Unabridged Comics

A blog about comic book history. I'm slowly going through every comic ever published by Marvel and DC, in order-- reading them when possible, looking for interesting information, and compiling data. I plan to throw other publishers into the mix down the line. E-mail me any thoughts you have. Or ask me here!

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How do you achieve these? And how much money does it take? Will you ever show the scans? My great grandfather collected these old comics, and bless his heart, thought they were still around. Before he died, he wanted me to read the comics, but no one has the comics he did. I think it was New Fun the Magazine Comic, or something like that. Please help me.

Some of these comics have been reprinted (maybe not any of the DCs I've done so far, but a lot of the Marvels are in Marvel Masterworks). Some of the others have been scanned (not by me) and can be downloaded in torrents.

I don't think any of New Fun has been reprinted, and sadly, I doubt it ever will be. Torrents are your best bet.

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You may have caught the news that Patsy Walker will be a character in the upcoming Jessica Jones show. This means that by order of creation, Patsy will become the third Marvel character to make the move into live action, behind only Captain America and Bucky.

Imagine trying to explain to the 1940s Timely crew that the star of their teen-girl humor comics would someday become a superheroine called Hellcat and then appear on TV.

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DC COMIC #21: New Comics #7 DATE: August 1936 PUBLISHER: National Allied Newspaper Syndicate Inc. CONTENTS: Cover by Vin Sullivan; "Hello!" (text article), maybe written by Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson; "Captain Jim Of The Texas Rangers" by Homer Fleming; "Don Coyote" by Bill Patrick; "Castaway Island" by Tom Cooper; "Ol' Oz Bopp" by Russell Cole; "Captain Quick" by Sven Elven; "The Drew Mystery" (Dale Daring story) by Dick Ryan; "Cal 'N' Alec" by Bill Patrick; "Sandor And The Lost Civilization" by Homer Fleming; "Worth-While Films To Watch For" (text article) by I.W. Magovern; "Needles" by Al Stahl; "Maginnis Of The Mounties" by Richard Matheson; "Andy Handy" by Leo O'Mealia; "Jungle Town" by Dick Ryan; "Brain Teasers" (activity page); "Young Lochinvar By Sir Walter Scott" (Famous Poems Pictured story) by Henry Kiefer; "Fore!" by Vin Sullivan; "She" by Sven Elven; "17-20 On The Black" by Tom Cooper; "Steve Conrad On Dolorosa Isle" by Creig Flessel; "The Golden Dragon" by Tom Hickey; "Slim And Tex" by A. Leslie Ross; "Cap'n Spiniker" by Tom Cooper; "Magic!" (text article) by Andrini The Great; "The Book Shelf" (text article) by Marjorie Knight; "Chikko Chakko" by Ellis Edwards; "The Vikings", maybe written by Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, drawn by Alex Anthony Blum; "Goofo The Great" by Russell Cole; "King Arthur" by Rafael Astarita; "Ray & Gail" by Clem Gretter; "A Tale Of Two Cities" by Merna Gamble; "Federal Men", written by Jerry Siegel, drawn by Joe Shuster; "It's A Dern Lie" by Bill Patrick. Editor: Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson. Associate editor: Vin Sullivan. Associate editor: Whitney Ellsworth.

SERIES/CREATOR NOTES: Al Stahl's Needles ends as he leaves National for Fiction House. He'll work in comics throughout the '40s, mostly for Quality, and then go into animation. Associate editor Vin Sullivan ends his run as the cover artist. And Dick Ryan, who already draws Dale Daring, debuts his second recurring feature with Jungle Town.

I'm writing this on Christmas Day, during which I'm Jewish and have a bad cold. Lacking anything else to do or any energy with which to do it, now's the perfect time to endure some 1936.

Captain Jim Of The Texas Rangers: Cowboys rescue kids. Wolves pose a threat and then don't come up again. Kind of a Chekhov's-gun violation.

Don Coyote: Our hero shows a kid how to blow a horn, the kid puts a rock in the horn because he's a little prick, and the rock hits the kid in the head because of karma. As ever, the moral of Don Coyote is that kids shouldn't act like assholes.

Castaway Island: The pirate Blackface takes more prisoners, only to discover his previous prisoners have escaped. Guy's a bad pirate.

Ol' Oz Bopp: A grouchy old guy makes a kid learn all the presidents, but doesn't know all the presidents himself, and then another guy comes up with a complicated system of mnemonics that doesn't seem useful to me.

Captain Quick: More boring pirate stuff. The all-caption no-word-balloon style is interesting as a historical artifact of people inventing the medium as they go along, but so boring to read that I don't even care about pirates. Maybe Sven Elven would've done better if he'd known some asshole would write about his comics 78 years later.

Dale Daring: Dale and her buddy Dick are rescued by a mysterious old man who lives in the woods and who I think might be Santa:

Cal 'N' Alec: Our heroes and the sheriff catch the bad guy they've been after and then end on a cliffhanger of intending to go get gold, which is not very suspenseful.

Sandor And The Lost Civilization: A lion fights a leopard, a wild dog rescues fake-Tarzan, fake-Tarzan kills a hyena, and everybody's good to go home until an unknown voice demands to talk to Sandor in a very abrupt cliffhanger.

Needles: Our hero wakes up in the morning, spends half the comic exercising because Al Stahl's joke wasn't really enough to warrant two pages, and then goes back to sleep. As this is the final appearance of Needles, I surmise that he never woke up.

Maginnis Of The Mounties: Maginnis versus outlaws, who then capture his buddy's daughter. Special guest appearance by Puck of Alpha Flight! Not really.

Andy Handy: Andy spends a page and a half building a diving board. Then it doesn't work well and a rock hits him on the head. This guy really sucks.

Jungle Town: Basically a bunch of single-panel gags without the panels. Talking animals bein' goofy.

