Print

[The Australian Panther]

No overall theme for these except that they are work from the very beginning of the Golden Age.

Exciting Comics #2 has just been posted, I enjoyed it and it interested me for reeasons I will go into later.
So I thought I would pick a couple from other publishers from the same era.
Enjoy!   

Exciting Comics 2 - Version 1
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=85283

Lightning Comics v1 4
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=17746

Bulls Eye Comics 11 (1 of 10)
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=39250

Cheers!

[SuperScrounge]

Exciting Comics #2

Will the book live up to it's name? We'll see. 

Ted Crane and the Leopard Men
Did Betty's fare to stay on the ship get paid? Kicking a snake like a football? Ted was lucky the snake didn't wrap around his leg. Ehhhh, slightly interesting, but not what I'd consider Exciting.

The Space Rovers
Oh, the naive science of old sci-fi. *chuckle* When they found themselves stripped of their clothes and wearing skimpy outfits I wondered if someone working on the story later did work on the Diana Daw series from Spicy Adventure and yep, Max Plaisted drew both.

Son of the Gods
Okay, but nothing special.

Dan Williams
Lots of action, but not much of a threat as Dan finds them super easy, barely an inconvenience, to get out of, even his ending up in a hospital seems more like a quick nap rather than anything serious.

Sergeant Bill King
Is this set in the first World War? Seems like an odd choice as I believe Europe was at war by this time.

The Grey Rider
Okay for a one page text story.

Mystery of the Lost Mine
Lots of action and some questionable things. Eh, readable.

The Sphinx
Not usually a good idea to have superpowers come out of nowhere. Some foreshadowing is nice. I wonder if this was a rewrite of another hero's story whose powers had already been established? Could have been better.

Masked Bandit
Okay.

The Mask Returns
Okay.

Well, the book didn't reach my definition of Exciting. Not sure what I would have thought as a ten-year old though.

[Quirky Quokka]

Exciting Comics #2

Nothing like a cover depicting a white man kicking a native in the face. Taken out of context, it seems very racist now, but did it sell comics in the 1940s? The actual story isn’t that bad, as Ted works with some of the tribesmen, but it did make me wary of what would lie within.

Ted Crane

Ted, Betty and the Professor seem quite calm for people who are about to be sacrificed on the burning arms of a golden idol. I was sceptical about how the tale would go after the natives were called savages (though they were threatening the others at the time). However, it turned out to be a good take on the evils of the slave trade. The Civil Rights movement was still a couple of decades away. Was this type of story unusual for 1940?

The Space Rovers

Why do Jane and Ted look so grumpy in the title panel? They also look like they’re about to crash in the bottom left panel on the second stage. Lucky for us, they hop out of their undamaged rocket with no injuries, no breathing apparatus or protection of any kind and go for a walk in the woods. Also lucky for them that all of the aliens spoke perfect English. A bit racy having Jane and Ted in their underwear. I had to smile at the ending: ‘Will Jane and Ted reach earth safely …?’ I’m more interested in what the other earthlings will say when Jane and Ted turn up in their undies.
A completely ludicrous tale, yet fun.

Sons of the Gods

I’m not really up on my Greek mythology, so I’m not sure if any of those tales come from actual myths. It was an interesting premise though, with the promise of action to come.

Detective Dan Williams

A bit hard to merely eyeball a gun and decide that the fingerprints are from a woman, unless the fingerprints are in blood.
How did Dan know the bottle of acid would explode?
A few plot holes, but fast action and not a bad detective story.

Sergeant Bill King

Given that it’s 1940, I assume this is WWII, though the trench warfare reminded me more of WWI. I know they had trenches in WWII, but it has the feel of WWI.
Interesting that Bill put his life in danger to save the wounded soldier, but then shot the crew of the tank. The futility and paradox of war?
If Bill is lying on top of a tank when he drops a grenade into it, how does he get away in time? But what a guy, winning the battle single-handedly.

The Grey Rider (one-page story)

Quite well-written, though more of a scene than a full story. Spelled out a bit too much at the end, but interesting how the Grey Rider’s fancy guns were his undoing.

The Mystery of the Lost Mine

Adventurous tale with a twist. Not hard to work out who the Specter was, but interesting reveal of the masked good guy. And he got the girl at the end. Aww!

The Sphinx

Another story with lots of action. Not a bad hero.

Masked Bandit (one-page story)

If the sheriff had whitewashed his horse and the whitewash only came off because it rained, what did he do with his whitewashed horse on the days it didn’t rain? This one didn’t hold together as well for me and the ending was a bit unbelievable. So the hero followed the stage because his uncle Zeth was the driver. Even though Uncle Zeth was killed, he’s glad he followed the stage because he’s now making eyes at Sally, and Sally is also ‘pretty pleased with the way things had turned out’? Yes, it turned out really well. Uncle Zeth is dead!

