[Robb_K]

Sorry for being a bit late.  I was still busy replying to our thread #298, and forgot the time!  Reading the wonderful Faust book from  the series: "Illustrated Stories of The Operas" got me to thinking about comic book series made expressly for sale to educational institutions.  So, that is my theme for this fortnight. 

Our first book is that very book mentioned above, which, containing only 16 pages of comics, albeit excellently probably drawn by Bernard Baily, published by Baily Publishing Co. in 1943, sold for 25 cents per copy, which, at the time of its release, often got its purchaser 100 to 130 pages of comics.  That very fact led some of us to conclude that this series was intended to be sold to public and private school systems and public library systems, rather than individual children or their parents.  The other two books are "Catholic Comics #10", published by Catholic Publications in 1947, and "Treasure Chest of Fun and Fact Volume 17 #2 (Version 1) published by The Catechetical Guild Educational Society in 1961, both for parochial Catholic school systems to purchase in bulk for entire class rosters.  The two books designed for schools have interesting mixes of genres and story styles and educational activities, and their stories are heavily laden with a strong moralistic tone.

You can find Illustrated Stories of The Operas: Faust here: https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=85327


You can find Catholic Comics 10 here:  https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=29900


You can find Treasure Chest of Fun and Fact Volume 17 #2 (Version 1) here: https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=85332


I look forward to discussions on the various features of these books and what ideas we all have about their value in education, instilling moral values in children, dissemination of propaganda, appeal to children, and possibly, how they compare to other comics which had educational value, such as Classics Illustrated and other retelling of condensed novels, or giveaway educational comic books.

[Quirky Quokka]

Interesting selections there, Robb. Just wondering if anyone else had trouble downloading the Faust one? The other two downloaded okay, but I made two attempts to download the Faust one and both times it failed on the fourth page. I'll try again later, but just wondered if the problem is with me?

Cheers

QQ

[Robb_K]

Interesting selections there, Robb. Just wondering if anyone else had trouble downloading the Faust one? The other two downloaded okay, but I made two attempts to download the Faust one and both times it failed on the fourth page. I'll try again later, but just wondered if the problem is with me?

Cheers

QQ

Hi QQ
Sorry to hear you're having trouble.
I have it on right now and can navigate through all 20 pages every time I try it.  So, the problem must be on your end. 
Good luck.

Robb

[The Australian Panther]

QQ, that link is still on the latest comics bar, - you can read the words, Illustrated stories.
That link may work better for you!
cheers!

[Quirky Quokka]

Interesting selections there, Robb. Just wondering if anyone else had trouble downloading the Faust one? The other two downloaded okay, but I made two attempts to download the Faust one and both times it failed on the fourth page. I'll try again later, but just wondered if the problem is with me?

Cheers

QQ

Hi QQ
Sorry to hear you're having trouble.
I have it on right now and can navigate through all 20 pages every time I try it.  So, the problem must be on your end. 
Good luck.

Robb

Thanks Robb. I can see all the pages if I just go to the link and scroll through. But I usually download them to read. For this one, when I try to download it, it gets stuck a couple of pages in. I've attached a screenshot.

But no worries. I can just scroll through from the link.

Cheers

QQ

[Quirky Quokka]

QQ, that link is still on the latest comics bar, - you can read the words, Illustrated stories.
That link may work better for you!
cheers!

Thanks Panther. I tried it from that link, but had the same problem downloading. But I can read it from the link. Not sure what's happening. The other two were fine.

Cheers

QQ

[K1ngcat]

I had no trouble reading the first choice, because lazy old me doesn't bother to download, I  just read all these comics here on site at CB+!

Plus I'd already noticed this one when it was recently uploaded and marvelled at Bernard Baily's exceptional artwork. Which led me to check him out on the net, and marvel even more that I hadn't come across his work before. Actually there's plenty of his stuff here on CB+, but I find the B/W style (with half-tone) he uses here is particularly impressive. Of course, it's a good yarn too!

I can't imagine how he would've justified the cover price given how much comic fun you could buy for a dime back in those days, so Robb's suggestion that it was intended for schools and libraries rather than the old wire rack makes sense. Anyhow, I can't praise it enough, so I'd've been happy to shell out for it.