Famous Poems Pictured: This is just here so you can convince your parents not to throw the comic away.

Fore!: A collection of golf-themed single-panel gags, filled with idiots.

She: "Let's adapt an adventure novel by just throwing the text up with the worst drawings we can find. Maybe that's what'll hit in this new medium. I dunno." Is Sven Elven my enemy?

17-20 On The Black: No ethnic stereotype left unturned.

Steve Conrad On Dolorosa Isle: Adventurer-guy rescues a lady from jungle natives. Part of me always wants to read these adventure serials in full so I can actually follow the story, but all the other parts of me have better shit to do.

The Golden Dragon: Our protagonists swing their dicks around in Peking on their asshole quest for treasure. Wow, I'm really not on board with 1930s adventure protagonists today.

Slim And Tex: Slim and Tex want to go to a dance with the same lady. She agreed to go with Slim, so Tex traps Slim on top of a water tower, so Slim gets water all over Tex. This is drawn like an adventure serial, but has the plot of a humor feature, and is kind of the worst of both worlds.

Cap'n Spiniker: Homeboy fights some natives and gets his fat body stuck in a giant pot somehow. Spiniker's usually good for a relatively funny panel, but I didn't even get that this time. Is this the worst issue of New Comics ever or do I just hate life right now?

Chikko Chakko: Racist Mexican stereotypes trying to win money. I always forget how these comics start off all innocent and save the racism for the back.

The Vikings: This style of captions instead of word balloons completely kills any sense of motion and makes comics feel like narration over still images. Vikings are killing each other and it feels like nothing's happening. I wonder when they'll stop doing this format.

Goofo The Great: Goofo gets matched up with some lady as his dancing partner at a party-- I don't understand the circumstances at all-- and then when she's either too fat or too muscular (can't tell which), he gets the fuck out like an asshole.

King Arthur: Again, it's like they WANT historical/literary classics to seem boring.

Ray & Gail: Everybody wants Aunt Millie's treasure map. I honestly can't tell whether Aunt Millie's supposed to seem batty or not.

A Tale Of Two Cities: Quick, don't let your mom see that you were reading Federal Men!

Federal Men: Steve Carson takes down what seems to be a small army of criminals, with a massive tank. As usual, I can't tell whether I see glimmers of quality in pre-Superman Siegel/Shuster comics or I'm just imagining them.

It's A Dern Lie: Some guy catches a fox and buys candy for his girlfriend but then eats all the candy? I don't know.

What a boring issue. What a bunch of idiots and racists. At least it went by pretty quickly. I'm getting the hang of this?

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hi ... I just stumbled upon your blog. My mother was Bessie H. Little who was the editor of Miss America Magazine, Screen Stars, Teen Life and a host of other publications. She created the character, Patsy Walker, and my father, Stuart Little, wrote the copy. I have wonderful memories of going to her office and being with Martin Goodman who recognized my mother's talent. I believe she broke the glass ceiling in publishing. Thanks ... Jane Little Platman

Really cool to hear from you! One of the interesting things about going through all these early comics has been learning about the earliest women to work in the comic industry, most of whom have gone completely unsung to this day. Patsy Walker's original run as a teen protagonist has largely been forgotten, but I've actually found her stories to be some of the most enjoyable Timely comics so far, and I can't help wondering what your parents would've thought about Patsy Walker eventually becoming a Marvel superhero!

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MARVEL COMIC #448: Krazy Komics #20 DATE: January 1946 PUBLISHER: Jest Publishing Co. CONTENTS: "Silly Seal And Ziggy Pig"; "A Perfect Match" (activity page); "Krazy Krow And Boobsy"; "Riddle Page" (activity page); "The Creeper And Crawler"; "Tin Can Alley" (text story); "The Mysterious Letter" (Posty And Lolly story). Editor: Vince Fago.

I posted about this a couple of days ago, but have since found a copy and can actually read it. Thanks to Fredrik Jullum for helping me out!

In the lead story, Ziggy Pig has a date, but Silly Seal interferes, and they baet the shit out of each other until Ziggy's date stops liking him.

I swear, '40s funny animal comics are basically just Jackass.

This sequence actually made me laugh.

Elsewhere: Krazy Krow tries to show how tough he is by fighting a gorilla, but just gets his ass kicked by a gorilla. The Creeper and Crawler steal meat, run from a cop, and get thrown in jail, where at least they get free meals. And Posty, the duck who's a postman, spends an entire story just complaining about his job.

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MARVEL COMIC #447: Joker Comics #21 DATE: January 1946 PUBLISHER: Current Detective Stories CONTENTS: Cover; "Tessie The Typist", pencilled by Frank Carin; “They’re Nautical, But Nice!” (Star And Tar story); "1/2 Chief Poke-In-Nose"; “No New Is Good News” (text story); "Eustace Hayseed And Choo-Choo"; "Powerhouse Pepper", pencilled by Basil Wolverton. Editor: Vince Fago.

I posted about this a couple of days ago, but have since found a copy and can actually read it. Thanks to Fredrik Jullum for helping me out!

I don't remember how many Tessie stories I've actually tracked down and read, if any (it's certainly been a while). But based on this one, Tessie and her boyfriend Skidsy are two of the dumbest characters in Marvel history. I think the whole point of Tessie The Typist in the first place was to reflect the new social phenomenon of young women entering the workforce, but all Tessie does in this story is get fired from a series of jobs for being an idiot. She gets a reporter gig at a place whose standards are so low that all she has to do is ask about the job and she's immediately assigned to a story-- but when the flea market she's supposed to cover turns into an armed robbery and a shootout, she fails to see the opportunity and instead gets dismayed that the subject of her story has been canceled. Through it all, her loyal idiot boyfriend Skidsy is there to stupid his way through her life, adding nothing except perpetual befuddlement. This would be a fun story to read if Idiocracy didn't exist and you wanted to come up with the idea for it.