The Mask Returns

A bit confusing having the narration boxes at the bottom of the panels when they need to go before the dialogue. Lots of action in this one, though I found it a bit hard to follow. Maybe I was getting tired by this stage - LOL

Ad for Home Recordo

Look at that modern recording equipment. I could have been bigger than Judy Garland if only I’d had the Home Recordo.

Overall

Quite a good comic book. The title promises exciting tales and there certainly is a lot of action, though also some plot holes here and there. I have the facsimile copies of Action Comics #1 (the first Superman comic) and Detective Comics # 27 (the first Bat-man comic). I think most of the stories in Exciting Comics would stand up well against the secondary stories in those books.

Phew! Now for a nap before tackling the other books.

Cheers

QQ

[The Australian Panther]

Also lucky for them that all of the aliens spoke perfect English.

Yeah! Funny how multilingual most aliens are. Even in modern shows.
Always amuses me (in Star Trek) that when 2 ships pull up next to each other in space and the crews siit on the bridge in lounge chairs and chat with each other while viewing wide-angle screens, before declaring war on each other, that they always speak perfect English. [No, perfect American]
Although , Dr Who is pretty fuent in Judoon.
The Doctor Speaks Judoon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19q-iaF5yqI

cheers!

[Quirky Quokka]

The Space Rovers
Oh, the naive science of old sci-fi. *chuckle* When they found themselves stripped of their clothes and wearing skimpy outfits I wondered if someone working on the story later did work on the Diana Daw series from Spicy Adventure and yep, Max Plaisted drew both.

LOL SuperScrounge, I did wonder about that. You wouldn't see Lois and Superman getting around in their undies back then. Thanks for the extra info.

Sergeant Bill King
Is this set in the first World War? Seems like an odd choice as I believe Europe was at war by this time.

I wondered the same thing. I did a quick check with Dr Google, and they still had trench warfare in WWII, but it has more of the feel of a WWI scenario. Maybe because America wasn't involved in the war in Europe at that stage? Not sure.

Cheers

QQ

[Quirky Quokka]

Also lucky for them that all of the aliens spoke perfect English.

Yeah! Funny how multilingual most aliens are. Even in modern shows.
Always amuses me that when 2 ships pull up next to each other in space and the crews siit on the bridge in lounge chairs and chat with each other while viewing wide-angle screens, before declaring war on each other, that they always speak perfect English. [No, perfect American]
Although , Dr Who is pretty fuent in Judoon.
The Doctor Speaks Judoon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19q-iaF5yqI

cheers!

Yes indeed. At least most sci-fi stories these days give at least passing mention of a translator or some sort, like the BableFish in Hitchhiker's Guide. 'Star Trek Discovery' had the Klingons speaking their own language, with subtitles, so that was more realistic. However, I didn't enjoy watching it as much. Never satisfied.   

Cheers

QQ

[SuperScrounge]

Always amuses me (in Star Trek) that when 2 ships pull up next to each other in space and the crews siit on the bridge in lounge chairs and chat with each other while viewing wide-angle screens, before declaring war on each other, that they always speak perfect English. [No, perfect American]

Unlike, say Dr. Who, where they travel all over space and time and keep meeting people who speak English with British accents. 

At least Star Trek explained it away in a second season episode, Metamorphosis, where they explained the Universal Translator whereas Dr. Who fans had to wait till the fourth Doctor story The Masque of Mandragora, "It's a Time Lord gift I share with you."

You wouldn't see Lois and Superman getting around in their undies back then.

You haven't heard the old joke about Superman wearing his undies on the outside of his uniform?

they still had trench warfare in WWII, but it has more of the feel of a WWI scenario.

Looking it up the Siegrfried Line was a WWII thing, but from what I can tell the type 5 Battledress, which the English used when they entered WWII, didn't have those stupid leg wraps. (I think the artist just looked at some American WWI uniforms and assumed the Brits wore the same thing.)

[Morgus]

