... protect them from themselves.

Kathy: You have so much character, Randy ... and I ... I'm so insignificant.

I know it's 1956, but good grief! Katharine Hepburn wouldn't have stood for that in her 1940s movies. I'll refrain from commenting further, but Helen Reddy's 'I Am Woman' is playing in my head. 

Overall

It had an interesting premise. The way the prestigious and powerful Dave treated Kathy is still relevant today, given the recent 'Me Too' movement. This may have been a good message for teenagers (and hopefully parents?), that character doesn't always come with money and high social status. Though I did wonder why Mrs Valentine didn't regard a judge as being of high status. Maybe you had to have a lot of money to tick that box.

I wasn't crazy about the art, especially the women's faces. In some frames, Kathy and Ann looked like sour old hags.

An interesting sample from the times. I probably wouldn't seek out more of these, but it was interesting to read.

Thanks for the selection, Robb.

[Quirky Quokka]

Captain Easy

I'd never heard of this character before, so aside from the label on the cover that said he was a soldier of fortune, I didn't know what to expect. I wondered how come he was able to spend so much time near Castaway House, but I guess he's self-employed so could choose what he did.

I liked the story more than I thought I would. The art was quite good and there were a few twists and turns. Though I did wonder why it took so long for the new wife to realise that Mrs Milbank was writing the letters. It had to be someone with intimate knowledge of the goings-on in the house. But apart from that, it made for a good Rebecca-esque story.

The Fillers

I didn't read the short story, but I did have a look at 'The Curious World' and the 'Righterong' pages. It's not often that a children's comic asks whether you'd like to be fondled by something, in this case an octopus. But if biting out its eyes is instant death, is that for you or the octopus? Eewww!!!

I guess it's good to know that isinglass is made from the air bladders of certain kinds of fish. But what in heck is isinglass? (Rhetorical question - I googled it - though I'm not sure I'm any clearer). Is it common in the US?

I also wondered who counted the 6 million bacteria on the housefly.

Overall

I liked this comic more than I thought I would. I gather each of his adventures is quite different, so I might check out some others.

Thanks for the selection, Robb.

[Quirky Quokka]

Captain Easy #1

At any rate I wish we'd known more about Doris' husband. He's barely present and when he does show up he's a stereotyped distracted intellectual. Why did Doris marry him? Why did he marry Doris? Does he really love his son or merely tolerate him? I wound up feeling sorry that Doris got stuck with the guy. I don't think that was Turner's intention.

It took me a while to get around to reading this one, Crash, but I wondered the same as you. Why did she marry the old coot? She doesn't seem to be the type to have married him for his money. Does he do a backflip and change his ways when he returns? We'll never know. Let's imagine he does and they all live happily ever after.

Cheers

QQ

[Quirky Quokka]

Captain Easy

Easy here seems to be portrayed as a good-hearted drifter, going around righting wrongs as and where he finds them (though heaven knows how he survives, perhaps a military pension?) He certainly seems to win people's trust pretty easily, and trust, or the lack of it, seems to be the matter at the heart of the plot here.

All the filler pages that come after the story are amusing yet somehow bizarre. Though I wouldn't personally volunteer to be fondled by an octopus, I think I'd prefer that to trying to bite it's eyes out. I mean, really, who is that information aimed at?

Nice choice, Robb, many thanks.
All the best
K1ngcat

Hi K1ngcat, I also wondered how Easy was making ends meet. We don't really have any back story to go on. Hopefully they paid him for the few days of work as a chauffeur.

And I agree re the filler pages. What kid wouldn't want to read facts about biting out the eyes of an octopus and learn about French assassins. All good wholesome fun 

Cheers

QQ

[The Australian Panther]