An excellent choice, Robb, thanks for posting. More on your other two choices later.
All the best
K1ngcat

[neil meikle]

I've had a similar problem with this file so Q Q isn't unique. I'm not sure I should be advising this but my solution was to download it from the DCM instead.

[The Australian Panther]

Neil, that's quite an acceptable suggestion and not a bad one.
Also, I had no trouble downloading it, and just downloaded it again to see if there was a subsequent problem.
Nope, perfect download, so the problem is local - probably to do with which browser you are using and what add-ons are active.
Oh, also the inner back page advertised AIDA also by Bernard Bailey - was that ever printed.
cheers!   

[Robb_K]

Neil, that's quite an acceptable suggestion and not a bad one.
Also, I had no trouble downloading it, and just downloaded it again to see if there was a subsequent problem.
Nope, perfect download, so the problem is local - probably to do with which browser you are using and what add-ons are active.
Oh, also the inner back page advertised AIDA also by Bernard Bailey - was that ever printed?
cheers!

Yes, Aida was printed and issued.  Here is its front cover:


And here is the front cover of Rigoletto:


And here is the front cover of Carmen:


According to Bails, there were 5 issues published in that series, all drawn by Baily. 

Here are Pages 1, 12, and 13 of Aida for your enjoyment:

[Quirky Quokka]

Faust

I still wasn't able to download it, but read it from the site. (Thanks for your suggestions, everyone.)

I only knew the bare essentials of this story beforehand (i.e., someone who made a deal with the devil). Not having seen the opera, I don't know how much detail is in the plot, but I assume something has been lost by condensing it to 20 pages. There were a few parts I found hard to follow and had to flick back and re-read some sections. Maybe that would have been clearer in a longer format. It ended rather suddenly. I turned the page and expected more of the story, but I can imagine it would have been a dramatic ending on an opera stage. It's a classic moral tale - If you make a deal with the devil, it will cost you in the end. As an educational comic, this probably would have been a good introduction to the story for students. The art was quite good, with lots of attention to detail (even hairs coming out of the wart on old Faust's face).

An interesting selection.

Cheers

QQ

[Robb_K]

Faust

I still wasn't able to download it, but read it from the site. (Thanks for your suggestions, everyone.)

I only knew the bare essentials of this story beforehand (i.e., someone who made a deal with the devil). Not having seen the opera, I don't know how much detail is in the plot, but I assume something has been lost by condensing it to 20 pages. There were a few parts I found hard to follow and had to flick back and re-read some sections. Maybe that would have been clearer in a longer format. It ended rather suddenly. I turned the page and expected more of the story, but I can imagine it would have been a dramatic ending on an opera stage. It's a classic moral tale - If you make a deal with the devil, it will cost you in the end. As an educational comic, this probably would have been a good introduction to the story for students. The art was quite good, with lots of attention to detail (even hairs coming out of the wart on old Faust's face).

An interesting selection.

Cheers

QQ

Thanks for bearing with the inconvenience and your comments.  I agree 100% that a mere 16 pages is way too few to include all the detail necessary to pace the story adequately, and provide a decent understanding of more than just its main idea.  I agree.  Baily's artwork is top notch, and its memory spoils me for reading the stories from the late 1930s and earliest '40s that were drawn by lesser artists (mostly relative beginners in the industry).  That is the very reason why I started loving Carl Barks' and most of the other ex-animators' artwork, mostly in the funny animal and cartoony human-figure comedy genres.  Bernard Baily was one of the best, and his studio also had. several other excellent (and later famous) comic artists (including Will Eisner, Bob Kane, Frank Frazetta, Jerry Iger, Mac Raboy, Bernie Krigstein, Dan Berry, Gil Kane, and Howie Post, and a few more.

[Morgus]

FAUST was nearly perfect. Thanks, Robb. The draughtsmanship just pulled you in. It sent me back to Milton Cross’s book on operas my mom used to have to compare things. And given what they had to work with, it was a pretty good adaptation. I was more used to the German silent flick CBC French used to play. It would just freak people out on contact. In that one, the couple go up in flames at the end.

Too bad CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED never got ahold of this guy. They liked to publish summaries of operas at the end of their issues, and had their own version of FAUST. Not as good, either.  A bit longer story and some decent colouring and this would be a huge sought-after classic.