EXCITING COMICS; has a similar look to the art that runs through all the stories, along with the stories being variations on the same theme. You get Good Guy, Usually Blonde Gal Pal and Some Sort of Bonkers Mob. Aliens, gangsters, Germans, cowboys...just change the uniforms and dialect. “Where white man get?” Is probably my favourite line. Could be a plains Indian, a German spy (just change the words to ‘Yankee’) or alien (change the words to ‘earth man’) You get the idea.
Probably a really bad deadline accounts for the art going as far south as it did on pg 50. It sort of...melts.
Overall, the stories kept me reading to the end. ‘Super, I probably would have loved it as a kid.
LIGHTENING COMICS: HEY, Q.Q.: there’s your exotic South America again. Favourite line in the whole comic book; “Splutter splut”. Art does the same sort of decomposition at the bottom of page 3 where it looks like an old Soviet propaganda poster glorifying The Workers. But, again, like EXCITING COMICS, I read all the stories without skimming to the end of each. That’s something.
Saving BULLS EYE COMICS for next time.
Q.Q.: your question about the cover is a good one. I asked my folks the same thing in the 60’s when items like that comic book cover started to pop up. They could NOT say if such stuff sold or if people just THOUGHT it sold, or if somebody for whatever reason thought it was a good idea.
First of all, figuring out that sort of response was in it’s infancy, so we may never know for sure. You’d have a binary feedback. Did the book sell, or not? Black or white. But if it did or didn’t, WHY??
Dad’s view was that it was a top down decision and only constantly emphasizing hurtful tropes kept people divided. Mom saw it slightly differently, pointing out artists like Billy “The Kid” Emerson, a black guy who wrote songs he sold to BOTH white and black singers, or the existence of labels like King records in Cincinnati. King put out the same songs by both R&B AND country artists. In her mind it laid the groundwork to masterpieces like Ray Charles’ ‘Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music’. James Brown started at King.
For her, the cultures mixed a lot more that is given credit for, making someone like Elvis and Jerry Lee and The Beatles inevitable.
Billy “The Kid” Emerson died just this month, by the way, and I keep waiting for Don Cheadle to play him in a bio pic. His big number was “Red Hot”. He was also one of Sun records first performers. Before Elvis there was him and Howlin’ Wolf and lots of others.

[K1ngcat]

Thanks Morgus. And here it is: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv98bBaQ7rs

Also the probably better known cover by Billy Lee Riley: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Am83l6A_aVo

Rock & Roll will never die!!

[Robb_K]

Thanks Morgus. And here it is: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv98bBaQ7rs

Also the probably better known cover by Billy Lee Riley: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Am83l6A_aVo

Rock & Roll will never die!!

The Billy Lee Riley Rock-A-Billy version is better, because it has guitars and a piano in the background, (although they are very far in the background, and somewhat muffled (not as clear sounding as the original 45 and 78 records)).  The nice Bluesy vocal by Billy "The Kid" Emerson is almost wasted because the background of his original R&B version doesn't have a nice twangy guitar solo in the break, along with the nice sax solo, and also could use a plunky piano.  I like many of his other Sun releases, and also have several of his VJ records, and lots of later records of his on small southern US labels. 

[Morgus]

Robb and Kingcat (now THERE is a give away handle) mom would have welcomed you with open arms. She always said that Elvis’ version of THAT’S ALRIGHT MOMMA was better then Arthur Crudup, and his MYSTERY TRAIN was better that Junior Parkers. But, that Ray Charles was better with YOU DON’T KNOW ME than Eddie Arnold. And so it went. My brother preferred Richard Manuels’ version from THE LAST WALTZ.
Both thought nobody could beat Ben E Kings’ STAND BY ME, but that Wille Nelson had the best UNCHAINED MELDOY.

They both believed that as the cultures opened up and mixed you got a better result in society and art. This also led to all night record parties around the turntable with dad falling asleep in the chair and muttering nobody made good music since Louis Jordan quit recording for Decca and gramma saying that Count Basie was too damn loud.

[Robb_K]

Robb and Kingcat (now THERE is a give away handle) mom would have welcomed you with open arms. She always said that Elvis’ version of THAT’S ALRIGHT MOMMA was better then Arthur Crudup, and his MYSTERY TRAIN was better that Junior Parkers. But, that Ray Charles was better with YOU DON’T KNOW ME than Eddie Arnold. And so it went. My brother preferred Richard Manuels’ version from THE LAST WALTZ.
Both thought nobody could beat Ben E Kings’ STAND BY ME, but that Wille Nelson had the best UNCHAINED MELDOY.

They both believed that as the cultures opened up and mixed you got a better result in society and art. This also led to all night record parties around the turntable with dad falling asleep in the chair and muttering nobody made good music since Louis Jordan quit recording for Decca and gramma saying that Count Basie was too damn loud.

In the case of "That's Alright Mama" and "Mystery Train", I think both versions of both records made for excellent listening.  I like both versions of each very much, and feel they shouldn't be judged against each other for "better" or "worse" than the other, as a quality designation.  They are in different genres (styles) of music, and both can better be judged against how well they could have been made.  It DOES make sense, however, to judge them directly against each other based on personal taste.  As a much bigger R&B/Blues/DooWop fan than a Rock-A-Billy fan, I generally prefer an R&B version of a given song, to its Rock-A-Billy or MOR Pop version.  However, in the case of "Red Hot", I actually prefer the Rock-A-Billy version, because it is much better made for its genre/style (e.g. couldn't have been made much better). But it ends up being better to my taste, than the Billy Emerson version was, because the latter COULD have been made a LOT better.

[K1ngcat]

Exciting Comics #2

The cover featuring a white man kicking two black men to the ground is a bit of a shock to modern sensibilities so let's press on.

