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Hack O'Hara

During the Golden Age of Hollywood, everyone took a taxicab. In movies, the USA had only two big cities, New York and Hollywood, and there no one drove their own cars. Cab drivers starred in numerous films and played supporting parts in many others. Though cabbies were nowhere near as common in comics as they were in movies, there were quite a few. Ebony White, Doiby Dickles, and the Space Cabbie spring to mind.

Hack O'Hara, like Swing Sisson, has a job which offers endless story springboards. SuperScrounge is right, too much crime fighting could interfere with his making a living. Maybe he makes it up with bonuses for being "a credit to the Silver Fleet Company."

The story in Crack #21 is thin, but considering he/she was given a measly five pages to work with, the author did a respectable job. The business of Hack as murder suspect (our page 20) bugs me. It doesn't make sense that the cops, finding a murdered man and an empty taxicab, jump to the conclusion that the cabbie killed the man. They'd more likely think something happened to the driver as well.

Lou Fine does a nice art job. He's surely inked by someone else. This is the period when Fine was beginning to shake off his Eisner-influenced exaggeration in favor of cultivating a more realistic style.

At least the story in Crack %59 gets six pages instead of five. With two pages at the beginning to set up the woman's disappearance and two at the end for concluding fisticuffs only two pages remain for detective work. Consequently the story is rather diagrammatic. Alice Kirkpatrick's art (if that is indeed she) is solid but lacks the energy of Lou Fine's episode. Odd that on the last page two leading men suddenly turn into college boys.

[SuperScrounge]

Cab drivers starred in numerous films and played supporting parts in many others.

This reminded me of a running gag in The Saint radio series (which can be found in CB+'s Old Time Radio section) whenever The Saint hailed a taxi he almost always got the same driver (Louie, I think). Inexplicable as this might be I think the writers and actors had fun with this improbable idea.

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Jeb Rivers

Mississippi riverboats have been part of American mythology forever. While riverboats have played parts in many comic book stories, I think Jeb Rivers may have been the only riverboat captain to have his own feature. He seems an odd choice for a cover-featured series hero, but Quality was apparently casting about for new concepts. The same month Jeb Rivers replaced Kid Eternity in Hit Comics, Stuntman Stetson kicked the Doll Man out of Feature Comics. After the changes neither book lived for long.

Hit #61 introduces Jeb and his supporting cast in a fast-moving story. The writer has a comfortable 13 pages to unroll the plot. The story is set in the Deep South before the Civil War. The editors take a novel approach in dealing with the thorny issues of the time like slavery, regional conflict, and racism. They simply pretend none of that existed. Jeb Rivers' South is populated exclusively by white people. In the five published episodes a grand total of two African Americans appear, both of them figures in a crowd. No Black stevedores, nor even servants.

Slightly off-topic, the 1959 TV series Riverboat was set in the same period. Its producers were open about wanting an all-white cast. Wikipedia says that up-and-coming Gene Roddenberry was hired to write the series, but lost the job when he complained too much about the producers insistence there be no Black people on the show.

The story is entertaining. I like Marnie. She has spunk and carries her weight in the story. What the heck is Quality's obsession with jealous boy sidekicks all about? Black Roger has one, Arizona Raines has one, now Jeb Rivers has one. Each is consumed by the fear that one of them female girl women critters will come along and steal their fella. Kid sidekicks were supposed to give boy readers someone to identify with. Putting jealous sidekicks into three different series suggests that the editor believed boys reading the stories would like the idea. Very strange. Off the top of my head I can think of only one non-Quality jealous boy sidekick: Robin the Boy Wonder. But I don't remember him being fixated on the idea.

Reed Crandall's art makes the whole package work. He was a master of period detail as well as of figure drawing. His riverboat is lovingly rendered with lifelike backgrounds. I was struck by the large panel on our page 8. Though the boats are mostly hidden by shadow we can sense their solidity. Their black reflections in the water work with the smoke snaking from the smokestacks to make a masterful composition. Crandall seems really to have enjoyed this job. He puts in little touches like the action in the final panel of our page 4. The cannon doesn't just go boom. The recoil sends it leaping into the air while the crew plug their ears. These extra bits of business bring ordinary scenes to life.

Hit #65 offers another good-looking episode. The inks are weaker--I think Crandall inked the first episode but not this one. I don't know who the inker might be. The GCD credits Les Zakarin with inking #64, but this doesn't look like the same guy.

The story is unsatisfying. The gimmick, a pirate ironclad, is a neat idea. However Jeb discovers the plot only because a vague hunch prompts him to follow a departing passenger. I want genuine motivation. The most aggravating aspect of the plot is that stupid stop-cock. Its incongruity is magnified by the fact that other than the hand crank it's the only object in the room. All that's missing is a huge sign reading "Turn handle to sink ship." The writer doesn't even bother coming up with some bogus explanation why Murkitt installed it.

Characterization is also weak. Marnie has become a standard "Oh, Jeb, I was so worried!" clinging vine while Catfish instantly believes that his pal has become a bad guy. He'd know Jeb better than that. It'd work better to have him realize Jeb has something up his sleeve and keep quiet to let the game play out. I mean, 99% of readers would know damned well Jeb Rivers would not turn traitor. Why wouldn't Catfish?

While we're at it, why does Hackwood pretend not to know Murkitt? The only reason he'd do that would be because he's in on the ironclad plot and wants to avoid discovery. Instead we're led to believe Hackwood not only didn't know the ironclad was there, he somehow failed to notice the men tromping around doing metalwork. This is a major plot hole and it puts a grotesque spin on Sue Belle's line, "He never told me he'd murder so many!" The implication is that Murkitt told her he'd only murder a few people, and she was all right with that.

This was the final cruise of both Jeb Rivers and Hit Comics. Too bad. The feature is oddball enough to make me want to see more--as long as Reed Crandall is drawing it.