It’s a Crime! – Who's Out There?

Ross Andru, ‘Super Comics’ Cover Man

November 30, 2023November 30, 2023gasp655 Comments

« It’s easy, from our 21st-century perspective, to condemn Waldman as nothing but a sleazy bottom-feeder eking out a precarious living by pirating the marginal dregs of an industry he was only peripherally a part of. » — Don Markstein

As some of you may have surmised from the title, this is a sequel to John Severin, ‘Super Comics’ Cover Man. Since I laid out the facts of the case in that previous entry, I refer you to it as an entrée en matière, an amuse-gueule.

It’s been suggested to me several times that I should devote some column space to Rostislav “Ross Andru” Androuchkevitch (though my co-admin ds certainly has, by dint of the man’s long stint on Bob Kanigher’s regressive Wonder Woman), but the trouble is, unlike the many of my generation who, presumably more through circumstance than discernment, imprinted on Andru and Gerry Conway*‘s The Amazing Spider-Man (1973-76), I had already lost all interest in Spidey after Steve Ditko‘s rightly acrimonious 1966 departure; I just wasn’t buying what they were selling.

My own, somewhat less agreeable run-in with Andru was through his ill-advised residency as DC’s principal cover artist (under “art director” Vinnie Colletta) paired up with Dick Giordano**, who reportedly slapped inks, and likely some coffee, on a few covers each day before catching his train to work.

However, as I always say, with a career that lengthy and prolific, there’s bound to be exceptions. Which brings me to a comment a dear friend and old comrade in ink-slinging made — just this week! — regarding an Andru cover I featured during last month’s Hallowee’n Countdown:

« Mmmm… that Ross Andru cover. Such a delightful classic! Who knew he was so good back then compared to his later work, which was pretty damn awful. »

So, like John Severin, Andru (with inking partner, for better — though mostly for worse — Mike Esposito in tow) was approached by Israel Waldman to gussy up his shoddy, oft-illegal reprints.

Redoubtable comics historian Don Markstein (1947-2012) did a breathtaking job of compiling a dossier of the whole I.W./Super Comics operation, complete with the cross-referencing of most — if not all — the ‘borrowed’ properties and personages. Essential reading if you’re at all intrigued by crafty reprobates of Waldman’s ilk.

This is **Doll Man no. 11** (1963, Super Comics). Read it **here**!

This is **Strange Mysteries no. 11** (1963, Super Comics). Read it here! The 60s Marvel colouring gimmick of leaving the background grey to make the foreground figures stand out (not to mention spare much time and effort) leads me to think that resident Marvel hues-man Stan Goldberg (no Rube he) may have been moonlighting for Izzy Waldman.

This is **Danger no. 12** (1963, Super Comics). Read it **here**!

Mr. Markstein on The Black Dwarf: « The first question, of any character, is — why? Putting on a bizarre outfit to battle crime on an unpaid, freelance, anonymous basis seems pretty strenuous, requiring strong motivation. But his isn’t much. He just hates crime, no particular reason cited.

Next, what’s with the name? He was shorter than average, but not so short he qualified as a Little Person. Santa Claus would reject him on sight. And would identifying himself as a dwarf instill fear in criminals, confer fighting prowess on himself, or in any other way be an asset in his war on evildoers? It just sends a message that he’s small, so the evildoers can probably beat him up. At least he made up for his shortcomings by packing a gun. »

This is **Mystery Tales no. 16** (1964, Super Comics). Read it **here**!

This is **Strange Planets no. 16** (1964, Super Comics). Read it **here**!

This is **Danger no. 16** (1964, Super Comics). Read it **here**! I was tempted to quip that it takes tremendous chutzpah to hire the then-current Wonder Woman artist to illustrate a cover featuring one of her numerous knock-offs… but I’m pretty sure Waldman, hardly a comics insider, didn’t know and didn’t care.

Of this particular breed of characters, Markstein wrote: « Superheroes first turned up in American comic books just before World War II, and flourished during the early war years. Especially flourishing were a sub-species of superhero that wrapped themselves in the U.S. flag like a cheap politician. Inexplicably, these are referred to as “patriotic” heroes, indicating that wearing the flag like Captain Freedom or Miss Victory was deemed a mark of patriotism higher and more… »

This is **Fantastic Adventures no. 16** (1964, Super Comics). Read it **here**!

This is **Strange Mysteries no. 17** (1964, Super Comics). Read it **here**!

This is **Daring Adventures no. 17** (1964, Super Comics). Read it **here**! « May I have this dance, Green Lama? » « Why, I thought you’d never ask, Falstaff! »

This is **Police Trap no. 18** (1964, Super Comics). Read it **here**! In my opinion, this is one of the best-composed of Andru’s Super/I.W. covers: very nice sense of depth, though the effect would play out far better without the quite superfluous ‘*We proudly present..*.’ blurb, which breaks the visual flow.