This guy should stop hiring inexperienced reporters without so much as a job interview and then getting angry when they don't know how reporting works. Also he should stop eating paper.

On to the backups: Star and Tar are two idiot sailors who get into a bar fight and run from cops and then accidentally end up in a movie. I'm writing this post as I go, and I wonder if the whole comic is going to be about idiots failing.

1/2 Chief Poke-In-Nose, as his name suggests, is a young American Indian caricature who runs around saying things white people thought Indians said in 1945. When he seemingly discovers oil, two idiots try to take it from him and eventually play on his ignorance by buying it for only $10, only to get arrested when a cop discovers the oil is from a company's broken pipe. This story is objectionable in every way I can think of, and the theme of idiot failure continues.

Eustace Hayseed, America's favorite Li'l Abner wannabe, gets a visit from his rich Uncle Harry from New York. I expected simplistic rich/poor culture-shock jokes, but instead got something a lot simpler and slightly more rewarding: animals eat Uncle Harry's car. Which is equipped with security measures that include a boxing glove, which somehow ends up punching a bull:

The bull gets his revenge on the car, and then several goats eat the rest. I guess Eustace is an idiot and Uncle Harry is a failure, for a variation on the theme.

And finally, the usual brilliance that is Basil Wolverton's Powerhouse Pepper-- as always, my favorite thing coming out of 1940s Marvel. Wolverton's art is so much fun-- you could flip through this without reading a word and every panel would still be a classic. This story, in which Pepper works at a candy factory, has just enough of a satirical edge, along with Wolverton's usual abundance of sign jokes, to make me wonder how much of an influence he was on the Simpsons. And the dialogue!

This panel alone is enough to make me want to stage a live table read of Powerhouse Pepper comics. And this story alone is enough to make me glad I read this comic. It even ends on Pepper intelligently succeeding! There's Basil Wolverton and there are all the rest.

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MARVEL COMIC #448: Krazy Komics #20 DATE: January 1946 PUBLISHER: Jest Publishing Co. CONTENTS: "Silly Seal And Ziggy Pig"; "A Perfect Match" (activity page); "Krazy Krow And Boobsy"; "Riddle Page" (activity page); "The Creeper And Crawler"; "Tin Can Alley" (text story); "The Mysterious Letter" (Posty And Lolly story). Editor: Vince Fago.

I couldn't find this issue and know nothing about the contents, although the typical lineup would include Krazy Krow and Tubby Pig, with Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal headlining.

That cover is a really depressing metaphor for life. It implies that even as we dream of success, we are unaware of the imminent failure our dreams will not allow us to see. It also postulates life as a fundamentally antagonistic state of being, in which our goal is to vanquish our foes before they can vanquish us. Also, I think that house is about to fall down.

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MARVEL COMIC #447: Joker Comics #21 DATE: January 1946 PUBLISHER: Current Detective Stories CONTENTS: Cover; "Tessie The Typist", pencilled by Frank Carin; “They’re Nautical, But Nice!” (Star And Tar story); "1/2 Chief Poke-In-Nose"; “No New Is Good News” (text story); "Eustace Hayseed And Choo-Choo"; "Powerhouse Pepper", pencilled by Basil Wolverton. Editor: Vince Fago.

SERIES NOTES: This is the end of the line for Eustace Hayseed, the Li'l Abner knock-off who's been a Joker Comics regular from the start, as well as for 1/2 Chief Poke-In-Nose, who dropped by for just a couple of issues. Both features will return irregularly in other humor titles. I wonder if sales were low and Marvel wanted to shake up the backup features.

Couldn't find this issue, and all I know is that the Powerhouse Pepper story has a character reading a Powerhouse Pepper comic.

Guys, I am NOT on Tessie's side with this cover. It's not like Skidsy fell through the ice on purpose! He deserves sympathy, not scolding. He also deserves a literal helping hand. Look at his skin tone! Tessie doesn't care if her date gets pneumonia so long as she gets to make him feel like an asshole for a while. Also, that is an impractical dress for ice skating, although it'd be a great dress for a Jetson.

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MARVEL COMIC #446: Georgie Comics #4 DATE: January 1946 PUBLISHER: Gem Publishing Inc. CONTENTS: Cover by Frank Carin; "Georgie", drawn by Frank Carin; "Georgie", drawn by Frank Carin; "Georgie Puzzle Page" (activity page); "Georgie", drawn by Frank Carin; "Noswal The Great" (text story); "Georgie", drawn by Frank Carin; "Georgie Puzzle Page" (activity page); "Georgie", drawn by Frank Carin; "Georgie", drawn by Frank Carin. Editor: Vince Fago.

I couldn't find this, and all I know is that the final story includes a character named Police Captain Goodman (who doesn't resemble Martin Goodman, unlike the Captain Goodman from #1).

Based on the cover, I infer that this is the issue in which America's favorite teen male protagonist whose name doesn't begin with an "A" boldly challenges the conventional norms of masculinity, admitting to his friends that he feels more at home wearing dresses, ultimately regaining their respect by enabling them to see that gendered fashion norms reinforce the artificial divisions between the sexes that box us in to predetermined roles and prevent us from finding happiness by expressing our true selves, while also perpetuating the sense of duality that keeps men and women perpetually in competition when in fact we are all merely confused individuals who can survive best by working together to navigate the confusing landscape of modern human culture. Either that or he takes Judy out for a root beer.

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MARVEL COMIC #445: Comedy Comics #31 DATE: January 1946 PUBLISHER: Animirth Comics CONTENTS: Cover; Super Rabbit stpry; “Lion Hunter” (Tubby Pig story); “Comedy Puzzles” (activity page); “Riddle Page” (activity page); Percy Penguin and Fizz story; “Super Strong” (text story); Waldo Wolf story; “Comedy Puzzles” (activity page). Editor: Vince Fago.