Ted Crane seems to be related to the Flash Gordon kind of hero, a college athlete who's ready to risk his life chasing after a lost tribe at the drop of a hat, and within six panels is already wrestling a leopard man to the floor. Betty has stowed away, which is convenient since that allows her to be repeatedly saved by the heroic Ted. A wealthy businessman pops up and suggests the lost tribe are victims of slavery, and the group go exploring the jungle. They're captured by a tribe of "savages" who plan to sacrifice them until the chief discovers the claw Ted pulled from the first leopard man, and declares them to be friends. It takes another four pages for the wealthy businessman to be unmasked as the slaver and leader of the leopard men, but we knew he was all along, didn't we, readers? Why did he even risk meeting with the party in the first place?

Just when Jane was planning a romantic trip through the stratosphere with Ted, foreign agents threaten the ship and she sends it on an uncontrolled flight toward the sun. To avoid that fate, Ted sets down on Mercury, which is surprisingly earth-like, with brown-skinned tribesmen sacrificing a woman to appease their gods. Ted sets her free but gets captured himself, then escapes into the arms of bug-eyed aliens who want to dissect Earthlings. And so it goes on, saved only by the rather fine figure drawing of Max Plaisted. Ted and Jane end the story leaving Mercury ready for more adventures in space.

I'm not very big on Greek mythology but it turns out a hapless young archeologist is a reincarnation of Theseus, son of King Aegeus, who had the well-known run-in with the Minotaur, etc. Betrayed by a businessman (you have to watch these guys, they're so unscrupulous ) he escapes death and saves the day. He finds the ring of Poseidon, and pledges himself to endless combat against tyranny, crime and destruction, just the way we all would if we wanted our stories to continue.

An Ace Private Investigator receives a mysterious phone call and is thrown into a tale of murder and intrigue. Gangsters, counterfeiters and kidnappers pursue him by land and sea as he tries to track and rescue a lady in distress, and lo and behold, her cousin is revealed as the ringleader of the plot against her (family are almost as untrustworthy as businessmen) and our hero polishes him off in a gun battle. Hurrah!

Sgt. Bill King is the typical courageous and resourceful soldier that you see in many war comics, seemingly capable of winning every battle on his own. Interesting though that he's British, I assume this was written before America entered WW2. Possibly the writer only had experience of WW1, which would be why everything centres around trench warfare. Anyhow, way to go Brits, the good sergeant surely deserves that medal!

The masked rider depends on that old saw, the minute someone puts on a domino mask they become unrecognisable, no matter how well you know them. The happy ending also relies on a geologist's ability to devise a serum against rattlesnake venom. Which he keeps to himself, rather than share it with the world, which a true hero might have done. Interestingly, this story actually ends, rather than obviously paving the way for a follow-up. He is replaced by a Texas Ranger in #3.

The domino mask thing works so well that the Sphinx decides to use it as well. Fortunately he also has strength mighty enough to fling sailors around, punch through a bulkhead, and lasoo a launch. Which surprised me, as I was sure he was going to gesture hypnotically. Instead his schtick is "seeing all." I wonder if he knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men, too?

The Mask, like the Shadow, relies on "aids" to support him in his fight against crime, meanwhile posing as a blind DA. The actual mask he wears seems to be owl-like, or maybe bat-like, but it stays put while he leaps on and off of speeding automobiles and survives judo throws, which is what a crime fighter wants in a mask, short of having one that transforms you into a Norse God.

The stories are all fairly silly but the art oscillates between pretty good and acceptable, and the colouring is quite sympathetic so overall I quite enjoyed the comic. I look forward to the next two...

All the best
K1ngcat

[The Australian Panther]

Re - Exciting Comics 2 - Version 1
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=85283
some comments.
Re the cover, very curious. If you look at all the jungle comics on CB+ - this is a reversal, in principle, of what we usually see. For example - White girl in a swimsuit fending off attack - often by jungle animals but sometimes by tribesmen, often armed with spears. And the attackers are the aggressors. On this cover we don't seen any reason for the aggression - he doesn't appear to be in any danger or defending anybody else from attack. Without any context, the violence appears indefensible.
So was the cover artist deliberately emphasizing the brutality of the white hero - to make a critiacl point?   
QQ said,

Quite a good comic book. The title promises exciting tales and there certainly is a lot of action, though also some plot holes here and there.

My thoughts exactly.
Morgus said,

EXCITING COMICS; has a similar look to the art that runs through all the stories, along with the stories being variations on the same theme. You get Good Guy, Usually Blonde Gal Pal and Some Sort of Bonkers Mob. Aliens, gangsters, Germans, cowboys...just change the uniforms and dialect. 

Yes, and when you binge and read a lot of them in a short period of time, which you can easlily do on CB+, that becomes much more obvious.
Kingcat said,

The stories are all fairly silly but the art oscillates between pretty good and acceptable, and the colouring is quite sympathetic so overall I quite enjoyed the comic. 

 
Makes me glad I chose it.
More later! 