I think the guy on the left is a bit ticklish. This is **Plastic Man no. 18** (1964, Super Comics). This is actually a pretty spiffy issue, featuring classic work by masters Jack Cole and Will Eisner. Read it **here**! DC, who owned the character — having bought it from its original publisher, Quality, when it left the field (along with Doll Man, Phantom Lady, Blackhawk…) — would resurrect Plas in 1966. That didn’t click. It wasn’t until the Steve Skeates / Ramona Fradon revival of 1976-77 that someone managed to grasp the appeal of Jack Cole’s unique creation. But again, sales were low. In 1980, Andru would again depict Plastic Man on *Adventure Comics* covers spotlighting Jean-Claude “Martin Pasko” Rocheford and Joe Staton‘s unfunny, misguided and mercifully brief run. And hey, if you’d always longed to see Andru’s version of Eisner’s The Spirit, this is all you get!

-RG

*Harlan Ellison on Conway, circa 1979: « I mean, the first time I met Gerry Conway, who the hell would’ve known that Gerry Conway would single-handedly ruin the entire comics industry. He’s a classic example of the deification of no-talent in all industries. He’s not good, but he has it in on Thursday. And that’s all they care about. You know, fill them pages. » [ source ]

**taking over from Mike Esposito and actually making him look good in comparison!

Hallowe’en Countdown VII, Day 30

October 30, 2023October 30, 2023gasp65Leave a comment

« Addams’ idea of a bracing day’s outing is to visit an insane asylum. He takes a kind and friendly interest in the inmates and will chat with them unselfconsciously by the hour. “They have a refreshing conversational approach,” he says. » — John Kobler

For this, the penultimate entry in this year’s Hallowe’en, I’ve reached for one of the most prized items in my collection: a book I apparently picked up for 10 dollars in the 1990s… it’s a bit hazy. It was originally given to (or by) one ‘Sadleir’ on December 25, 1950.

Coming upon the tome while browsing the general humour section, I vaguely recall being intrigued by its title, ‘Afternoon in the Attic’, and upon realising that it was illustrated by Charles Addams, the deal was sealed.

Suffice it to say that it’s also a brilliant piece of writing, a series of essays on unusual topics: the niceties of duelling, Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum, Astrologers, Paris’ Théâtre du Grand Guignol (1896-1962), Winston Churchill among the Apes, Psychic mediums, a bartending school, a family of human cannonballs, a tour of haunted New York State, and a chess-playing automaton.

Since most of you won’t make it past the paywall, here’s part of the author’s New York Times obituary:

« John Kobler, a writer whose early days on the crime beat resounded in an enduring biography of Al Capone, died on Monday in Manhattan. He was 90.

He was born in Mount Vernon, N.Y., and was a 1931 graduate of Williams College. He worked for various news organizations as a reporter before editing the crime reportage of PM, a 1940’s New York tabloid.

In World War II he was a civilian intelligence officer posted to North Africa, Italy and France, where he was attached to the United States Embassy. He returned to freelance for The New Yorker, Colliers, Vanity Fair and The Saturday Evening Post. His first book, published in 1938, was ”The Trial of Ruth Snyder and Judd Gray.’‘ It interwove trial testimony with commentary about a notorious 1927 murder case. ”Some Like It Gory” (1940) and ”Afternoon in the Attic” (1950) were collected essays about bizarre crimes and creepy characters. ”Afternoon’‘ was illustrated by Charles Addams.

He was best known for ”Capone: The Life and World of Al Capone,” a biography published in 1971 and reissued most recently in 1992 by Da Capo Press. It remains in print, as does ”Ardent Spirits: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition” (Da Capo, 1993).

He also wrote biographies about Henry Luce (1968), John Barrymore (1977) and Otto Kahn (1989), the banker and arts patron. His favorite among them was ”The Reluctant Surgeon: A Biography of John Hunter’‘ (1960), the 18th-century Scottish anatomist and precursor of modern surgery (1960). » [ source ]

My copy had already shed its dust jacket by the time it came into my possession, but the cover image was also used as a frontispiece.

While Kobler provides what’s likely the definitive biographical essay on Charles Addams (at 10 1/2 pages), Addams, in return, gives us this picture presumably worth the proverbial thousand words.

For this post, I’ll stick to a single essay, the one entitled « Next Week: Murder in a Madhouse ».

« Satisfied customers », quips the caption.