CATHOLIC COMICS made me look up the Scott Shaw! ODDBAL COMICS collector cards for the cover he published. Over all, for what it was, not bad. The art was a notch above the usual Charlton fare. I’m going easy on the Pius XII piece...it was made while he was still alive and has the look and feel of the usual adoring authority figure bio , just what you’d expect from a mag you’d be trying to sell to Catholic schools. I’m GUESSING the two funny animal stories were just laying around.

TREASURE CHEST made me laugh out loud. It’s the kind of stuff my brother and I used to look for. You know, INVASION USA, WE WILL BURY YOU, NIGHTMARE IN RED CHINA. One of our fave t shirt was IS YOUR WASHROOM BREEDING BOLSHEVIKS?
This even had the school teacher with a slight 'Ilsa She Wolf of the S.S.' vibe. As Jack Webb would say; “A real Red Nightmare”. And all illustrated by Reed Crandall. Perfect.
The two are a notch above the usual Sunday school hand outs i’ve seen and the Jack Chick tracts that get left in my mail box at Halloween.

[SuperScrounge]

Illustrated Stories of The Operas

Faust
Funny how the roll call and the credits call him Mephistopheles, but in the actual story he identifies himself as Satan. I assumed they used the Mephistopheles name because they were worried about calling him Satan, but not so.

Interesting, but I wonder how much of the original opera story is missing in this adaptation.

Charles Francois Gounod
Interesting.

[Robb_K]

FAUST was nearly perfect. Thanks, Robb. The draughtsmanship just pulled you in. It sent me back to Milton Cross’s book on operas my mom used to have to compare things. And given what they had to work with, it was a pretty good adaptation. I was more used to the German silent flick CBC French used to play. It would just freak people out on contact. In that one, the couple go up in flames at the end.

(1) Too bad CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED never got ahold of this guy. They liked to publish summaries of operas at the end of their issues, and had their own version of FAUST. Not as good, either.  A bit longer story and some decent colouring and this would be a huge sought-after classic.

CATHOLIC COMICS made me look up the Scott Shaw! ODDBAL COMICS collector cards for the cover he published. Over all, for what it was, not bad. The art was a notch above the usual Charlton fare. I’m going easy on the Pius XII piece...it was made while he was still alive and has the look and feel of the usual adoring authority figure bio , just what you’d expect from a mag you’d be trying to sell to Catholic schools. (2) I’m GUESSING the two funny animal stories were just lying around.

(3) TREASURE CHEST made me laugh out loud. It’s the kind of stuff my brother and I used to look for. You know, INVASION USA, WE WILL BURY YOU, NIGHTMARE IN RED CHINA. One of our fave t shirt was IS YOUR WASHROOM BREEDING BOLSHEVIKS?
This even had the school teacher with a slight 'Ilsa She Wolf of the S.S.' vibe. As Jack Webb would say; “A real Red Nightmare”. (3) And all illustrated by Reed Crandall. Perfect.
The two are a notch above the usual Sunday school hand outs I’ve seen and the Jack Chick tracts that get left in my mail box at Halloween.

(1) As an avid reader of Classics Illustrated, I'd have LOVED for them to have had Bernard Baily for their most frequently used main feature artist! 

(2) No!  I'm sure that "Pudgy Pig' was NOT included just because it was an available, free or low-cost art and an already paid for written story.  "Pudgy Pig" was a regularly-used Charlton copyrighted character that had already been used in Catholic Comics #s 5 through 9, and it was used in every issue through #32.  Plus, Charlton published 2 issues of "Pudgy Pig" in a series of his own, later, in 1958, long after Catholic Comics had finished its run in mid 1949.  Clearly, the editors of Catholic Comics wanted to include it in every issue for pure entertainment for younger children, as it would provide them a welcomed respite from being bombarded by preachy moralistic propaganda, and possibly keep them from closing the book, and bothering other students, or getting into mischief.  I am sure that part of the value to the teacher of assigning the reading of these books as a lesson, was to gain "quiet time", for grading test papers, or performing record keeping, lesson planning, or other tasks, which require concentration.  As to Aesop's Fables, - they were also a regular feature of Catholic Comics, and provided to teach moral values (dishonesty leads to worse consequences than whatever short-term benefits are gained, doing good for others brings rewards worth many times the effort put in, etc.).  I am sure that it was requested by The Catholic Publishing governing board to be a regular feature in the series.  And Catholic Publishing's use of a Charlton character proves to me that Charlton might well have had a closer relationship to Catholic Comics than just as their distributor and packager, and having their editorial office located inside The Charlton Building.  Perhaps Charlton's owners had a partial stake in Catholic Publishing's ownership, as well?  Personally, I think Catholic Publishing (and Catholic Comics) should be listed in CB+'s Publisher section.  But that would go against CB+'s policy of keeping the categories perfectly consistent with those of The Grand Comics Database.  As to the couple one-page gags, I assume that they were added for the same reason as "Pudgy Pig" - to provide a bit of non-preachy light entertainment, especially for the younger readers.