I couldn’t find a scan, but I did find some tiny bits of info online. Apparently, Percy Penguin thinks he’s found a dime, but it’s only a zinc-coated steel penny, which I guess was a thing in the ’40s. Meanwhile on the cover, Super Rabbit uses his powers to give himself an unfair advantage in a game of football, but it’s okay because the football players look mean.

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MARVEL COMIC #444: Captain America Comics #52 DATE: January 1946 PUBLISHER: Complete Photo Story Corp. CONTENTS: Cover by Alex Schomburg; "The Case Of The Telepathic Typewriter" (Captain America story), written by Bill Finger, pencilled and maybe inked by Vince Alascia; "The Cat-Man" (Human Torch story), drawn by Allen Bellman; "Future Alliance" (text story); "The Hermit's Heritage!!" (Captain America story), maybe written by Bill Finger, pencilled by Vince Alascia, inked by Al Gabriele. Editor: Stan Lee.

CREATOR NOTES: Allen Bellman draws this month's Human Torch story, and Al Gabriele comes on board for a couple of issues to help out with inks.

I think this might be a sweet spot: the cookie-cutter WWII stories are done forever, but nobody's quite sure what else to do with superheroes yet, so we're getting quirky, experimental stories until things settle down. It won't last long, but for now, things are interesting.

In the first Captain America story (a two-parter), an author creates a radio show about a monster with the bizarrely unimaginative name Am.

Does Joss Whedon know about this?

Am becomes a hit-- such a hit that he comes to life. Know how? So many people listened to the radio show that the combined energy of their thought waves made Am real. Yep, that's the entire explanation. In an era when seemingly mystical villains were usually unmasked as Scooby-Doo-style villains, Bill Finger casually drops thought-wave energy-manifestations into a story as if it requires no justification.

Do Alan Moore and Grant Morrison know about this?

Am, who's more or less an archetypal hunchback-type monster, can't be stopped by weapons, because "nothing physical can destroy an idea!". Pretty heady for 1945. Am falls in with some gangsters and goes the usual monster route of trying to make a girl love him, until finally, Cap and Bucky land on a simple solution to Am's problems: since he exists only as a fictional character, he can simply be rewritten to be handsome. Everybody wins. I'm making this story sound cooler than it is-- but still, I'll take more stories like this.

In the second Captain America story, a hobo turns out to be a formerly successful artist, which leads to all sorts of goofy criminal scheming and a bunch of hobos going on a field trip to a museum. Meanwhile, the Human Torch and Toro fight Cat-Man-- basically a male Catwoman, making him one of the rare codenamed supervillain types to have appeared at Marvel so far.

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DC COMIC #20: More Fun Vol. 1 #12 DATE: August 1936 PUBLISHER: More Fun Inc. CONTENTS: Cover by Vin Sullivan; "Easy On The Eyes!" (text article), illustrated by Vin Sullivan, Whitney Ellsworth, Russell Cole, and Joe Shuster; "Sandra Of The Secret Service" by W.C. Brigham; "Spike Spalding" by Vin Sullivan; "Woozy Watts" by Russell Cole; "Jack Woods", written by Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, drawn by W.C. Brigham; "Ivanhoe", written by Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, drawn by Raymond Perry; "Don Drake On The Planet Saro", written by Ken Fitch, drawn by Clem Gretter; "Pep Morgan" by Creig Flessel; "Barry O'Neill And Fang Gow Of China" by Leo O'Mealia; "Talk About Talkies" (text article) by Mary Patrick; "Buckskin Jim" by Tom Cooper; "Pelion And Ossa" by Al Stahl; "Just Suppose", written and pencilled by Henry Kiefer, inked by A.D. Kiefer; "Brad Hardy" by Tom Hickey; "Fun Club" (letters page); "The Three Musketeers", written by Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, drawn by Sven Elven; "Batter Up!" by Vin Sullivan; "Dr. Occult The Ghost Detective", written by Jerry Siegel, drawn by Joe Shuster; "Midshipman Dewey" by Tom Cooper; "Wing Brady" by Tom Hickey; "Along The Main Line" by Tom Cooper; "Magic Crystal Of History" by Homer Fleming; "Sam The Porter" by Russell Cole; "Do You Know?", pencilled by Henry Kiefer, inked by A.D. Kiefer; "More Fun And Magic" (text article) by Graysten The Magician; "Bob Merritt And His Flying Pals", written by Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, drawn by Leo O'Mealia; "Little Linda" by Whitney Ellsworth; "In The Wake Of The Wander" (Captain Grim story) by Tom Cooper; "2023 Super-Police", written by Ken Fitch, drawn by Clem Gretter; "Unc" by Joe Eichberger; "Pirate Gold", drawn by Sven Elven; "Hubert", written by J. Muselli, drawn by Bill Patrick; "Calling All Cars", written by Jerry Siegel, drawn by Joe Shuster; "It's A Fact", maybe by Paul Ferrer. Editor: Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson. Associate editor: Vin Sullivan. Associate editor: Whitney Ellsworth.

SERIES/CREATOR NOTES: Two familiar faces debut recurring features: Pep Morgan by Creig Flessel, and Pirate Gold by Sven Elven. Two familiar faces take over existing features: Tom Hickey on Brad Hardy, and Homer Fleming on Magic Crystal Of History. Al Stahl ends his short stint on Pelion And Ossa en route to leaving National. A mystery man named Joe Eichberger does his first of a couple of Unc features. And some one-offs from some more regulars. This is arbitrarily the final issue of Volume 1.