« The seats in front of me were occupied by an American family — father, mother, two girls and a small boy. “I just can’t bear it,” mother was saying, “I just won’t look.” The girls were chewing their programs which bore the Grand Gignol trade mark – a bat with a man’s head. The small boy, who I felt sure was a connoisseur of American comics, sat unruffled and superior. “Kid stuff,” he snarled. “Quiet!” said father, who seemed uncertain what his proper attitude ought to be. “The curtain’s going up.”

The climax bursts with all the restraint of a fire alarm. While Hunchback and Normandy Woman pinion Louise’s arms, One-Eye goes after the cuckoo bird with a knitting needle. Blood splashes all over everybody. (“Heavens!” mother gasped, forgetting not to look.) Louise’s screams shiver the scenery.

But a super climax is yet to come. Hunchback and Normandy Woman, suddenly fearful of what they have done, turn on One-Eye and force her face down upon a hot stove where it sizzles in a jet of smoke and flame like a barbecued mutton chop…

That was enough for father. He herded his family through the exit amid the shrill protests of the small boy who did not want to miss the rest of the program. What he missed included a maniac who disembowels small boys, a woman who gets shot in the head by a gangster and, sandwiched between for comic relief, a bedroom farce with lines never intended for little pitchers to hear, all of it staged with determined realism. »

-RG

Matt Baker’s Disquieting ‘Romance’

February 24, 2023February 25, 2023gasp655 Comments

« I can resist anything except temptation. » — Oscar Wilde

A master from the Golden Age of comics, Matt Baker (1921-1959) is surprisingly well-remembered today. Part of it stems from his singular biography — he was a successful African-American cartoonist, an especial rarity in that era — but his posterity chiefly rests on the quality of his comic book covers.

Looking around, I see that much has been written about him in recent years. But I don’t see any mention of what strikes me about his work: in essence, it creeps me out. But I understand: Baker, as a black man, must have observed and experienced affairs of the heart from a different perspective.

Don’t get me wrong: it’s technically superb, of course. But it’s the tone that I find jarring. Baker’s covers stand out by virtue of their darkly cynical realism. A lot of these situations could only end in tragedy, from unwanted pregnancy to Black Dahlia scenarios. These comic books bore generic tag lines about ‘exciting romances’, ‘love stories’ and ‘romantic adventures’, but Baker’s covers instead feature entrapment and extortion, blackmail, rape and other forms of illicit sex, procuring and corruption…

Perhaps I’m reading too much into these yellowing bits of old paper. But there stands the fact that inside these comic books, the tone changes: we receive the usual tidy moral homilies at the conclusion of every story. Yet the covers, with their unresolved scenarios, retain their haunting power.

Here’s my evidence. See what you think!

This is **Pictorial Romances no. 8** (July 1951, St. John). Read the issue **here**.

This is **Wartime Romances no. 2** (Sept. 1951, St. John). Hilda seems to basically behave like Baker’s Canteen Kate, a character that makes me cringe in much the same way as Katharine Hepburn’s character in *Bringing Up Baby*, even without the mannered accent.

This is **Teen-Age Temptations no. 2** (June 1953, St. John). I sense a case of Section 2423 about to transpire. Read the issue **here**.

This is **Diary Secrets no. 18** (June 1953, St. John). Soliciting is evidently far less demeaning than going on welfare. Read the issue **here**.

This is **Teen-Age Romances no. 32** (July 1953, St. John). Oh, that Pat’s a keeper.

This is **Diary Secrets no. 19** (Aug. 1953, St. John). In 1953, a twenty dollar bill could buy you two hundred comic books, not to mention a jailbait date or twelve. Read the issue **here**.

This is **Wartime Romances no. 17** (Sept. 1953, St. John). No respect for the wingman. A rare case of two creeps who deserve one another. Read the issue **here**.

This is **Pictorial Romances no. 24** (Mar. 1954, St. John). Read the issue **here**.

This is **Teen-Age Temptations no. 8** (June 1954, St. John). For once, the cover matches the inside story. Read the issue **here**.

This is **Cinderella Love no. 25** (Dec. 1954, St. John). Drunk gringos slumming it over the border, down *México* way… what could go wrong? At least we can rest assured that the whole ‘*waking up in a tub full of ice cubes, short one kidney*‘ is an urban legend. But the plot of Elton John and Bernie Taupin’s 1975 classic, *Grow Some Funk of Your Own*, remains a distinct possibility.

This is **Teen-Age Romances no. 40** (Dec. 1954, St. John). With the Comics Code looming, the scenes depicted on St. John’s covers got sanitised into looking like any other romance comic book of the era. But I daresay Baker’s work was better than ever — I mean, look at that delicate, yet confident and expressive line. Read the issue **here**.