(3) Yes!  Reading all that overblown alarmist propaganda about the "dangers of Communism" is a horrific experience!  And Crandall was certainly one of the best at drawing panicked people's terrified faces at agitating angles with shadowy lighting, which can accentuate the mood.

[Morgus]

‘Super, pound for pound, the adaptation is pretty dead on to the opera. You get the basic story faithfully told until what SHOULD be Act Five (the last page). But the last act is dark, so you can’t blame them for hedging their bets. It opens with what amounts to a Walpurgis Night orgy. Faust has been provided with the most beautiful women in history. Marguerite has gone to jail and dies there for killing her child. Faust busts in to rescue her, but she rejects him. She sees his hands as covered with blood.He watchers her soul go to heaven. He kneels down and prays, Mephistopheles is driven away by an arch angel.
The dialogue is actually better and funnier than the opera. Those asides from the devil are unique to the comic and you can see why they put them in.
It took me a while, but all this stuff came back. The different versions didn’t help.  I used to curl up beside my Gramp at night when CBC had operas on and he’d tell me what was happening in his John Carradine voice. He’d get right into it, tears running down his face as he described the ending of THE FLYING DUTCHMAN, or who was who in The Ring Cycle. I still kick myself that we never got his narration down on tape or video, but it wasn’t feasible then.

[Morgus]

Hey, Robb, thanks for the explanation of the funny animal stories. ANY explanation what the ode to Koroseal is doing in there??

[Robb_K]

Illustrated Stories of The Operas

Faust
Funny how the roll call and the credits call him Mephistopheles, but in the actual story he identifies himself as Satan. I assumed they used the Mephistopheles name because they were worried about calling him Satan, but not so.

Interesting, but I wonder how much of the original opera story is missing in this adaptation.

Charles Francois Gounod
Interesting.

Historians surmised that "The Story of Faust" was a legend or generic folk tale of a weak man selling his soul to The Devil for earthly riches, power, and/or fame, among The German People in various differing versions, before it was written down by specific authors.  These different versions evolved over time, with some of them having Satan's Demons, underlings who assist him(do his bidding) in his evil work, alternatively, being just different manifestations of The Prince of Darkness.  I'm not sure we can ever know whether this opera's author intended for Mephistopheles to represent a particular manifestation of The Devil, himself, or just one of his demons who help gather souls for him.  I would guess the former, if I had a gun to my head.

[EHowie60]

Thought I'd give the reading group a go. I love the comics here, so why not talk with people about them?

Illustrated Stories of the Opera
I must admit I'm only passingly familiar with the story of Faust myself. There's something charming about the single color art. Nice detailed line work, I like it. The story itself is the original "deal with the Devil!" I didn't expect Mephistopheles to stick around after. Side note: the writer should have double checked their phrasing on the last panel of page 14, there. And of course it all goes wrong, and poor Faust's soul is taken by Mephistopheles. This adaptation, understandably, leaves out some darker parts of the original.

Catholic comics #10
Now this is interesting. A standard "variety" comic but with a Catholic theme. Starting off with a sports story. It's a good thing the final was against a non-denominational school. Otherwise both teams would be praying and nobody would have an edge! Artwork is nothing special, but it gets the job done.

Pudgy Pig is your standard funny animal story. Apparently this is a Charlton book, drawing from their library of material for side content? Interesting.

I like the big splash page of the procession in the Father O'Malley story. Is it just me, or are big panels like that rare in comics of this era? I suppose the artist felt they had a good subject for it.