[Quirky Quokka]

Hi all

I've just started The Lightning Comics one, but couldn't get past the cover without noting how close the name 'Flash Lightning' was to DC's 'The Flash' and I wondered which occurred first. I answered my own question with help from Dr Google. The Flash made his first appearance in January 1940, whereas Flash Lightning didn't appear until June 1940.  Flash Lightning's name was later changed to 'Lash Lightning' to avoid confusion. On the CB+ site that name change seems to start from Vol. 2 Issue 2 (August 1941). Apparently the name was later changed to just Lightning.

Now to actually read the comic.

Cheers

QQ

[SuperScrounge]

Lightning Comics #4

Flash Lightning
Get a bit of a Captain Marvel vibe with Flash getting his powers from a mystic old man. Wonder if that was the writer's "inspiration"?

Cat claws dipped in poison? Like Centaur Comics The Cat-Man?

There's just something about some of these early Golden Age heroes with their casual ruthlessness that I find oddly amusing. Probably the fact I grew up with heroes who had codes against killing, so these pulp-inspired heroes seem out of step, but they're not as bad as the grim and gritty 'heroes' from the '80s & '90s who seem more cruel about killing bad guys.

The Raven
Something that came to me as I was finishing up the last story was, if I'm not mistaken, Funnies Inc, or an early version of it, had something to do with the early Ace Comics and the Raven feels like one of Paul Gustavson's characters.

X the Phantom Fed
Another Central City, it's funny how often this city name pops up across comics, it might be THE generic city name.

If you took a drink every time X broke the law you'd be drunk by the end of the story. *hic*

Ace McCoy
Eh, okay.

Hap Hazard
Simple, but okay.

Marvo
Cheap Mandrake the Magician knockoff.

The Golden Siesta
Okay text story.

Whiz Wilson
Interesting.

[Morgus]

And now the one I waited for, BULLS EYE COMICS

You get Big George Tuska alternating with Charles Sultan and they did not disappoint. Tuska has that Eisner workshop feel, the stories are interesting because the pictures are drawn in interesting ways. Not just a page design that can be mistaken for graph paper.
It always impresses me how close Yankee Doodle Jones came to being FIGHTING AMERICAN. As it is, the story gets a lot of energy from letting the visual take over. These guys weren’t scared to let panels go by without words in them. Or at least few words.
Things slow up by the end of the issue and I pretty much skimmed the dog story. Green Knight had enough close ups that looked like Denny Colt to hedge their bets. Not bad, but not great.
Okay, the elephant in the room. Years ago, there was a mock documentary, CSA: THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA. It was a satirical guess what it would have looked like if the south had won the American Civil War. There’s commercials for stuff in between segments and they take pains to point out the REAL products at the end that they didn’t make up. Point being that Johnny Rebel and Rufus could have been included and been seen as the height of satire. Very close to NATIONAL LAMPOON.  Tuska’s art makes it the best drawn story of the issue.  Fried chicken, straight razors and all.
I read that more than once and have tried to figure out an audience for it. Am I the only one reminded of AIRBOY?
Lady Satan supplied us a great cover and the story itself was between Johnny Rebel and Green Knight. ALMOST wish Lou Fine had cleaned her up and taken her over to go hand to hand with The Spirit.
Okay, ‘Panther...I read at the start you were interested in the Exciting Comics for reasons you’d go into later. Could it be tracing the evolution of Standard comics from these roots to the 50’s with the likes of Toth and Katz? Looking back at the beginnings with the same emotions that I do when I see a hotel/motel my uncle started his hypnosis act in?
I will soon see.

[The Australian Panther]

Morgus said,

You get Big George Tuska alternating with Charles Sultan and they did not disappoint. Tuska has that Eisner workshop feel, the stories are interesting because the pictures are drawn in interesting ways. Not just a page design that can be mistaken for graph paper.

Re Tuska, he, like Don Heck and Mike Sekowsky, is an artist who I think did better work in the Golden Age than later in the costumed superhero silver age.
I think they liked drawing the more realistic stories better than the 'Capes'.     
Tuska clearly was a good draftsman but I always found the work he did for Marvel on Superheroes disappointing. For mine, he put the bare minimum of effort into the work.
Some of the best work these guys did in this period was for Western and Gold Key, in the anthology titles like Twilight Zone and the Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery book. Heck did a couple of Mandrake books too. Sekowsky's best work for DC in the later days was for the Wonder Woman books where she wore a white jump suit, did Kung Fu and was a kind of Emma Peel character. Pity that didn't last.
Googling turned up this information.
Gold Key Being Resurrected With New Boris Karloff Comics
https://comicbook.com/comics/news/gold-key-boris-karloof-comics-reboot-where-to-get/ 
Not necessarily good news, considering what 'Horror' comics look like these days. But we can live in hope. 
https://goldkeycomics.com/
Gold Key Comics
nice cover!         

[Morgus]

"Panther, that Wonder Woman story arc was one of the braver things DC did at the time. I wished it had stuck around.
Thanks for the Gold Key news. Maybe we have something here.