A portrait of the dapper artist. Regrettably, work became scarce during the post-Code years, and Baker was reduced to hacking out page fillers for Vince Colletta’s studio. It’s an honest living, sure, but a waste, since nothing looks more like a dashed-out Colletta-inked romance than another dashed-out Colletta-inked romance.

Baker, cursed with a heart ailment, died tragically young at age 38 in 1959.

-RG

Brad Teare: Scratching Away at Truth

July 29, 2022July 29, 2022gasp652 Comments

« Contained in these works were not only all the important philosophical developments of modern society… there were even answers to as yet unposed questions. » — Cypher has an epiphany

This week’s topic reminded me of the crucial role an enlightened comic shop owner, especially pre-internet, could play in one’s edification in the medium. Case in point: while I can’t consider him a mentor, my old comic shop guy, being adventurous and open-minded, made a lot of obscure titles available, without necessarily pushing them on his customers. And in a world of ‘super-heroes or bust’, such availability is crucial.

Which brings us to Mr. Brad Teare (b. 1956, Moscow, Idaho). I’ve always had special fondness for comics that bloomed outside the usual channels, like hardy plant life rising up in cracks and miraculously subsisting on nearly nothing.

From what I can tell, Teare’s first professional comics work appeared in a non-consecutive pair of issues of Heavy Metal magazine, during that blessed but oh-so-brief ‘Tundra‘ period when surprisingly enlightened Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles co-creator Kevin Eastman published, at considerable loss (between 9 and 14 million simoleons), some of the finest comics of the 1990s.

Eastman had purchased Heavy Metal in January, 1992. In the March issue, Brad Teare’s Cypher made its first of two appearances in HM, in marked contrast to the magazine’s prevalent ‘dystopias with titties for arrested adolescents’ aesthetic.

The following year, Teare self-published (under the Crypto Graphica banner, out of Providence, Utah, pop. 7,000 or so) Cypher no. 1, with a cover clamouring that it contained the ‘Complete Cypher Trilogy!’. Teare intended to produce further issues, but the market evidently wasn’t built for it. The book is so obscure that even the Grand Comics Database (GDC) has never heard of it. But my comic shop guy did place an order, and found at least one receptive reader eager to snap up a copy. I waited and waited for a second issue, but in vain.

This is **Cypher no. 1** (1993, Crypto Graphica). Have I mentioned how much I enjoy the artistic technique of ‘scratchboard’? I have indeed!

This back cover one-pager from **Cypher no. 1** has never been reprinted, I believe.

Then, four years down the road, Gibbs-Smith, “a proud independent publisher and distributor“, founded in 1969, also Utah-based… and still around, assembled and issued a compact (22,5 x 16 cm) hardcover Cypher collection, gathering material that Teare must have intended for at least a couple more issues of his series. Aside from an oddly ‘meh’ cover, overworked and underwhelming, it’s a gorgeous package. It also has managed to fly below the GCD’s radar all these years.

Cypher finds himself new employment. This is the version from Cypher no. 1; perhaps because of the smaller format, the collected edition replaced Teare’s lovely, expressive hand-lettering with a computer font.

A spooky sample from ‘*Minotaur*‘, from the 1997 Gibbs-Smith collected edition.

In the meantime, Teare kept his hand in, providing a pair of highlights to DC/Paradox Press’ well-written but frustratingly visually scattershot The Big Book Of series (1994-2000), also finding success as a freelance illustrator (Random House, The New York Times, Sony, Turner Interactive, Flying Buffalo) in all manners of media.

From **The Big Book of Urban Legends** (Dec. 1994, Paradox Press/DC).

From 1997, a typical spread from the charming **Dance, Pioneer, Dance!** Written by Rick Walton, it offers a *slightly* fictionalised account of the westward migration of Brigham Young and a band of his fellow Mormons.

From **The Big Book of Vice** (March 1999, Paradox Press/DC). A fascinating bit of history!

Though he’s nowadays a celebrated and prolific painter of the Utah landscape, he hasn’t altogether turned his back on comics, bless his soul. The final chapter of Cypher (to date?), ‘Sub-Wayward’, introduced, in the story-within-a-story tradition, scientist turned reluctant underground hero The Subterranean. And so, long story short, we find ourselves with a Teare book that’s readily available (for the time being)!

« This comic details the thrilling origin of The Subterranean from his humble beginnings at HyperLabs in New York City to his role as sole defense against a terrible evil perpetrated by the Thanatos twins, former colleagues at HyperLabs. This character of The Subterranean is a spin-off from the critically acclaimed graphic novel Cypher. »

In parting, here’s a video of Mr. Teare demonstrating the impasto technique in acrylics.