Why does the stork in the Aesop's Fable segment have fangs?

Skipping ahead a little, we have a six page advertising section by the BF Goodrich company. Catholic Comics must have been a little desperate for material! Just like the BF Goodrich company was desperate for materials to take the place of rubber. Rain coats, bathtubs, pipe coatings, lamp shades, is there anything Koroseal can't do? Koroseal Koroseal Koroseal. Apparently it is actually good at coating chemical tanks and things, seems like that's the main application today. But BF Goodrich did not get to realize their dream of replacing modern life with the stuff.

Musk-Ox men: I love when the artist was clearly pressed for time. It leads to delightful panels like that on page 43, where the caption specifies an extremely common type of two-engined aircraft, but the art shows a single engined monoplane. There wasn't a paratrooper story or Army Air Corp book you could reference from? Also on page 43, I assume "fish net underwear" refers to something different from the modern term, but I have no idea how I'm gonna look it up! Maybe it was just a very fabulous Arctic expedition.

Sir Galahad: ah, here we have the tale of medieval chivalry depicted on the cover! Thank goodness, I was getting worried. Looks like this was an ongoing feature in this book. Merlin is among the antagonists? Now that's odd. The art is nice in this one, very good details on the faces and clothes. Probably my favorite art in the whole book. Medieval comic art almost seems to have its own sub-style, with Prince Valiant being the most famous example.

Treasure Chest of Fun and Fact V 17 No 2
Oh we are deep in the cold war this time! Starting off with a letter from J. Edgar Hoover himself! I think my favorite part of "This is Godless Communism" is how surprised everyone seems. "What? The Communists closed the church? How could we have predicted?!?" It seems like everyone who's ever designed a "Communist USA" flag, from 60s comic writers to 2010s strategy gamers, has come up with the exact same "hammer and sickle and stripes" design. Nice art though. I've seen Crandall's work before via the archive of Blackhawk comics on this site.

...I dunno what Chuck White and friends are up to. Going to Alaska to farm? That would not be my first choice.

Nice art on the Rafer Johnson piece too. You can tell the artist had a lot of material about Johnson to work with. I bet if they had another page they would have talked about how his main opponent in 1960 was the Taiwanese athlete Yang Chuan-kwang. He'd gone to UCLA too, and the two were good friends. Might have been a good "friendship between nations" angle.

The Champ and the Pirates: An entire page about navigation and then we find that Wooters has steered the ship in the exact wrong direction! I like a good nautical story, and the schooner here is very prettily done.

All in all, a good set of books. I think if I was a young Catholic I'd have found Catholic Comics a little dull, but I'd have liked Treasure Chest a good deal more.

[Robb_K]

Hey, Robb, thanks for the explanation of the funny animal stories. ANY explanation what the ode to Koroseal is doing in there??

Despite biographies of outstanding achieving Catholic individuals as a regular feature in Catholic Comics, THIS particular biography includes a lot more information about Koroseal as a product than about its developer's life, and so, comes off a lot more as a bold-faced, blatant commercial for B.F. Goodrich.  Clearly, Goodrich's advertising department in conjunction with its publicity department, approached Catholic Comics offering a big (tax deductible) donation, IF the story of the inventor of their newest product would be printed in their biography feature (and be allowed to include the big emphasis on the features of the product, itself).  I wonder if B.F. Goodrich, himself, was Catholic, and possibly most his board of directors, as well?  John Santangelo, founder and main owner of Charlton certainly was, which is why Catholic Comics came into existence.  Maybe B.F. Goodrich was a Catholic, and also one of Santangelo's cronies?  Or maybe Goodrich's VP of Advertising had a child in Catholic School, who read Catholic Comics there, and he thought that might be a good vehicle for making a cost-effective deal for increasing Goodrich's exposure for their newest product?  Stranger things have happened.

[SuperScrounge]

Catholic Comics v1 #10

The Shrine of St. Teresa
Interesting.

Bill Brown
Um, okay. I guess the lesson is pray your way to healing?

Pudgy Pig
Uhhhhh... wow. As a funny animal comic it's fine, but in a religious magazine, what kind of message is this sending to kids? "And if thy are given invisible paint by God, strike hard and fast at thine enemies, before God sends the cleansing rain. Amen." Yeahhhhh...