Captain Easy 1
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=28034

in 1937, the Newspaper Enterprise Association syndicate, which employed Crane and owned the strip, introduced a new policy requiring Sunday pages designed so the panels could be rearranged into different formats. Crane then turned the Sunday pages over to his assistant Leslie Turner so he could concentrate on the daily strip.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Easy
This answers the question I was about to ask. The pages look different, somewhat denser than normal comic book pages. Since this is Turner's work, I believe that the preexisting coloured Sunday pages were cut-up and then  photographed before being printed.
How Easy supported himself economically is a question you are not supposed to ask about any comics character.And most of the time we don't.
Anybody know what that location is on the first page? Looks like a real location.
The art is good for this kind of strip, but it's largely a verbal story, the art more than adequately supports the words, but doesn't add much to them.
Martin comes across as a self-centered, easily led, unlikable person. You just want to smack him.
Second-last panel on page 6 is a jump, and clearly material has been left out. It seems that the full original story was longer and has been cut down to fit the comic book format.  And the text boxes will have been increased at the expense of the visual narrative. 
No real explanation as to how or why Jo is so close and trusting with Captain Easy. [Who doesn't seem to be doing much fishing]
The curious thing is that Martin doesn't come back into the story again. Some father. Why did Doris marry him again?
Easy is hardly in this story, there are whole pages without him.
As I've said before when a strip is reprinted in this format, the original pacing can be lost so the effect on the audience is quite different.
I liked the art but the story was disappointing.
William Ferguson's art is very good on the puzzle pages but I think many of these need a degree of knowledge above that of the average comic-book buying adolescent. 

Thank you, Robb.
K1ngcat on Monday!
   

   

[Quirky Quokka]

Captain Easy 1

William Ferguson's art is very good on the puzzle pages but I think many of these need a degree of knowledge above that of the average comic-book buying adolescent. 

Yes, it seemed like an odd mix that made me wonder who the intended audience was. Though there were some interesting snippets in there.

[crashryan]

I guess it's good to know that isinglass is made from the air bladders of certain kinds of fish. But what in heck is isinglass? (Rhetorical question - I googled it - though I'm not sure I'm any clearer). Is it common in the US?

QQ,  I followed you down the Insinglass rabbit hole and was amazed by how convoluted the story is. Not to mention how many explanations are offered as unquestioned fact, but offer only the vaguest evidence to support their claim. Since this sort of thing is food and drink to me, I offer what I learned for the benefit of anyone who might wonder about Isinglass but not be stupid enough to waste time researching it.

First off, let me say that I'd be surprised if many Americans have ever heard of Isinglass. If they have, chances are it's through the 1943 musical Oklahoma! in which Curly sings in praise of "The Surrey with the Fringe on Top:"

"With Isinglass curtains you can roll right down
In case there's a change in the weather."

This suggests that Isinglass is a flexible waterproof sheet that can be rolled up when the weather's nice and let down to protect against rain.

But the comic book "Righterong" feature says Isinglass is made from "the air bladders of certain fish." Did people actually make flexible side curtains for buggies out of fish bladders? Well, no. But the statement in the "Righterong" factoid is Right while the picture is Rong.

After surfacing from the depths of obscurity I'd learned that there are three distinct definitions of isinglass.

(1) a semitransparent whitish very pure gelatin prepared from the air bladders of fishes (such as sturgeons) and used especially as a clarifying agent and in jellies and glue. [Quoted from the Merriam-Webster dictionary website]. M-W doesn't mention another important product using isinglass as a clarifier: beer. Look up how Guinness is made, picture the bladder of a dead sturgeon, and see if your attitude toward stout has changed.

The fascinating thing about this kind of isinglass is that M-W traces its use back to the 16th century--to 1535, in fact. M-W speculates that the word (which had nothing to do with glass) originated

"probably by folk etymology from obsolete Dutch huizenblas, from Middle Dutch huusblase, from huus sturgeon + blase bladder"

But then they go on to cloud the waters again in their "recent examples on the Web" section.  A 2019 statement refers to a "paper [that] was made of cloth, sometimes silk and isinglass, which is somewhat see-through and made from fish air bladders." This is followed by a 2017 reference to dark Norwegian cabins "many of which did not have windows until the invention of isinglass in the 1600s." I was unable to find any other references to the translucent cloth. As for the second example, it sounds suspiciously like the article writer (a columnist in the Milwaukee Sentinel writing about Norwegian wood carving) may have conflated fish-bladder isinglass with the other definition of isinglass.