-RG

Aloha, āhole: Dennis Eichhorn in Hawaii

April 1, 2022April 1, 2022gasp652 Comments

« In Hawaii they say, “aloha.” That’s a nice one, It means both “hello” and “good-bye”, which just goes to show, if you spend enough time in the sun you don’t know whether you’re coming or going. » — George Carlin

By and large, the notorious 1990s trend of autobiographical (at times navel-gazing) comics was undermined by its practitioners’ dearth of meaningful life experience and insight. Obviously, there’s been plenty of notable exceptions, before and since: on the insight front, for one, Canadian David Collier is an undervalued master of the documentary form.

As for life experience, puissant Dennis P. Eichhorn (1945-2015) put all the pasty, effete cartoonists to shame with his spectacularly turbulent, bold-type life. A gifted writer and storyteller, well-versed in the comics medium, he galvanised the creativity of his many collaborators, a broad yet aptly-selected crew of graphic practitioners, many of whom he’d met in the course of his lengthy writing and editorial stint with Seattle’s fabled The Rocket weekly.

I initially assumed I’d run into trouble in settling on the one story to showcase, but nope… right away, I knew just the ticket… a ticket to the Big Island.

*Monkey See, Monkey Do*, written by Eichhorn and illustrated by Gene Fama, first saw print in **Real Stuff no. 11** (Jan. 1993, Fantagraphics); there, it appeared in black and white, but was coloured, presumably by Fama himself, for Swifty Morales Press’ lovingly-done 2004 Real Stuff anthology.

The issue originally featured a Charles Burns cover coloured by Jim Woodring (another master of autobiography, *en passant*). Burns presumably wasn’t too keen on the original palette (whose murkiness, to be fair, rather overwhelmed his drawing), so he recoloured it himself for the anthology. This is the all-Burns version. Compare, if you will, to the Woodring rendition.

A candid shot of our fair young author on a visit to Seattle, circa 1992, with Mr. Eichhorn, along with a friendly member of the local ethylic intelligentsia, who successfully lobbied for inclusion in the shot. You decide who’s who.

-RG

p.s. It would be easy to assume that āhole is just a fancy way of saying ‘asshole’, but it isn’t *necessarily* so; to wit:

āholen. An endemic fish (Kuhlia sandvicensis) found in both fresh and salt water. The mature stage is āhole, the young stage āholehole. Because of the meaning of hole, to strip away, this fish was used for magic, as to chase away evil spirits and for love magic. It was also called a “sea pig” (puaʻa kai) and used ceremonially as a substitute for pig. Foreigners were sometimes called āhole because of the light skin of the fish. He āhole ka iʻa, hole ke aloha, āhole is the fish, love is restless [of āhole fish used in love magic]. [ source ]

K Is for Krigstein!

March 22, 2022March 24, 2022gasp656 Comments

« Krigstein was a heartfelt sort of warm guy, but always in conflict. He was getting sick and tired of being embroiled and embattled. He fought hard to keep interested, but began getting cynical. » — Gil Kane, or Eli Katz if you prefer, fellow K-Man.

On any given day, K could easily stand for Kurtzman, Kliban, Kirby, Kubert, Kremer (or Krenkel, Kaz, Kupperman, Keller, Kim, Kuper, Kricfalusi, Kristiansen, Kiefer, Kirchner, Kinstler, Kamb, Kida…): what’s just another letter in everyday life is one of comics’ mightiest signifiers.

Over seven hundred posts in, why have we never featured Bernard Krigstein, despite the fact that both of us absolutely adore his work? Part of the reason is that so much of value and insight has already been written on the subject, and part of it is that he’s hard to write about, which makes the existing literature even more remarkable and worth treasuring. And yet, there’s still so much left to say!

Hell, since it’s his birthday (born on March 19, 1919, he would now be one hundred and three years old), I’ll give it a try.

I’m not quite certain what precisely was my proper introduction to Mr. Krigstein’s œuvre: it was either my encounter with the whimsical The Hypnotist! (written by Carl Wessler, originally published in Astonishing no. 47, March 1956, Atlas), as reprinted in Weird Wonder Tales no. 19 (Sept. 1976, Marvel), or with Pipe-dream, scripted by Johnny Craig and reprinted in Nostalgia Press’ Horror Comics of the 1950’s (1971, edited by Bhob Stewart, Ron Barlow and original publisher Bill Gaines… mine was the French-language edition). I enjoyed the first one just fine, but the latter blew my young mind, not that I was equipped to fully appreciate it. Kudos to the editors for including the tale, because it really stood out amidst the tried-and-true and somewhat formulaic EC classics. It had no heavy, easily digested moral, it was illustrated in a sketchy, vaporous, elastic style that bore no resemblance to its more conventional company, to say nothing of the writing.