Father O'Malley
The dialogue did not seem very natural and I wasn't certain what the point of this ceremony was for.

Aesop's Fables
Funny how the frogs have this one guy who is acting like a leader, but, for some reason, nobody thinks to point that out?

The Story of Pius XII
A Pope origin story. 

Koroseal
Interesting. Were stories about inventions a common feature of this publication, was the editor short of story content, or did Goodrich 'make a donation' which encouraged this story?

Droopy
Okay, but nothing special.

Musk-Ox Men Map Arctic
Why did the artist draw those lines from the men's goggles to their mouths? Very weird looking.

Sir Galahad
Okayish, but as part of a larger story there are parts that are unexplained for those who missed the earlier parts.

Odd Inventions
Yes, yes they are.

Overall, not particularly good. The Pudgy Pig story is probably the best even if it feels wildly out of place. The non-fiction pieces would come would be second to sixth place, and the remaining fiction stories drag along at the end.

[SuperScrounge]

Thanks Morgus and Robb, for the explanations! 

[K1ngcat]

Catholic Comics.

Okay, it does what it says on the cover, but sadly I'm a godless heathen and I feel obliged to question some of this. Right inside the cover we have the little flower. A Pope encourages a young girl to become a nun "if it be God's will." Admittedly I have never strived to love Jesus with all my being, so I don't understand this kind of faith and dedication. Put in a more modern context, if she'd gone to the Pope and said, "Holy Father, I'm not happy in my body, I'd like to be a boy," would that have been accepted as "God's will" too? And did she let fall a shower of roses? I'd love to know.

On first sight of the splash page, Bill Brown seems to be welcomed back to the Addams Family homestead in a story "based in part on authentic sources." After an injury, Bill prays to get better so he's advised to visit "our Lady's grotto" for help with his recovery. Then he's successful in sport, and so prays for more success in his studies. It all seems so easy. Art's not too bad tho.

The wolf in Pudgy Pig also resorts to prayer to save his sorry ass, though I see he prays to Pudgy rather than Our Lord, perhaps because animals don't have souls and it would be sacreligious? Even so, his prayer is answered, what a stroke of luck.

Father O'Malley and his Living Rosary are entirely beyond my life experiences so it's hard to comment. Box lunches that aren't eaten until after 8pm the next day? I'd pass on the egg sandwiches. A lot of good, clean-cut Catholic kids have a great time enacting a religious procession. And taking the Mickey out of the good Father. "It's yourself is it, that's coming in?" Cheeky buggers! Art's pretty weak and I don't "get" the story.

Aesop's Fables is awful in every way. Including the Fable. Aesop, try harder!

A nice biog of Pope Pius XII, quite sympathetically illustrated. I was interested in the consecration of the four coloured Bishops and would have loved to hear more, but one panel is all they got. Still, it can't have been easy being a wartime Pope, with the Nazis going "ve disagree!" at you.

Koroseal? What is a commercial doing in a good Catholic comic like this?

Droopy is a dufus. And a poorly drawn one at that.

Why do the Musk-Ox men look like robots? I'm thinking particularly of Carl Burgos's Man O'War, aka The White Streak.

Sir Galahad is on a mission to the Holy Land, seeking the Holy Grail? On whose authority? Who does this King Arthur think he is?  Lovely art, story  is part of a continuation and so a bit hard to follow.

It's obviously not my cup of tea, but it was an interesting choice, thanks Robb.
All the best
K1ngcat

[Robb_K]

(1) Thought I'd give the reading group a go. I love the comics here, so why not talk with people about them?
Catholic comics #10
Now this is interesting. A standard "variety" comic but with a Catholic theme. Starting off with a sports story. It's a good thing the final was against a non-denominational school. Otherwise both teams would be praying and nobody would have an edge! Artwork is nothing special, but it gets the job done.

(2) Pudgy Pig is your standard funny animal story. Apparently this is a Charlton book, drawing from their library of material for side content?

I like the big splash page of the procession in the Father O'Malley story. Is it just me, or (3) are big panels like that rare in comics of this era?  I suppose the artist felt they had a good subject for it.

(4) Why does the stork in the Aesop's Fable segment have fangs?