[K1ngcat]

Hi all

I've just started The Lightning Comics one, but couldn't get past the cover without noting how close the name 'Flash Lightning' was to DC's 'The Flash' and I wondered which occurred first. I answered my own question with help from Dr Google. The Flash made his first appearance in January 1940, whereas Flash Lightning didn't appear until June 1940.  Flash Lightning's name was later changed to 'Lash Lightning' to avoid confusion. On the CB+ site that name change seems to start from Vol. 2 Issue 2 (August 1941). Apparently the name was later changed to just Lightning.

Now to actually read the comic.

Cheers

QQ

Thanks for that info, QQ.  Just to complicate matters, there's also a Lightning who appears in Fiction House's Jumbo Comics, first on the cover of #14 (but not inside that issue) dated April 1940, then in #15 onwards credited to Teller Tayles, with art by Charles Wotjkowski.

Other speedsters include Silver Streak, first appearing in Comic House's Silver Streak Comics #4, May 1940, and Quicksilver, "The Laughing Robin Hood," first appearing in Quality's National Comics #5, November 1940, both creations of Jack Cole. And finally, Timely's Whizzer popped up in USA Comics #1 in August 1941. Looks like a lotta people were feeling the need for speed!

[K1ngcat]

Lightning Comics

Sure, the old man of the pyramids is Flash Lightning's Shazam, but if it wasn't him it'd be Tibetan Lamas or a philanthropic scientist, or any of those other people GA superheroes get their powers from. Anyway, as Mary Lee points out, he is big and strong. And fast with the snappy comebacks too. "Evil always boomerangs? " I couldn't have put it better myself! So this guy Romelts takes starving cats and dips their claws in poison?  This was obviously written by someone who's never tried to give medicine to a determined feline. Art's okay, the colouring's a bit too bright and yellowcentric for my tastes. Is it really Harry Lucey? I can't be sure.

Nor am I sure about The Raven's costume.  A suit with matching cowl and cape? Seems a bit awkward to me, the artist seems to think so too, because he's never certain what to do with that cape. As for Jack Tulsa, stealing the  benefit money and trying to frame the Police Chief's daughter? What a rotter. Boo, hiss. The name Lola Lash would seem more fitting on an S&M Madame, but this is a family show.

As for the Phantom Fed, nothing says inconspicuous like a bright yellow suit. And X's skills with make-up are so good that the second he transforms into a reporter, he also gets that yellow suit back, even though it was last seen being worn by the Commissioner. He's even prepared to risk his girlfriend's life, turning over an armoured truck while she's a prisoner inside of it. What a guy! What a load of old toffee!

Ace McCoy does a neat trick of shooting the villain's gun out of his hand while they're both floating earthwards in parachutes. Maybe he should be in a circus. Anywhere but here, please!

Hap Hazard is just too smart to be true. How old is this kid?  Young enough to carry Mexican jumping beans, a pea shooter and burnt cork in his pocket, yet sophisticated enough so that one sniff of a scent and he can tell if a woman's the "type" to be wearing it? Unbelievable.

Marvo is just another Mandrake copy, though at least he casts illusions and doesn't have to read his spells out backwards, like Zatara.  I think the monkey really is amazing though, he does more good than Marvo.

I wish Whiz Wilson was here with his futuroscope right now, he could whisk me away to times when comics weren't so lame. The art here is better than many of the other strips, but the colouring still seems too bright. I remember when I was a "trainee artist" in a London comic studio, my boss would always tell me to "use plenty of yellow," and it seems like whoever's responsible for this issue got the same advice.

Apart from Whiz and Flash Lightning, the art's on the weaker side than Exciting Comics, and the stories just as preposterous, if not more so. Still, an interesting diversion, I look forward to Bulls Eye Comics.

All the best
K1ngcat

[SuperScrounge]

Bulls Eye Comics #11

Yankee Doodle Jones
Bit of a Batman and Robin vibe to Yankee Doodle Jones & Dandy. Okay story.

Lady Satan
This... had potential, but the writer didn't really consider that situation the main character is in. The Nazis are idiots when it's necessary to help Lady Satan, she kills what appears to be Degaule, but we don't see the unmasking which should be necessary to keep her from being shot by Allied forces. It could have been so much better.

King Kole
The more things change the more they stay the same.  An old story sadly still valid today.

A Soldier Must Obey
Okay.

Johnny Rebel
Interesting. I do feel sorry for Rufus, while he's not written as bad as a lot of black people in 1940s comics, mainly the dialect dialogue which isn't as thick as some characters, he's clearly too old to be chasing after a young boy who likes to throw himself into dangerous situations. Johnny's parents should hire a younger and more physically fit person to be Johnny's sidekick.

Mother Hubbard
Interesting. Usually it's wizards or magicians who fight crime, not witch's, although I suppose if she had been created a few years later she'd be drawn as a sexy witch to appeal to the 18 to dead male demographic.

K-9
Okay.

Ticking Treasure
Not my cup of tea, but okay for the type of story it is.