Pipe-dream originally appeared in **Vault of Horror no. 36** (Apr.-May 1954, EC); written by Johnny Craig (who was also editor). This version was recoloured from original Silverprints by Marie Severin for Greg Sadowski‘s rather sublime **B. Krigstein Volume One** (2002, Fantagraphics).

As it turns out, even the story’s colourist, a young Marie Severin, had some severe misgivings about it: as she noted many years later, « I can’t remember a thing about coloring ‘Pipe Dream‘ the first time. I rushed through it because I found it so depressing. The whole subject was so dingy to me. I was just a kid, you know — I didn’t want to know anything about dope. When I saw it again, it brought back all those negative feelings. I suppose I shielded myself from them by doing it quickly. Now that I’ve lived a while I can appreciate its beauty, and I’m better equipped to color it. »

To be fair, she had done her usual fine job on it.

Having come late to the EC stable, Krigstein didn’t get too many cover opportunities. This is his second, and final shot, **Piracy no. 6** (Aug.- Sept. 1955, EC)… and, I daresay, a classic.

Krigstein sure could paint the elements evocatively: from the same year, an illustration from Herman Melville’s **Moby Dick** (Pocket Library Series no. 28, 1955).

A 1949 photo of the radiant artist, having just been awarded First prize in black and white graphics by the Brooklyn Society of Artists. I think that part of what makes me favourably disposed towards Krigstein is that he’s a dead ringer for my accountant, a most worthy fellow himself.

If one could find any fault in Greg Sadowski’s definitive two-volume Krigstein monograph, it’s that his research missed one crucial entry in his subject’s funnybook bibliography… the last, and longest one! Here’s hoping for an updated edition, some sweet day.

It took another hardy historian, England’s Paul Gravett, to uncover the fascinating, final piece of the puzzle. It turned up in Gravett’s The Mammoth Book of Best Crime Comics (2008, Running Press). A comic book spinoff of the television series based in turn upon Salvatore Albert Lombino‘s (aka Evan Hunter, Ed McBain, Hunt Collins, Curt Cannon, Richard Marsten, D.A. Addams and Ted Taine) 87th Precinct series, it appeared in the final year of Dell’s Four Color series. So here are a few extracts (as Mr. Gravett would surely call them) from Blind Man’s Bluff; scripter unknown, pencilled and inked by Krigstein, from Four Color no. 1309, June 1962, Dell). By all means, read the whole thing here!

Gravett says of the tale: « *Illustrated by the EC Comics genius Bernie Krigstein, it was described by him as ”* … the most fantastically absurd story that has ever been typed or presented to an artist… ” A painter himself at the time, Krigstein quit the series after rejecting the unknown writer’s second script and pursued his art career, sadly never to draw comics again. Despite his misgivings, his swansong has a bizarre fascination to it. »

Well, that about wraps it up. See what I mean about how much there is to say? All this blather, and I never even got around to introducing the villains of the piece, Kanigher and Lee.

-RG

Here Comes Sally the Sleuth… and There Goes Her Dress!

February 23, 2022February 23, 2022redscraper7 Comments

She’s audacious, savvy, and she’s always cheerful. Here she is, the infamous Sally the Sleuth by Adolphe Barreaux*. First things first, to give us a timeframe: this strip was published in “pulp” magazine Spicy Detective Stories between 1934 and 1943, then moved to Speed Detective Stories in a new format** until 1950 then, finally, to Crime Smashers until the comic’s demise in 1953.

Sally the Sleuth features a tightrope act that’s not that easily achieved: fearless, self-sufficient Sally is so adept at spotting (and landing into the middle of) trouble that she frequently requires outside help to be rescued in the nick of time, with the role of the rescuer oft being played by her boss, the Chief, who usually bursts in through the door. What’s interesting is the way this rather typical damsel-in-distress set-up does not take anything away from our sense of Sally as a take-charge, go-getting kind of gal. She does not hesitate to bat her eyelashes or flash a gam when needed, but she’s neither the usual femme fatale archetype that appeared so often in contemporary comics, nor the innocent-yet-gorgeous victim. When captured, she spits (sometimes literally) in the face of her would-be killers; when she gets rescued, it was because she left instructions with Peanuts, her kid assistant, or schemed to leave the Chief enough clues to locate her if she hit a bad patch.

Strategic panty drop! Page two from “Tourist Trade” (June 1938, Spicy Detective Stories).