It's been months since I read the last issue. I don't remember where I left off with anything, but I'm sure that would've been just as true if I'd waited only six hours.

Sandra Of The Secret Service: Sandra thwarts Princess Yonda's guards by claiming to be Princess Yonda, which works until it doesn't. I think. I'm confused and I don't understand how 1930s audiences read adventure serials in two-page installments.

Spike Spalding: Spike's black-caricature friend Pincus has been thrown overboard. But no he hasn't, because some guy secretly hid him and threw over a bag of meat. Then a Chinese caricature sees Pincus and runs away screaming "GLOST! GLOST!".

Woozy Watts: Woozy wanders around an island looking for food and failing to communicate effectively with anyone. Then he meets an Oxford English professor and they bond. I'm not sure what the context is for any of this.

Jack Woods: The bad guys waste a page and a half taunting Jack Woods, then have a horse drag him to his apparent death, pending a cliffhanger.

Ivanhoe: The one thing I find interesting about the literary adaptations is how poorly they use their still largely unexplored medium. Based on plot, this should feel action-packed-- but all the adaptations use illustrated captions instead of word balloons, which creates a dull, flat, matter-of-fact mood:

Right? No excitement. I wonder why they consistently did that for the literary adaptations. Did they think it seemed highbrow and classy? I think it says a lot about how undeveloped comics were: there were barely any conventional norms to adhere to, barely even any successes to emulate. And just a few years before the Superman-led discovery that comics were well-suited for brightly-colored action, we're seeing them fail at just that.

Don Drake On The Planet Saro: Don is about to fight a monster. Everybody else escapes. Don continues to be about to fight the monster. Why do so many of the adventure serials have so many filler episodes? It's not like they have a time quota.

Pep Morgan: In this first installment, Pep convinces his baseball team's coach to put him in a game, where he makes a big catch and sets himself up for greatness, I guess. I'll bet next month, he gets a hit. Part three: rounds a base. Part four: runs home. A few hundred installments and we've got a game.

Barry O'Neill And Fang Gow Of China: Barry and Le Grand defuse Fang Gow's dynamite, before coming face to face with Fang Gow himself. I guess that's a relatively worthwhile cliffhanger. Sets up a huge confrontation between archenemies. Last story was a guy catching a ball.

Bucksin Jim: Some people fight? This whole thing looks like Tom Cooper woke up, drew the two pages in five minutes while he was still groggy, and then went back to sleep.

Pelion And Ossa: The duo get locked out of their house, so Ossa goes down the chimney, only to discover the door was unlocked all along. Isn't it ironic?

Just Suppose: If the Chinese had been more military-driven in ancient times, Napoleon hypothetically might not have ended up as a big deal. Just Suppose/Imagine That always works best if you imagine it in a Drunk Uncle voice.

Brad Hardy: A dude steps out of a fireball and is like "go away" and then climbs back in his fireball and leaves. Then a high priestess leads Brad and Prince Kardos to rescue a white girl.

The Three Musketeers: Again, an action-packed excerpt is portrayed in the most boring way possible.

Batter Up!: A bunch of gag panels with a common theme of baseball. Did you know single-panel gag comics from the 1930s aren't funny?

Dr. Occult The Ghost Detective: Having been rechristened Ghost Detective instead of Mystic Detective for some reason, Dr. Occult brings the werewolf he's captured to the boarding house he's staying at, only to find that the lady who runs it is a secret werewolf who controls all the derelicts that stay with her. Decently creepy cliffhanger. I'll take it.

Midshipman Dewey: Our hero's battle against pirates continues, with the pirates making moves to blow up his ship.

Wing Brady: Another ruggedly handsome action hero gets captured by exotic non-white bad guys. This time he's imprisoned in a reptile chamber.

Along The Main Line: Our heroes thwart a mail robbery and then get fired. I'm a little lost.

The Magic Crystal Of History: A couple of kids stare into the magic crystal and watch an ancient Greek battle. Feels like an attempt to take the boring storytelling style of the literary adaptations and add audience surrogates to make it more palatable. Still isn't working.

Sam The Porter: A floor is dirty and everybody yells at everybody else about it until the one black guy gets stuck having to clean it:

Do You Know?: Sort of like fun facts, except more like fun... musings? Speculations? Or Henry Kiefer's drunk.

Bob Merritt And His Flying Pals: Everybody flies around being boring.

Little Linda: The mayor tries to convince a grouchy old man named Flint to adopt everyone's fourth or fifth favorite Little Orphan Annie knock-off. Flint angrily refuses, then responds to Linda's spunk by shouting that he'll revenge-adopt her whether she likes it or not. Flint's nephew worries about this because it might block his inheritance; nobody worries about the severe emotional abuse Linda's about to face.

In The Wake Of The Wander: Captain Grim leads yet another white-people-versus-natives battle, and then signals for help by using Morse code on a gong.

2023 Super-Police: Rex Cosmos almost goes through with his forced wedding to a hag queen, until he sees something weird on the ring and elbows her in the face instead.

Unc: A hunter sends his talking dog to chase after a rabbit, but the rabbit pulls a gun on the dog.

Pirate Gold: In this first installment, a bunch of fancy sailors find an uncharted island that seems to have pirates on it. I foresee a series of slow-moving, unrewarding sword fights.

Hubert: Hubert sees a store that's on fire and tries to help it by bringing over a sign from a fire sale.

Calling All Cars: Officer Sandy Kean tries to track down the girl who's been kidnapped by the mysterious Purple Tiger gang, whatever that is. Keen gets a good lead, but a Purple Tiger guy spots him. Cliffhanger.

It's A Fact: Standard fun facts, instead of weird drunken rambling fun facts.

Still years away from Superman.