(2) "Mica especially when in thin transparent sheets." I've no idea why the mica "glass" came to be called isinglass, but it was a common term for muscovite, a mineral which was first known as "Muscovy-glass, a name given to the mineral in Elizabethan England due to its use in medieval Russia (Muscovy) as a cheaper alternative to glass in windows. This usage became widely known in England during the sixteenth century (Wikipedia article). This rock could be separated into large transparent sheets and was strongly heat-resistant. This sort of isinglass was often used for windows into furnaces or ovens. It's used widely today, including in electronics, paint, tires, wallpaper and even cosmetics.

Mica was thin, transparent, light, and weatherproof. However it was not flexible. It couldn't be "rolled up" like cloth. On an automobile history site and old-timer posted a family photo of a pre-1920 touring car featuring what his elders called "isinglass curtains." These were heavy (probably canvas) side panels which hung from the top of the open-sided car and latched to the running board. Six windows, about a foot high and two feet wide, had been sewn into the canvas. It's possible they were mica. The canvas side curtains could be rolled to some extent--more precisely folded--to store them. No one seemed to know, though, whether they really were mica or actually our third isinglass definition:

(3) A generic everyday term once used to describe various forms of celluloid and other early plastics. Several online commenters mentioned their grandparents referring to transparent polyethylene items as "isinglass." Though polyethylene was invented in the 1890s, it didn't enter general use until the mid-1940s, its development spurred by World War II. Adults in that era would have learned the word isinglass in their youth and applied it to new plastic products.

"Adirondack Motorbooks and Collectibles" posted a definition which rolls up (har har) all the definitions into one:

"“ISINGLASS—typically a window made from thin sheets made of a material other than glass. Early isinglass was made from a transparent sheet of gelatin, processed from the inner lining of a sturgeon’s bladder. As it was flexible, it was perfect for the storm curtains and windows on early touring cars. The term is now commonly used as any non-glass sheet material which passes light, such as mica, oiled paper, celluloid or plastic. Early isinglass of all varieties yellowed and scratched easily.” (emphasis added).

I am still not convinced that storm curtain windows were processed from gelatin. For me the important point is that  an array of different materials have been called isinglass. This point led me to a fourth--and thankfully last--use of the word. It turns out that "isinglass" now can refer to the weather-resistant, transparent vinyl "window material" used on pleasure boats. Windows made from this stuff can indeed roll up, just like in the song, and are not only weatherproof and scratch resistant, they can be "chemically resistant to suntan lotion, insect repellent and jet fuel vapor." The quote comes from an isinglass wholesaler's website, where they state categorically

"The confusion surrounding the word also comes from the fact that isinglass is semitransparent gelatin found in the air bladders of fish, particularly sturgeons, hake and cod. This isinglass is harvested and processed for a variety of uses. It was used throughout the 19th and 20th centuries in the manufacture of glue and cement. It’s still used today as a clarifying agent in jellies, wine and beer. The isinglass prepared from fish bladders has nothing to do with transparent window material; they just share a name.

Class dismissed. There will be a test on Friday.

[Quirky Quokka]

I guess it's good to know that isinglass is made from the air bladders of certain kinds of fish. But what in heck is isinglass? (Rhetorical question - I googled it - though I'm not sure I'm any clearer). Is it common in the US?

QQ,  I followed you down the Insinglass rabbit hole and was amazed by how convoluted the story is. Not to mention how many explanations are offered as unquestioned fact, but offer only the vaguest evidence to support their claim. Since this sort of thing is food and drink to me, I offer what I learned for the benefit of anyone who might wonder about Isinglass but not be stupid enough to waste time researching it.

First off, let me say that I'd be surprised if many Americans have ever heard of Isinglass. If they have, chances are it's through the 1943 musical Oklahoma! in which Curly sings in praise of "The Surrey with the Fringe on Top:"

"With Isinglass curtains you can roll right down
In case there's a change in the weather."

This suggests that Isinglass is a flexible waterproof sheet that can be rolled up when the weather's nice and let down to protect against rain.

But the comic book "Righterong" feature says Isinglass is made from "the air bladders of certain fish." Did people actually make flexible side curtains for buggies out of fish bladders? Well, no. But the statement in the "Righterong" factoid is Right while the picture is Rong.

Class dismissed. There will be a test on Friday.