The Green Knight
Any similarities to Green Arrow are strictly coincidental.  What a series of coincidences. Wandering the everglades looking for trouble to fight, sees a light come on and surprisingly there is trouble. Lance is an orphan so he can become a handy dandy sidekick to the hero. And then a woman coincidentally ends up at the same house with the vampire they encountered earlier. Yeahhhhhh...

[K1ngcat]

Bulls Eye Comics

I've got a soft spot for Chesler's publications. They could be a bit haphazard, he didn't mind repeating strips out of sequence, and the covers could sometimes be better than the contents, but he did give a lot of work to Charles Sultan, whose early work I admire tremendously, and Gus Ricca turned in some spectacular covers. So to this one-shot:

The cover's not the best, I'm not entirely sure if it's just been blown up and recoloured from George Tuska's inside splash page or it's been redrawn from the original, but it looks better inside the comic than it does outside.

If you like an impressive splash page, however, Mr Sultan more than obliges with this one for Yankee Doodle Jones. So YDJ and Dandy live together and they have nothing better to do than sit around listening to the radio and eating chocolate cake? Make your peace with it because that's all the back story you're gonna get! The plot is melodramatic waffle but the villain does the right thing and commits suicide, saving anyone further effort.

Lady Satan soon manoeuvres her love-struck escort Kurt into betraying himself and divulging the mad dictator's plans, but moments later he is accepting a suicide mission from the tyrant himself. Probably a good idea cos Lady S. doesn't play nice. She fakes suicide to avoid capture, and sets off in pursuit of Kurt, finally stabbing him in the back just before he assassinates Churchill and Roosevelt. It's mostly hooey, but Tuska's rendering of Charles de Gaulle is beautifully accurate.

King Kole's kartoony kapers kan't konvince me that he's really worthy of my attention. Moving on...

Like SS, I feel sorry for Rufus having to run around after that darn little over-achiever. Still at least he's not called Rastus, and isn't drawn as a cartoon stereotype with bulging eyes and big lips. Anyway,  it's good to see The South doing it's best to aid democracy, I'm not sure it's trying so hard in the present day. (Sorry, that's probably a political opinion!) Finally little Johnny triumphs with the help of his black servant and it's fried chicken all round! I don't think the art's George Tuska, his style is a little stiffer, maybe it's Charlie Sultan in a hurry?

Mother Hubbard is a weird choice for a heroine, for me, she's up there alongside the Spider Widow and Madam Fatal. Her magic is at least different from all the male magicians in these comics, but the rhyming spells soon get tiresome. The art's kinda weak but she deals mercilessly and efficiently with the Nazi villains, I'd love to see her teamed up with Morbius!

Typically of Chesler, K9's a reprint. Not exactly Lassie or Turner and Hooch, I guess it's good fare for the kids out there who were dreaming of having a big tough clever dog to pal up with. I'd rather have my Labrador!

The Green Knight is an oddball with a medieval fixation who saves a kid from a vampire and then "adopts" him, though I don't see any paperwork. Pretty Dale Patterson might've done better to heed her friend's advice, because she's soon in trouble, and the weirdo who saves her doesn't even stick around to see her safely home. Hardly the actions of a Gentleman, I'm sure King Arthur would've had something to say about it! The art could easily be Sultan, he did do a lot of work for Chesler, though this isn't his finest hour.

The colouring of the whole comic is unusual, the blues and greens seem very dark and there's a lot of grey around, it's not always pleasing but there are other Chesler comics with the same style, so perhaps he just used very cheap printers! It's not the best of the three comics in The Panther's choice, but it still has a strange clunky charm that appeals to me.

Thanks for posting,
All the best
K1ngcat

[crashryan]

I've just got round to reading this episode's comics. Things have been hectic here. Our (adult) son was forced to move back home when Covid wiped out his job. Both decent employment and affordable rentals are hellishly hard to find in LA and it's taken him this long to find the magic combo and collect the dough for the first-and-last. We moved him last weekend and it's hard to tell who is more pleased, him or us. Anyway, on to the important stuff:

Exciting Comics #2

I'm another fan of early American comics. It's fun to see both publishers and creators figuring out what works. The influence of newspaper comic strips is strong in these early books as are the pulps. There are lots of detectives, cowboys, jungle adventurers, seafarers, and astronauts. Most of the artists were young and inexperienced, and swipes from Milton Caniff and Alex Raymond pop up everywhere.

Ted Crane covers familiar ground. George Mandel's artwork isn't bad for a youngster. I read on Lambiek that after being injured in WWII Mandel was unable to continue drawing, so he became a novelist. He died a couple of years ago at age 101! The surprise ending of "Ted Crane and the Leopard Men" is even older than Mandel. I wish Mandel, having 12 pages to work with, had offered us at least one red herring. Parenthetically, I wonder if the tendency for early comics to use four rows of panels instead of three was an example of newspaper strip influence. The panel proportions make the art look like the pasted-up newspaper reprints in the earliest comic books.