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MARVEL COMIC #443: Young Allies #18 DATE: Winter 1945 PUBLISHER: Young Allies Inc. CONTENTS: Cover by Alex Schomburg; "Eeny, Meeny, Miny-Murder!" (Young Allies story), written by Otto Binder, pencilled by Vince Alascia, inked by Al Gabriele; "The Fightin' Era" (Tommy Tyme story), pencilled by Mike Sekowsky, inked by Frank Giacoia; "Retribution" (text story); "The Mummy Of Death!" (Young Allies story), pencilled by Vince Alascia. Editor: Stan Lee.

CREATOR NOTES: Occasional Timely writer Otto Binder comes on board for the remainder of the series, and with Allen Bellman still sitting out a couple of issues, Timely regular Al Gabriele fills in. Former Young Allies artist Frank Giacoia takes over Tommy Tyme, collaborating with Mike Sekowsky for this issue.

With no more Germans or Japanese left to fight, the Young Allies turn their attention to one of the more whimsically disturbing villains I've seen: crime boss Big Boy Bates. His origin: a sociopathic obsession with lollipops:

An obsession that the mentally-challenged Bates carries with him into adulthood, becoming the world's leading lollipop-fixated crook:

Never wavering from his character game, Bates spends the entire story whining like a man-child and focusing more on lollipops than on his criminal endeavors, while his normal and inexplicably loyal henchmen keep things running. Then someone bets Otto Binder that he can't make this story any dumber, so he has the Young Allies defeat Bates by beating him in a kite contest.

Everybody knows, dude.

The Young Allies also fight a mummy in their second story, which felt anticlimactic after the Bates fiasco. Meanwhile, Tommy Tyme hears an old guy complain that kids were better back in 1860, so he goes to 1860 and learns that kids were assholes then too. Then an old guy in 1860 says kids were better in 1790, so he goes back again and finds yet more assholes.

The moral of the story is that all kids have always been assholes forever.

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DC COMIC #19: New Comics #6 DATE: July 1936 PUBLISHER: National Allied Newspaper Syndicate Inc. CONTENTS: Cover by Vin Sullivan; "As New As Today!" (text article) by Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson; "Captain Jim Of The Texas Rangers" by Homer Fleming; "Don Coyote" by Bill Patrick; "Castaway Island" by Tom Cooper; "Ol' Oz Bopp" by Russell Cole; "Captain Quick" by Sven Elven; "The Drew Mystery" (Dale Daring story) by Dick Ryan; "Cal 'N' Alec" by Bill Patrick; "Sandor And The Lost Civilization" by Homer Fleming; "Worth-While Films To Watch For" (text article) by I.W. Magovern; "Needles" by Al Stahl; "The Radio Dialer" (text article) by A.R. Lane; "Fun Puzzle" (activity page); "Andy Handy" by Leo O'Mealia; "Maginnis Of The Mounties" by Richard Matheson; "Kambalu By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow" (Famous Poems Illustrated story by Henry Kiefer); "Hook, Line And Sinker!" by Vin Sullivan; "She" by Sven Elven; "17-20 On The Black" by Tom Cooper; "Steve Conrad On Dolorosa Isle" by Creig Flessel; "Jibby" by Vin Sullivan; "Slim And Tex" by A. Leslie Ross; "Rusty" by Hal Sherman; "Magic!" (text article) by Andrini The Great; "The Book Shelf" (text article) by Marjorie Knight; "Ray & Gail" by Clem Gretter; "The Vikings" maybe written by Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, drawn by Alex Anthony Blum; "Goofo The Great" by Russell Cole; "King Arthur" story by Rafael Astarita; "Cap'n Spiniker" by Tom Cooper; "A Tale Of Two Cities" by Merna Gamble; "The Golden Dragon" by Tom Hickey; "Federal Men", written by Jerry Siegel, drawn by Joe Shuster; "It's A Dern Lie" by Bill Patrick. Editor: Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson. Associate editor: Vin Sullivan. Associate editor: Whitney Ellsworth. CANON: Non-canon.

SERIES/CREATOR NOTES: Robert Leffingwell brought a couple of his features over to his new publisher, so the Bill Patrick versions get new, less ridiculous names here: Sir Loin Of Beef becomes Don Coyote, and Sagebrush 'N' Cactus becomes Cal 'N' Alec. Two new recurring features debut: She by series regular Sven Elven, and The Golden Dragon by Tom Hickey (who just took over Wing Brady in More Fun). Hal Sherman's Rusty ends; Sherman will pop up at Standard and then head back to National in a few years. Richard Matheson takes over Maginnis Of The Mounties, which is the only thing I know about him. Vin Sullivan does a couple of one-shot features, and Chikko Chakko skips a month.

Wow-- a single post in December and then my previous one was over a year ago. So much has changed since then. Fortunately, I haven't grown any wiser, so now that I have some free time, join me as I waste it all on the unfortunately-surviving leftovers of 1936.

Captain Jim Of The Texas Rangers: Cowboys fight outlaws, a girl gets rescued, and then the cliffhanger suggests wolves might liven things up.

Don Coyote: A kid fucks with Don Coyote and his sidekick (now called Hamburger), and then they catch him and fuck back harder. The message is that kids shouldn't be pricks or else they'll get the shit kicked out of them.

Castaway Island: Handsome adventurers fight, look for, and get trapped by the bad guy. His name is Blackface, but he's white, and that's about as close to non-racist as a comic from 1936 is gonna get.

Ol' Oz Bopp: I actually appreciated this one. Some guy keeps making bad jokes, and he finally annoys his friends so much that they get rid of him by feigning smallpox.

Maybe I'm just starved for value in a sea of mediocrity, but that's a fun specific. I like that it's not even a fake quarantine sign that might have taken effort; it just says "SMALL POX". Because that's the sign they put up when someone has smallpox.

Captain Quick: Adventure at sea. Sven Elven somehow makes action-packed fights on boats seem boring.