LOL Crash, you have WAY too much time on your hands. Though it does raise the question of what those poor readers in 1956 would have done without the benefits of Dr Google! And of course, now 'Surrey With the Fringe on Top' is my earworm - Aargghh

On a tangent from that, would you believe that even though I am in Australia, our high school song was sung to the tune of Oklahoma? I'm not kidding!

'Hendra students altogether
Hey hey hey hey H.  --- E. N. D. R. A.
High school high school, hip hooray, Hendra High School
Where the friends you meet, you'll always greet
Whether at the school or far away?'

And so it continued for three embarrassing minutes during awards nights. Rumour has it that the music teacher made it up as a joke, but the principal loved it.

End of tangent. 

QQ

[K1ngcat]

I guess it's good to know that isinglass is made from the air bladders of certain kinds of fish. But what in heck is isinglass? (Rhetorical question - I googled it - though I'm not sure I'm any clearer). Is it common in the US?

QQ,  I followed you down the Insinglass rabbit hole and was amazed by how convoluted the story is. Not to mention how many explanations are offered as unquestioned fact, but offer only the vaguest evidence to support their claim. Since this sort of thing is food and drink to me, I offer what I learned for the benefit of anyone who might wonder about Isinglass but not be stupid enough to waste time researching it.

First off, let me say that I'd be surprised if many Americans have ever heard of Isinglass. If they have, chances are it's through the 1943 musical Oklahoma! in which Curly sings in praise of "The Surrey with the Fringe on Top:"

"With Isinglass curtains you can roll right down
In case there's a change in the weather."

This suggests that Isinglass is a flexible waterproof sheet that can be rolled up when the weather's nice and let down to protect against rain.

Yes, crash, and that verse from "Surrey" has remained the only reference to isinglass that I've been aware  of throughout my seventy-two years of life. Thanks for the extended  information.  I join the Quirky Quokka in observing that you seem to have quite a bit of time on your hands! 

All the best.
K1ngcat

[The Australian Panther]

Crash said,

Look up how Guinness is made, picture the bladder of a dead sturgeon, and see if your attitude toward stout has changed. 

Since Sturgeon are currently as rare as hen's teeth and as correspondingly expensive, I doubt that Insinglass is currently an ingredient.
In any case I consider the Australian Coopers Stout, on tap, a superior drop. 

Cheers!

[Morgus]

Both were a lot of fun.
Judge Parker seemed to be trying to convince me he was NOT Rex Morgan, every time he held up his pipe and displayed his white hair sidewalls. It had that same ‘slow burn’ feel that Rex did (and does). Not much happens, and like ‘Crash says, everybody talks with their mouths closed, but you keep reading anyway. The one thing I didn’t buy was the son refusing to get hooked up with nurses by his older sister. Any guy I knew would have jumped for that.

I grew up with Buzz Sawyer in his late 60’s years, so going back to Captain Easy was something I’ve wanted to do, but just never got around to, so thanks for that.

[Robb_K]

Judge Parker 1

Judge Parker
I've really enjoyed all of your comments, many of which, are exactly what I would be writing about now, in some detail.  Even the poking fun jokes, and tongue-in-cheek comments I was prepared to make have already been made by several posters.  I do agree that the psychologist-author, Dallas, went a bit too far overboard trying to introduce psychology-related points.  For a "Soap Opera-style" strip, this story held my interest to the alarmingly abrupt (and thus) disappointing ending.  But, I agree with Panther that this strip could well have been a reaction to the mid 1950s attacks against comics for "corrupting" our youth, and the 1950s return towards more conservatism and "family values".  This story was way too "preachy" regarding trusting in "The American Dream", the virtues of good parenting, and how adolescents can go astray.  I, too, feel as though this story MUST have continued with Dave's father questioning the Coroner's Hearing's findings, and the additional suspense of worrying about the possibility of the innocent girl being punished for a crime she didn't commit.

I suppose that this story is supposed to take place near one of The Great Lakes, or Lake of The Woods (between Manitoba, far western Ontario, and Minnesota, as they are the only lakes that are patrolled by The US (and Canadian) Coast Guards.  Also, the lake was large enough to have very high waves in a storm, and to not be able to see its other shore.  Are there any other non-national border lakes in USA that are patrolled by The US coastguard, like Canada's Lake Nipigon?  However, the high hills in the background and lack of conifer trees doesn't seem to fit with a US/Canada border area setting.

