Digging for the Gold Watch

Okay, so last night I was reading Forbidden Worlds #81, which includes a very interesting story:

The story has a very simple premise, most of which you can guess from the summary above. Amos is perpetually late (hello, Barry Allen!), but then he buys a gold pocketwatch to make sure he's on time. And suddenly something happens:

The entire world comes to a stop. And so did I, because I immediately recognized this story. It's The Girl, the Gold Watch, and Everything, a famous novel by John MacDonald, the creator of Travis McGee, and a writer who's probably sold more novels than all but 20 people on the planet.

So I thought, well, it might make an interesting post to talk about how Richard Hughes, who wrote almost all of ACG's stories, copied MacDonald's novel, so I looked up TGTGWAE on Wikipedia. The Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything (1962) is a science fiction novel written by John D. MacDonald, considered "a classic screwball mystery".And I frowned, because I already sensed that Forbidden Worlds #81 was earlier than that, and sure enough, it turned out to be the August, 1959 issue.

My god, had one of the most famous writers ever cribbed a story from a comic book? And not just a story, but one according to WP which had 24 printings and been made into not one, but two TV movies? Well, it goes quite a bit deeper than that. The Wikipedia entry notes:

A similar plot line - a man stopping time - already appeared in 1955 in Roger Lee Vernon's story "The Stop Watch", included in the collection "The Space Frontiers". Vernon treated the theme far more seriously, with his protagonist using the device to commit crimes with impunity and win the Third World War all by himself, and finally suffering a terrible perdition.

So I googled Roger Lee Vernon Stop Watch and guess what came up? A blog by the man himself where he had apparently posted the complete contents of The Space Frontiers. As you can see if you scroll down to the table of contents there is no story called The Stop Watch, but there is one called The Time Tablets, about a pharmaceutical chemist who invents a drug which stops time. It's a very, very cool story, and I highly recommend scrolling down and reading it.

 But, at least compared to the Wikipedia entry it is not directly comparable to either All the Time in the World or The Girl, the Gold Watch and Everything. Same premise (stoppage of time), but lacking the watch angle. And the whole bit about him stopping WWIII was completely lacking in The Time Tablets.

End of story? Not quite. You see, in my Googling, I learned of another story called All the Time in the World, by Arthur C. Clarke, one of the most famous science fiction authors of all time. Among other stories, he wrote the novels that were turned into the movies of 2001 A Space Oddysey and Fantastic Voyage. And that would be an easy place to close, but I Googled Clarke and All the Time in the World and found out that his story had been turned into an episode of a very early sci-fi TV series called Tales of Tomorrow. Not only that but you could watch that very episode online here.

I really, really recommend you watch that episode; it's 1952 TV, it was apparently performed live (with set changes during commercial breaks) and it's terrific. As you can see, Clarke seems to be the father of all the "stopped time" stories. At least from what I can see, the originator of the watch to stop the clock is Hughes in Forbidden Worlds #81.

What I find more interesting for the purposes of this post is that Hughes' protagonist, Amos Dalrymple, unlike the characters in Clarke, Vernon, or MacDonald, decides to pass on the obvious pecuniary advantages of stopping time, because he is honest:

Instead he tries to make it to his date on time, but when he does he sees a problem:

Worse still, he learns that he cannot save her while time is stopped, because everything is frozen in time. He must do the only thing possible:

He shoves her out of the way of the bus. Thus he does not make a lot of money (although he is given a job by a bank president who had previously declined him a job due to him being late for the interview) but he does get what the characters in the two previous stories do not: the Girl. It's interesting to speculate more on the inspirations for MacDonald's best-seller. From what I can see, Hughes added the crucial element of the watch, which gets mentioned at the end of the ACG story:

But it is very obvious from the title that he was inspired by Clarke's short story. As for Vernon, I simply note two strange elements from his story. 1. At one point the protagonist's girlfriend says that she makes $20,000 a year more than he does. 2. The protagonist mentions that depositing more than $10,000 into a bank account draws the attention of the feds, who suspect drug dealing. Both of those points, despite numerous other markers, make me suspect that the Vernon story was updated for modern audiences from its initial 1950s publication.