It may surprise a modern reader that an American comic from the mid-thirties (1935! consider this number again if it hasn’t sunk in yet!) should be so casual about a topless female when present-day consumers of culture freak out at the very sight of a nipple (and that goes for male nipples as well). Of course pulp magazines and comics weren’t read by staunch defenders of High Morals and Propriety, but it was nevertheless a hugely popular medium, and Spicy Detective Stories, where Sally got her débutante ball, certainly abounded in unclad women in tales of booze, butchery and concupiscence.

The cover of **Spicy Detective Stories no. 4** (June 1935), in which *The Tiger’s Lair* (see below) appeared.

Which brings me to my next point: tension created by the play between the predictable and the unforeseen. Sally always, always ends up in a state of advanced déshabillé. That is an enjoyable given. Much like panties drop to the floor if a woman should be carrying celery, Sally’s dress and underwear fly off at the gentlest of tugs. However, just how it is accomplished varies wildly from week to week. One wouldn’t think that were so many interesting ways of getting accidentally undressed. And these stories are harsh, no doubt about it: scenes of torture and murder vary from the comparatively sedate (getting whipped, slapped, shot) to sensationalist (death by venomous snake or spider) to viscerally uncomfortable (cannibalism with more than a dash of necrophilia, being boiled alive, impalement).

The complete “The Tiger’s Lair” (June 1935, Spicy Detective Stories).

Sally’s stoicism as she’s about to be carved up is nothing short of miraculous. Page two from “The Sewer Horror” (December 1937, Spicy Detective Stories).

Page two from “Murder Mania” (April 1935, Spicy Detective Stories).

Page two from “The Missing-Models Mystery” (April 1937, Saucy Detective Stories).

Though of course it’s the nudity is sexualised, I love the ease with which Sally does it, completely unperturbed by having a bare chest whether she’s surrounded by hoodlums, talking to her boss, or racing through a crowded hotel. There’s a certain innocence in it, as if we were watching a frolicking Dedini nymph. Despite being so frequently assaulted, she does not at all come off as a victim.

Some top-rate lassoing from Peanuts! They’re trying to make it look like a suicide, but I’m not sure why a woman would want to jump off a roof naked. Page two from “Love Nest Loot” (September 1935, Spicy Detective Stories).

Earlier-day Sally (1934-1943) is supposedly ‘ditzy and naive’ (source), but I think one should not mistake cheerfulness or pragmatism for naïveté. She navigates the seedy parts of town with aplomb and talent, efficiently following clues, taking on many roles to infiltrate criminal organisations or simply glean information. Sally may have to rely on the Chief to extricate her from yet another predicament, but he is a sort of handsome stock figure with little personality, mostly sitting around his office and agreeing when Sally says ‘I should investigate this!’

Page two from “Coke for Co-eds” (January 1938, Spicy Detective Stories).

Sally also doesn’t judge other women; her moral compass is firmly pointed to bringing all manner of crooks to justice, but she’s a no-nonsense kind of girl when it comes to standards of female behaviour. Page two from “Sin Ship” (October 1936, Spicy Detective Stories).

Page one from “Toy of Fate” (January 1937, Spicy Detective Stories).

Sally the Sleuth has historical importance, if only for the panel borrowed by Frederic Wertham for his Seduction of the Innocent report from a Sally the Sleuth: Death Bait (1950) story. In the wonderfully written introduction to the Sally the Sleuth Collection, comics historian Tim Hanley goes a step further, saying “without Sally the Sleuth, there would be no Superman. Without the pulp heroine with a penchant for solving crimes in a state of undress, there would be no Batman either.” It can be (and has been) argued that he is giving this strip too much credit***, but there will be no argument that Sally is an important figure. Because I’m a philistine, what’s most important to me… is that it’s a great read.

~ ds

* As far as Barreaux, born Adolphus Barreaux Gripon, is concerned, there are much better places to read about his biography than on this blog, mostly due to the fact that biographies kind of bore me. I specifically direct you here for a detailed biography, and here for more information about Barreaux’ mixed heritage and the variety of genres he illustrated.

** This post only includes strips from the earlier, 1934-1943 version, because I by far prefer it to what came later, although I may be in the minority. The art got arguably better once Sally moved to Speed Detective stories, and stories also got longer, allowing for more elaborate plots. However, Sally was now some sort of international spy, travelling to ‘exotic’ countries and having to contend with native Hula dancers, superstitious savages in Indian jungles, Nazis, Japanese master-minds, and so on. She got disrobed less frequently, but the charming innocence of the strip, despite its violence and simple but effective art, is what makes Sally so appealing to me.