Dale Daring: Dale and her male friend Dick spy on and then get caught by bad guys. That the titular heroine is not allowed to carry her own story without the help of a man named Dick stood out to me more than any of the boring events themselves.

Cal 'N' Alec: Hombres moseying.

Sandor And The Lost Civilization: Fake-Tarzan gets captured, and a pack of wild dogs are gonna go rescue him from a leopard and a lion? Next month's gonna be a bloodbath.

Needles: Our hero just randomly decides to build a rocket to space so he can visit the sun, and everybody believes him and cheers him on because apparently this is set in a world where everyone is very stupid, and then the rocket doesn't work.

Andy Handy: Andy Handy spontaneously decides to start a garden, but decides he hates digging, so he goes fishing instead. This is so useless. There's like a three-panel transition of Andy taking off his jacket and rolling up his sleeve. Leo O'Mealia took the content of an unfunny three-panel gig strip and stretched it out into two pages.

Maginnis Of The Mounties: Maginnis versus fur-jackers. You don't really see heroic Mountie protagonists in comics anymore.

Famous Poems Illustrated: Why did they always include stuff like this? Did they want to try to claim to be educational or something? No child who read this comic in 1936 was on board to read a Longfellow poem.

Hook, Line And Sinker!: A bunch of single-panel gag strips based on the common theme of fishing. Lots of idiots.

She: Sven Elven's new adaptation of a novel. A guy goes out to sea. I didn't pay very close attention and I'm not willing to reread it.

17-20 On The Black: Everybody ends up in Mexico. In just two pages, we get Mexican stereotypes, black stereotypes, and a white character doing a racist Mexican impression.

Steve Conrad On Dolorosa Isle: Steve and his friends get stranded on an island and have to fight "ape-like" natives. Did they intentionally cluster all the racism together?

Jibby: Jibby tells his friend about the evils of money, and then a swarm of kids all beat the shit out of each other to grab a silver dollar. This could be remade as a gritty Hollywood action thriller.

Slim And Tex: Two cowboys are friends. Plus a racist black caricature. They DID cluster all the racism together!

Rusty: Rusty's attempt to go fishing is thwarted, as seems to be a recurring theme.

Ray & Gail: Ray and Gail look for their Aunt Millie's map on a boat after she's been killed by a shark. Then Aunt Millie turns up and doesn't understand why everybody's surprised to see her.

The Vikings: I think part of what makes this so boring is that there are no word balloons, just captions, even when there's dialogue. It's like reading illustrated prose disguised as a comic, and feels like the worst of both worlds.

Goofo The Great: Goofo is way too proud of and way too direct about his ability to find a variety of things inside a variety of other things.

I appreciate that he's not even calling it "magic". He's just like, yo, gimme a hat, I'll find ducks in that shit.

King Arthur: King Arthur hangs out. Across the board, these comics do a terrible job of making literary classics seem fun.

Cap'n Spiniker: Captain Spiniker is ornery and inappropriate on an island full of natives. He concludes by heading off on a "by-logic study", portrayed in the final panel:

A Tale Of Two Cities: I guess Merna Gamble's art is nice.

The Golden Dragon: In the very first panel of the debut installment, our white protagonists direct racial slurs at the Chinese people who have taken their jobs. Then they beat up a Mongolian and decide to seek the lost treasure of Genghis Khan. These guys are huge dicks.

Federal Men: A tank attacks Washington D.C. and some unspecific invaders try to take over. Steve Carson pops out in the final panel to start punching everybody. The word "brobdingnagian" is used.

It's A Dern Lie: A man fights a tiger.

[seanhowe]

More sublime panels from Jimmy Thompson, my favorite unheralded artist of the Golden Age. From Sub-Mariner Comics #14, Fall 1944.

[unabridgedcomics]

Mine too.

[unabridgedcomics]

DC COMIC #18: More Fun #11 DATE: July 1936 PUBLISHER: More Fun Inc. CONTENTS: Cover by Vin Sullivan; "One Big Happy Family!" (text article) by Vin Sullivan; "Sandra Of The Secret Service" by W.C. Brigham; "Spike Spalding" by Vin Sullivan; "Woozy Watts" by Russell Cole; "Jack Woods", written by Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, drawn by W.C. Brigham; "Ivanhoe", written by Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, drawn by Raymond Perry; "Don Drake On The Planet Saro", written by Ken Fitch, drawn by Clem Gretter; "Barry O'Neill And Fang Gow Of China" by Leo O'Mealia; "Chubby" by Hal Sherman; "Talk About Talkies" (text article) by Mary Patrick; "Firebug" (text story) by Guy Monroe; Spike Spalding story by Vin Sullivan; "Wing Brady" by Tom Hickey; "Along The Main Line" by Tom Cooper; "Sam" (Sam The Porter story) by Russell Cole; "Dr. Occult The Mystic Detective", written by Jerry Siegel, drawn by Joe Shuster; "The Ole' Swimmin' Hole" by Creig Flessel; "Buckskin Jim" by Tom Cooper; "Pelion And Ossa" by Al Stahl; "Imagine That", pencilled by Henry Kiefer, inked by A.D. Kiefer; "Brad Hardy" by A. Leslie Ross; "Midshipman Dewey" by Tom Cooper; "Fun Mail" (text article); "The Three Musketeers", written by Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, drawn by Sven Elven; "More Fun And Magic" (text article) by The Wizard Of Biff; "It's A Fact!", maybe by Paul Ferrer; "Little Linda" by Whitney Ellsworth; "2023 Super-Police", written by Ken Fitch, drawn by Clem Gretter; "In The Wake Of The Wander" (Captain Grim story) by Tom Cooper; "Hubert", written by J. Muselli, drawn by Bill Patrick; "Treasure Island", written by Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, drawn by Sven Elven; "Calling All Cars", written by Jerry Siegel, drawn by Joe Shuster; "Bob Merritt And His Flying Pals", written by Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, drawn by Leo O'Mealia; "G. Wiz" by Hal Sherman. Editor: Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson. Associate editor: Vin Sullivan. Associate editor: Whitney Ellsworth. CANON: Partial canon (Doctor Occult story).