The Space Rovers: Have you noticed that the only way an adventure-inclined 1940s woman could get into the action was by stowing away on the hero's boat/plane/spaceship? Ted Crane had Betty and Ted Hunt has Jane. Jane starts this episode as a real ditz--launches the rocket, not knowing how to operate it, just to make Ted give her a ride! Luckily she wises up a bit after she loses her clothes.

It was no surprise to learn that Max Plaisted had drawn for the Spicy comics sections. His cheesecake is much more in-your-face than most comic book art of the time. I was curious if the editor ever asked him to tone it down and peeked at subsequent issues. Poor Jane must have bought her wardrobe at the Dollar Store, because in every issue at least one shoulder rips open. Once, both shoulders rip open. If Jane hadn't had the forethought to glue the shirt to her bosom she'd have lost it completely. Several times Jane trades the bargain outfit in for an Alex Raymond Special: a sarong on the bottom and a crisscross cloth thingie on top. In issue #9 her wardrobe is finally more subdued. But that's also the Space Rovers' final appearance.

Son of the Gods is fun because the author has read his Bulfinch and gives a fair rendition of Theseus' early adventures. Some parts are softened. Sinis didn't kill his victims by crushing them between two trees. Just the opposite: he bent two trees toward each other, tied the victim between them, and let go. Theseus killed Sinis by giving him a taste of his own medicine. Afterward Theseus seduced Sinis' daughter. In fact Theseus did quite a bit of seducing, raping, and/or abducting of women. That aspect of his personality is missing from this story. Even at the dawn of the Golden Age the rule was already in place: you can show your hero beheading someone, but don't dare even hint at S-E-X.

The script of Dan Williams, Private Investigator is just a series of vignettes. Rather than trim the story, the writer uses captions to cram two or three actions into each panel. The device is clunky and keeps the reader from becoming involved in the story. It reminds me of those British girls' comic stories in which a typeset paragraph pops up between two panels describing a long series of events that we never see. Detective Dan shows a cavalier attitude toward bumping off bad guys. Though his pursuers (see our page 33) haven't fired on him, Dan has no problem sending his car crashing into theirs, potentially killing them (not to mention wrecking the level crossing). The gangsters miraculously rise from the wreck to shoot at Dan, but how much you wanna bet Dan fired the first shot? Another obvious mystery villain rears his head.

Sergeant Bill King wins World War I single-handed. Like the Dan Williams story, this one leans heavily on captions to move the action along. One panel, one scene. This storytelling style lived on well into the Silver Age. I remember that many of Julius Schwartz' hero comics followed a one scene-one panel format. By that time writers had learned to pace their stories better to avoid choppiness.

Mystery of the Lost Mine I'd better stop waiting for a truly mysterious mystery villain. Why didn't these writers give us at least two suspects? The last-page revelations arrive with a thud. When Parsons exclaims, "It's Jim Sanford!" I half expected the sheriff to say, "Who the hell is Jim Sanford?" This clunky story also has the clunkiest art in the book.

The Sphinx caught me by surprise. I'm thinking he's your average masked playboy detective when suddenly he starts punching through bulkheads and surviving 5000 volts of electricity. Note the "mysterious car" on page 55. The mystery is how it moves without wheels.

The Mask drove me crazy with captions at the bottom of the panel rather than at the top. A lot of old Italian comics did the same thing. I like Raymond Thayer's art even though it's a bit rough. In the 1920s Thayer illustrated for magazines, advertisements, and pulps. For a while he was Adolphe Barreaux' partner in an advertising agency. The story is a bit more interesting than the others in the issue, but I was confused when, on page 64, The Mask refers to "Silk." I had missed the caption at the bottom of the first story panel which identifies The Mask's associates. I hate bottom captions!

It struck me that there are no advertisements on the interior pages. In fact there are only three ads in all. I've found photos of the notorious Home Recordo but what I really want is to hear some of the recordings Charlie Barnet made on his machine. I wonder if someone somewhere has a collection of Home Recordo disks. On a jazz history site I learned that recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder, who is credited with developing the "house sound" for Blue Note records, started out at age 12 making Home Recordo records.

[The Australian Panther]

Crash said,

I'm another fan of early American comics. It's fun to see both publishers and creators figuring out what works. The influence of newspaper comic strips is strong in these early books as are the pulps. There are lots of detectives, cowboys, jungle adventurers, seafarers, and astronauts. Most of the artists were young and inexperienced, and swipes from Milton Caniff and Alex Raymond pop up everywhere.
 

That was definitely one of the things I liked about this book.
I looked at others on CB+ of the same ilk, but many are fiche and almost unreadable, and some are just almost unreadable. This one was well above the average.

Even at the dawn of the Golden Age the rule was already in place: you can show your hero beheading someone, but don't dare even hint at S-E-X.

Likely that was another legacy from the newspaper strips  - I imagine some of those newspapers were pretty strict on content. Also, in Movies, wasn't that the Hays code era ?