I do agree that Randy's strength of character to do the right thing didn't seem congruous with how he caved in to Kathy's every whim and demand, early in the story.

I noticed that the packaging editor left in way too many narrative boxes that repeated what happened in earlier daily strips,that should really have been edited out of the comic book version.  They make the reader stop and wonder why they were left in. I understand that they are needed in the newspaper strip, so that readers new to the strip, or who missed reading one or more past daily episodes will have the context to understand what is happening in the one being read.  But, that is a basic task of the editor in adapting the strip to the comic book format.

I also had a problem with Randy's sister Ann's apparent "male pattern baldness, above her temples, reaching well back towards the middle of her head in several shots, and even well past the middle in the panel of her first appearance. 

Based on what I saw in a cursory flip through the pages, I had expected this story to be boring, and soap operalike.  Instead, I was pleasantly surprised to find it entertaining.

Trapped! - Text Story
This story had an interesting start.  It is a bit unbelievable that a castle would have only the owner present, with no servants or workers.  But the villain having a henchman, and other helpers involved in his mission as a spy or saboteur, would complicate the story, and likely make it too long to fit in 2 pages.  It had a good premise and plot.  But, the short 2-page limit necessitated cutting off the story immediately after its climax, and also causing the hero's rescue to be too easy, undoing all the good atmosphere, plotting and characterisation built up to the climax.

[Robb_K]

I guess it's good to know that isinglass is made from the air bladders of certain kinds of fish. But what in heck is isinglass? (Rhetorical question - I googled it - though I'm not sure I'm any clearer). Is it common in the US?

QQ,  I followed you down the Insinglass rabbit hole and was amazed by how convoluted the story is. Not to mention how many explanations are offered as unquestioned fact, but offer only the vaguest evidence to support their claim. Since this sort of thing is food and drink to me, I offer what I learned for the benefit of anyone who might wonder about Isinglass but not be stupid enough to waste time researching it.

First off, let me say that I'd be surprised if many Americans have ever heard of Isinglass. If they have, chances are it's through the 1943 musical Oklahoma! in which Curly sings in praise of "The Surrey with the Fringe on Top:"

"With Isinglass curtains you can roll right down
In case there's a change in the weather."

This suggests that Isinglass is a flexible waterproof sheet that can be rolled up when the weather's nice and let down to protect against rain.

But the comic book "Righterong" feature says Isinglass is made from "the air bladders of certain fish." Did people actually make flexible side curtains for buggies out of fish bladders? Well, no. But the statement in the "Righterong" factoid is Right while the picture is Rong.

Class dismissed. There will be a test on Friday.

LOL Crash, you have WAY too much time on your hands. Though it does raise the question of what those poor readers in 1956 would have done without the benefits of Dr Google! And of course, now 'Surrey With the Fringe on Top' is my earworm - Aargghh

On a tangent from that, would you believe that even though I am in Australia, our high school song was sung to the tune of Oklahoma? I'm not kidding!

'Hendra students altogether
Hey hey hey hey H.  --- E. N. D. R. A.
High school high school, hip hooray, Hendra High School
Where the friends you meet, you'll always greet
Whether at the school or far away?'

And so it continued for three embarrassing minutes during awards nights. Rumour has it that the music teacher made it up as a joke, but the principal loved it.

End of tangent. 

QQ

Real life is often stranger than anything someone could dream up! 

[SuperScrounge]

Judge Parker #1

Judge Parker
Man, that Kathy's a bitch. Oddly enough her awful behavior at the beginning didn't really play much of a point in the rest of the story as the writer switched from her bad behavior to her cold fish of a mother.

There were a few points where one could tell where a comic strip ended, but panels five and six on page 29 stood out as a bit of a bad edit as both panels have basically the same info. Probably should have not used panel six.

Trapped
Okay text tory.


Captain Easy #1

Anyone else get the Eagles song Take It Easy running through their head with the character name? Captain Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeasy...
Apologies if you now have that stuck in your head.

Turns out we had read this book in week 126.

Captain Easy
Wow, they included two recap panels in the story that just repeated information we already knew??? Was the editor asleep on the job?