Skipping ahead a little, (5) we have a six page advertising section by the BF Goodrich Company. Catholic Comics must have been a little desperate for material! Just like the BF Goodrich company was desperate for materials to take the place of rubber. Rain coats, bathtubs, pipe coatings, lamp shades, is there anything Koroseal can't do? Koroseal Koroseal Koroseal. Apparently it is actually good at coating chemical tanks and things, seems like that's the main application today. But BF Goodrich did not get to realize their dream of replacing modern life with the stuff.

Musk-Ox men: I love when the artist was clearly pressed for time. It leads to delightful panels like that on page 43, where the caption specifies an extremely common type of two-engined aircraft, but the art shows a single engined monoplane. (6) There wasn't a paratrooper story or Army Air Corp book you could reference from? Also on page 43, I assume "fish net underwear" refers to something different from the modern term, but I have no idea how I'm gonna look it up! Maybe it was just a very fabulous Arctic expedition.

Sir Galahad: ah, here we have the tale of medieval chivalry depicted on the cover! Thank goodness, I was getting worried. Looks like this was an ongoing feature in this book. Merlin is among the antagonists? Now that's odd. The art is nice in this one, very good details on the faces and clothes. Probably my favorite art in the whole book. Medieval comic art almost seems to have its own sub-style, with Prince Valiant being the most famous example.

Treasure Chest of Fun and Fact V 17 No 2
Oh we are deep in the cold war this time! Starting off with a letter from J. Edgar Hoover himself! I think my favorite part of "This is Godless Communism" is how surprised everyone seems. "What? The Communists closed the church? How could we have predicted?!?" It seems like everyone who's ever designed a "Communist USA" flag, from 60s comic writers to 2010s strategy gamers, has come up with the exact same "hammer and sickle and stripes" design. Nice art though. I've seen Crandall's work before via the archive of Blackhawk comics on this site.

...I dunno what Chuck White and friends are up to. Going to Alaska to farm? That would not be my first choice.

(1) Welcome EHowie! Glad to have you aboard!  The more participants, the more possibility for more interesting posts to mull over, and might lead to unexpected tangents where we learn a lot we wouldn't otherwise have, or get entertained more than otherwise.

(2) Yes, absolutely! Catholic Comics was drawn, formatted, at least partially written, printed, packaged together, at least partly, if not mostly, edited by Charlton personnel, with perhaps a last-look screening by Catholic Comics non- Charlton owners, for approval, and some features came directly from non-Catholic Charlton back stock.  Catholic Comics were distributed by Charlton. They had their own office inside The Charlton Building (main building), and it seems likely that Charlton or individual Charlton owners (including John Santangelo) had, at least a partial stake in that educational book publishing company.  Charlton copyrighted "Pudgy Pig", and used him in their normal comedy and funny animal books BEFORE he was used in "Catholic Comics", and he had his own Charlton secular comedy series, which started 9 years after Catholic Comics finished its run.

(3) No.  I would say that big splash panels were NOT rare, but rather common during the early, mid, and late 1940s.  That was a regular trademark of most of the earliest comics-packaging studios, including those of Will Eisner, Jerry Iger, Bernard Bailey, Lloyd Jaquet (Funnies,Inc.), Jason Comic Art (Leon Jason), Fox Features, Quality Comics, D.C., Timely, and many more (moreso than during the 1950s - I would say.  But because I have almost no experience with Superhero series, it would be good to read others' comments on this question of yours.

(4) Clearly, the person who drew "Aesop's Fables" was a 7-year old (based on the look of the artwork), and he also didn't know much about the anatomy of a stork (we often had stork mothers nesting on roofs in my neighbourhood in Den Haag!).  Maybe he was Santangelo's grandchild? (Charlton was known for trying to save on their operating costs bottom line by skimping on artists' salaries.    In any case, the artist had the stork use those front choppers to shovel the big frogs down his beak, towards the throat, indicating that frogs were stork's regular prey and dinner fare.  So, it makes sense that they evolved for that function! 

(5) I doubt that Catholic Comics was desperate for story or educational material (there was plenty around from which to choose.  Clearly, they were desperate for the big money they could get from commercial concerns who would offer them big money to run thinly disguised adverts for them.