SERIES/CREATOR NOTES: Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, still failing to convince anyone that Superman is a good idea, debut a new recurring feature called Calling All Cars. Tom Hickey makes his comic book debut as the new Wing Brady artist (also debuting in New Comics this month); he'll go on to a long Golden Age career. Sven Elven's Treasure Island adaptations come to an end, but he debuts a recurring Three Musketeers adaptation. Sam The Porter, a Russell Cole strip that appeared in New Comics, becomes a recurring feature here. Hal Sherman's G. Wiz ends, as does A. Leslie Ross's stint on Brad Hardy; both men still have features in New Comics. Imagine That will revert to its old name, Just Suppose, next issue. Magic Crystal Of History skips this issue, prompting riots.

It's been a while since I've checked in, so I won't remember where any of the serialized stories are at. Not that I would have anyway.

Sandra Of The Secret Service: Sandra explains to a count and his secret society that she's impersonating a princess. Then some people attack. I'm not sure who here is a good guy or a bad guy.

Spike Spalding: An evil man with an evil moustache has captured Spike's offensive black stereotype friend Pincus, who he ties up in a bag and throws overboard. Cliffhanger. I feel like that's kinda scary for this book's intended age range. I'd have had a dumb little nightmare.

Woozy Watts: Woozy's stuck on an island, then finds a note from someone who needs to be rescued, then doesn't act on it because he's hungry. In the middle, he hits on a bird:

Jack Woods: Jack versus bandits on a cliff. The bandits seemingly win. Then Jack wakes up and punches a motherfucker.

Ivanhoe: There are monks and stuff, but you didn't notice because you skipped it because you are a child reading a comic book in 1936 and your goal here is not to read Ivanhoe.

Don Drake On The Planet Saro: The Zetrurians put Don Drake on trial, but offer him freedom if he'll protect them from the monster that just attacked off-panel who I guess we'll see next issue. It'd better look cool.

Barry O'Neill And Fang Gow Of China: Barry and his French sidekick Le Grand have escaped from Fang Gow, only to discover a secret map showing Fang Gow's plan to blow up Paris. Le Grand is like "sacre bleu!".

Chubby: In this one-off, a fat guy named Chubby gets a call to hang out with a girl, and doesn't know what to do with her, then gets in a fight with a guy who's torturing a dog, and hopes his subsequent injuries will impress the girl. Is this supposed to be funny? It's just sad.

Spike Sullivan: A sad single-panel page in which Spike has failed to grow a flower. There is nothing funny about this.

Wing Brady: Wing passes out in the desert and is rescued by some kindly Arabs who give him a horse and some ammo so he can go rescue a girl.

Along The Main Line: A couple of jerkoffs try to escape a mine.

Sam The Porter: Sam just names foods.

Dr. Occult: Our hero fights a werewolf, which he then brings back with him to the laboratory he apparently has. To be continued. First appearance of Doctor Occult's butler, Jenkins. I'll bet he isn't even named Jenkins. People just call their butlers Jenkins.

The Ole' Swimmin' Hole: An illustration of a bunch of young boys, some of them seemingly naked, swimming, with a caption reading "where modesty ain't no virtue". I'm uncomfortable.

Buckskin Jim: Buckskin Jim fights a bunch of evil Indians. I don't think he likes Indians.

Pelion And Ossa: Pelion and Ossa find a dog and wash it. Al Stahl didn't have a better idea than this.

Imagine That: If different stuff had happened, stuff would be different. Starring George Washington.

Brad Hardy: Brad, Lorraine, and Prince Kardos are menaced by a giant spider. Brad murders the spider, but then Lorraine's missing and there's a fireball. It's just all the things. All the things are happening all at once.

Midshipman Dewey: Dewey fights a pirate and rescues the ship's captain. But more pirates are coming.

Three Musketeers: What are we, in school?

It's A Fact!: Illustrated trivia. This was my favorite:

Little Linda: Linda's been captured by bank robbers, but turns the tide with one of those kids-with-guns moments you'd never get away with now:

Also, I think a certain phrase meant something different back then:

2023 Super-Police: A hag queen is gonna kill one of the main good guys, but agrees to let him live if the other main good guy will marry her. Ends on the brink of a creepy-ass wedding.

In The Wake Of The Wander: Captain Grim is a prisoner of natives, and then I think teams up with them to fight some other guy. I'm a little lost.

Hubert: Hubert uses a scabbard as a makeshift fishing pole and catches a swordfish in it. That's a little bit funny.

Treasure Island: Everybody's on a boat. This is as far as the Treasure Island adaptation goes.

Calling All Cars: Siegel and Shuster's new feature is a little bit nuts. First page: a couple of cops catch a woman speeding and punish her by giving her a spanking. This is presented as a normal thing to do.

Second page: the girl makes her dad bring the cop to his house so he can yell at him. And it's hinted that she actually has a crush on him. Then crooks break in and kidnap the girl for someone called the Purple Tiger. But then the cops from before show up. Cliffhanger.

Bob Merritt And His Flying Pals: Everybody's flying to Alaska to look for gold. Good guys. Bad guys. Whole buncha guys.

G. Wiz: Some stupid asshole goes hunting for rabbits but runs from a skunk.

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just discovered this! amazing stuff! please post more!!

I will! I'm just taking forever because I don't have a lot of free time these days.

Did somebody post a link to this site somewhere? Whole bunch of new followers all of a sudden.