*** Hanley has been clearly reproached for this by some readers, and so elaborated on his blog:

My introduction begins with the grandiose claim that there would be no Superman without Sally the Sleuth, but it’s true. Long before Harry Donenfeld launched DC Comics, he was a publisher of pulp magazines that featured lurid crime stories. Sex was a major focus, and the dirty stories were a popular product. In 1934, Adolphe Barreaux convinced Donenfeld to expand outside of prose and add some comics to his books, and the “Sally the Sleuth” strip in Spicy Detective was their first attempt. It proved popular and more followed. Eventually, Donenfeld got into the comics game full time in the late 1930s, first with Detective Comics and later with Action Comics. Once Superman and Batman took off with young readers, more series followed and the comic book business became Donenfeld’s priority. But it all started with Sally.

Hallowe’en Countdown V, Day 15

October 15, 2021October 15, 2021gasp65Leave a comment

« Get ready for the future: it is murder. » — Leonard Cohen

Since Hallowe’en isn’t as widely celebrated in Europe — Ireland and the rest of the U.K. aside, obviously — as it is in North America, it’s not always evident and easy to keep the countdown truly international. No worries: in such a situation, I’m no stickler — I’ll take the spirit of the law over its letter.

The first (and until now, only) time I posted about Thomas Ott, I wound up with a contender for least-popular post in this blog’s history. Have I learned my lesson? Heavens, no. I live, perhaps naïvely, in the belief that our audience has grown in the interim, and that said audience is ever more attuned and receptive to our quirks.

Here, then, is some gallows humour from Mr. Ott. Don’t try this at home, unless…

Originally published in **Tales of Error** (Oct. 1989, Edition moderne, Switzerland). Yes, a book in English by a German-speaker from a Swiss publisher with a French name.

The **Exit** collection (Sept. 1997, Delcourt) gathers the essential bits of Ott’s first three albums (*Tales of Error*, *Greetings from Hellville* and *Dead End*), as well as some new pieces.

For more poisoned goodies from Mr. Ott, just plod your carcass over to his official website.

-RG

Hallowe’en Countdown V, Day 6

October 6, 2021gasp653 Comments

« There’s money, all right! I quoted Mrs. Tarrent a hundred slugs for this trip and she never batted a tonsil! » — Ken Shannon’s on the job.

Reed Crandall (1917-1982), one of the final additions (mid-1953… late in the ballgame!) to EC Comics’ immortal roster, previously spent most of the Golden Age years (1941-53) exclusively working for Quality Comics, and it was only when the publisher began to scale back its output, in 1953, that Crandall began to look elsewhere for additional work. After EC, he would make landfall at George A. Pflaum’s Treasure Chest of Fun & Fact, a story we’ve touched upon earlier this year.

Hard-boiled private eye (was there any other kind?) Ken Shannon was introduced in Quality’s Police Comics with issue 103 (Dec. 1950), and right away grabbed the cover spot (dethroning Plastic Man, no less!), which he doggedly retained to the bitter end, namely Police’s final bow, issue 127 (Oct. 1953). Concurrently, Shannon’s investigations were spun off into his own book, over the course of ten issues (Oct. 1951 to Apr. 1953).

Shannon certainly had his share of unusual cases to puzzle out, and here are the spookiest!

This is **Ken Shannon no. 3** (Feb. 1952, Quality). From what I’ve seen and heard, these babies are scarce.

The cover story’s introductory splash. Read the entire issue **here**!

This is **Ken Shannon no. 6** (Aug. 1952, Quality). Read the entire issue **here**!

And this is **Ken Shannon no. 7** (Oct. 1952, Quality). Read the entire issue **here**!

-RG

Warren Kremer Aces It!

June 26, 2021June 27, 2021gasp651 Comment

« Michelangelo was a ‘lefty’ » — Warren Kremer (a southpaw himself, a common attribute among artists)

I can’t help returning to Warren Kremer (today’s his birthday, not coincidentally; he was born on June 26, 1921, passing away on July 23, 2003), first because I adore his work, and second because I quite concur with Jon B. Cooke‘s bold but sensible assertion that Kremer…

« … is an extraordinarily talented artist. A master of design, character nuance and just plain exquisite drawing ability, he is perhaps the most underrated – or even worse, ignored – comic book creator of significance in the industry’s history. »

And why is that? A combination of working outside the superhero genre and of doing it, uncredited and for decades, on the ole Harvey Family Plantation.

This blog’s It’s a Harvey World category might as well be called It’s a Kremer World, since he’s pretty much had the spotlight to himself.

But Kremer’s comics career precedes his arrival at Harvey; after working for the pulps in the late 1930s, he entered the comic book field, and a sizeable chunk of his early work was done for Ace Magazines (1940-56), and this is the area we’ll be exploring today.