(6) As I stated above, Charlton was notorious for having the lowest pay scale for artists in the industry, yet they often had ridiculously short deadlines.  That, unfortunately, cut out devoting almost any time to story researching, except for saints, who would rather donate lots of their own, unpaid time, to making sure the product they turned out was good, or, at least, halfway decent.  I seem to recall comments by others that Jack Kirby was one of those.  Carl Barks was one of those, and he never worked for stingy Charlton, or low-paying Fox, or one of the other lower pay scale publishers.

As to "fishnet underwear in the 1940s, I recall that some men wore double layer underwear, whose outer layer was a tighter-weaved fabric(cotton), but there was an inner layer that was fishnet style, through which air could pass, and therefore it could breathe.  My father and some of my uncles wore it, but I never did.  It would have been too hot for me.  We had coal heat in winter, and my grandparents and parents kept the house too hot for me at about 55 degrees F (which, from what I've observed in homes of Americans, would have been considered bone-chilling temperatures to sleep in).  I never was able to wear long underwear and sleep in it under blankets, even in the coldest Winnipeg Arctic winter.

[Robb_K]

Catholic Comics v1 #10

The Shrine of St. Teresa
Interesting.

Bill Brown
Um, okay. I guess the lesson is pray your way to healing?

Pudgy Pig
Uhhhhh... wow. (1) As a funny animal comic it's fine, but in a religious magazine, what kind of message is this sending to kids? "And if thy are given invisible paint by God, strike hard and fast at thine enemies, before God sends the cleansing rain. Amen." Yeahhhhh...

Father O'Malley
The dialogue did not seem very natural and I wasn't certain what the point of this ceremony was for.

Aesop's Fables
(2) Funny how the frogs have this one guy who is acting like a leader, but, for some reason, nobody thinks to point that out?

The Story of Pius XII
A Pope origin story. 

Koroseal
Interesting. (3) Were stories about inventions a common feature of this publication, was the editor short of story content, or did Goodrich 'make a donation' which encouraged this story?

Droopy
(4) Okay, but nothing special.

Musk-Ox Men Map Arctic
(5) Why did the artist draw those lines from the men's goggles to their mouths? Very weird looking.

Sir Galahad
(6) Okayish, but as part of a larger story there are parts that are unexplained for those who missed the earlier parts.

Odd Inventions
Yes, yes they are.

Overall, not particularly good. The Pudgy Pig story is probably the best even if it feels wildly out of place. The non-fiction pieces would come would be second to sixth place, and the remaining fiction stories drag along at the end.

(1) I agree that EVEN IF the goal of adding pure comedy stories was to give the students a breather from moral preachiness and moral and religious propaganda (which I believe it was), choosing this particular story sort of defeats the purpose and intent of this publication.  Many of Pudgy Pig's other stories didn't teach immorality or amorality (At least not so clearly as this one!).

(2) Poor story writing, either by Aesop, the people who retold his stories, or the comic book writer/artist who wrote and drew it (and from the look of the art was 7 or 8 years old!) (possibly owner Santangelo's grandchild! 

(3) Yes, inventors who invented machines or other useful things, and scientists who made scientific breakthroughs (usually Catholics) were a regular feature of this series.  However, the blatant format of this story as an almost not-disguised advertisement was fairly unusual, and, luckily, this is the worst example of that I can remember seeing.

(4) Okayish???  I'd rate this as abominable.  The artwork is terribly crude.  It looks like a 4-yearold drew it!  The gag is non-existent!  Not only not funny in the slightest, but it has no point, at all.  A waste of paper.

(5) I agree!  I don't get why they were drawn looking like robots.  I got the idea that they were supposed to be living Humans.

(6) Yes.  I agree that for an on-going story (just like that type of newspaper strip), a short summary of the overall happenings of the story so far, and also what happened last in the preceding episode to take the reader to where this episode starts, should precede the new material.  This is a problem when each episode only has 4-6 pages to show everything, and the default format is only 3-tiers and 6 panels per page.  And, ironically, the narrative boxes that might have provided at least a little room to provide at least SOME back story, were used to describe what the reader is already seeing in the pictures!!!  Bad planning by the author and artist, and lax and inadequate editing by the editor.  Both bad habits common related to Charlton publications.