Testing if a pill has been tampered with by taking them? Yikes! Don't try this at home, kids!

The Desperate Men
Okay.

The factoid cartoons were okay.

[Robb_K]

Captain Easy 1

Captain Easy
The issue of income for Captain Easy is not a problem for me.  As a highly-skilled, extremely intelligent, super-athletic "soldier of fortune" (mercenary soldier (both as high-ranking officer and special forces special operations expert, spy, special agent, free-lance detective, air pilot, ship captain, cowboy, big game hunter,  and stuntman), highly experienced in so many fields, at a very high performance level, he was able to earn lots of money in short stints of work in special circumstances.  So he could have long periods of time off work, to spend on whatever might catch his fancy. 

That was a bit like my own first couple decades as a young adult, working on UN and World Bank projects in 3rd World countries that lasted 8-9 months at a time, and earned so much money that I could afford to be off work for 3-4 months each year, and spend it skiing, mountain climbing and trekking in 3rd World countries (and some in Canada and Europe as well) on my way to and from my project sites, and could stay in places I liked for extended periods, without having planned that beforehand.

This story had a similar"Soap Opera" feel to it, also with a strong Film Noir flavour, especially with the villainess housekeeper having such a devious plot to keep control of her boss' household, which involved blackmailing his young wife, and terrorising his son.  It was also a psychological drama, which felt somewhat like Dallas' Judge Parker story.  She was so determined to not lose her power over Professor Frayne that she hired a private dick to look into Mrs. Frayne's private life, to find something to use against her, and thought nothing of making The professor's son's life miserable, as long as doing so helped her reach her goals.
The artwork is competent, and the dark colouring helps make the mood and atmosphere.  I like the villain drugging Mrs. Frayne, and the ghost scenes to scare Bobby, and the plan to use the fire to "prove" that Mrs. Frayne wasn't capable of taking care of Bobby, or running the household.

The Desperate Men - Text Story
I assume that by "The Canadian Northwest", the author was referring to "The Northwest Territories".  He stated that "by December, the lakes and most of the streams were frozen solid."  I'd guess that in that subarctic area, they'd have been frozen solid before the start of November.  This tale of fugitive criminals terrorising a mother and young son in their cabin, reminds me of an episode of "Sergeant Preston of The Mounties".  It's a typical Western genre story of a young boy needing to behave like a man, all too early in his life, to save himself and his mother, while his father is away.  It had good pacing, and suspense.  Even though all readers know that no one will die in such stories, we don't know how the good folks will be saved.

Overall Assessment
Just like "Judge Parker", this story held my interest the whole way, and I liked its Noir feel very much, especially because of the twisted villainess, who is so unfeeling of any others, in her irrational plot to go after the far-from-concrete goal of "controlling" her household, including making an innocent young child's life miserable.

[Quirky Quokka]

Captain Easy 1

Captain Easy
The issue of income for Captain Easy is not a problem for me.  As a highly-skilled, extremely intelligent, super-athletic "soldier of fortune" (mercenary soldier (both as high-ranking officer and special forces special operations expert, spy, special agent, free-lance detective, air pilot, ship captain, cowboy, big game hunter,  and stuntman), highly experienced in so many fields, at a very high performance level, he was able to earn lots of money in short stints of work in special circumstances.  So he could have long periods of time off work, to spend on whatever might catch his fancy. 

That was a bit like my own first couple decades as a young adult, working on UN and World Bank projects in 3rd World countries that lasted 8-9 months at a time, and earned so much money that I could afford to be off work for 3-4 months each year, and spend it skiing, mountain climbing and trekking in 3rd World countries (and some in Canada and Europe as well) on my way to and from my project sites, and could stay in places I liked for extended periods, without having planned that beforehand.

What an interesting life you've led, Robb. I bet you could tell lots of good stories around a campfire.

Cheers

QQ

[Quirky Quokka]

Captain Easy #1

Anyone else get the Eagles song Take It Easy running through their head with the character name? Captain Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeasy...
Apologies if you now have that stuck in your head.

Well, I didn't before, SuperScrounge, but I do now!  Thanks a bunch!  LOL - I guess there are worse earworms. 

Cheers

QQ