Update: J.L. Bell in the comments points to this short story by L. Frank Baum from the early 1900s as an even earlier example of the stopped time plot. Thanks! Update II: Here's an earlier example of a watch used to stop time, from Strange Adventures #50 (November 1954):

Thanks to an anonymous commenter!

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Why I Love American Comics Group

It occurred to me recently while I was reading My Romantic Adventures #115 (Nov-Dec 1960). I've talked a lot about ACG in the past. They were a relatively minor but regular publisher of comics in the Silver and Golden Ages; all told they put out about 1150 comics over the course of about 22 years, or roughly 50 comics a year, four comics a month. Most of their comics were written by their editor, Richard Hughes, under a variety of pseudonyms. Why do I love ACG? It's so simple that I can't believe I never put my finger on it before now. It's because Hughes was a master at creating interesting characters. And when you consider that most of ACG's stories were one-shots, that becomes even more remarkable. Here's the splash page that brought it all home to me:

Now that is a unique character: a female weightlifter who dreams of settling down in smalltown America. That makes for an interesting premise, but Hughes doesn't stop there. He creates a story that fits that character. Our Miss Hercules, Marcia Simms, gets enough money from the sideshow act to buy herself a farm in Carvertown. And it's not long before she attracts the attention of a handsome neighbor:

But as you can probably guess, he is not the right man for her particular character. She's not weak and helpless. Soon after, she introduces herself to another neighbor:

She finds out that Blake had gone to prison for a hit-and-run accident that he claims he didn't commit; in fact, he blames her beau, Otis, for framing him. And to get even, he steals a kiss:

She tells Otis what happens, and while he seems to shrug it off, later that night she hears the sound of raised voices at Blake's farm. Otis and a couple of his buddies intend to beat up Blake. And at last we see why Hughes made her a weightlifter:

Working together, they prove that Otis had indeed framed Blake for the hit-and-run accident, and fall in love.

In that story, Hughes has his protagonist use her singular characterization at the end. But in other stories, it is not uncommon to have the character have to overcome a major trait.  Another romance story from ACG  concerned a gal who's something of a klutz:

In that story, a key moment arrives when the man she loves is trapped on a girder and she must overcome her awkwardness: That, my friends, is superb characterization.

Hughes particularly liked to present us with downtrodden characters who suddenly succeed against all odds.  Americans love the story of an underdog who makes it big. The paragon of this character is obviously Herbie, the "big nothing" to his father who turned out to be one of the most powerful men on Earth.  But there are many other examples in the ACG canon. For example:

The shy, unassuming guy invents a potion that turns him into a strongman:

He becomes famous, and suddenly attractive to women:

But eventually Sally realizes that she liked the old Melvin better, and Melvin remembers that he did it all to impress her:

Want to read about interesting characters?  Check out the ACG line.

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Happy Thanksgiving!

I have remarked in the past how secular comics seemed to be in the Silver Age, and this was not exclusive to the Christmas season. Thanksgiving stories also were reduced quite substantially. According to the GCD, there were 16 stories published between 1940 and 1954 with the word "Thanksgiving" in the title, while from 1955-1970, there were only 8 such stories (and one of those was a reprint). I have already remarked on one of those stories, the Atomic Knights tale, Thanksgiving 1990. Here's another, from ACG's Forbidden Worlds #73, which is famous for another reason (which I'll give at the end of the post):

Harry was an ordinary guy with work pressures and not enough money to buy the things he would like for his family.

As he sits there on the park bench, he wishes that his financial problems would end. And:

Well, hey, a little idol, let's ask it for money. And a sackful of gold coins ($5,000 worth) appears in front of him. So he takes it to the racetrack, and asks the idol which horse to bet on. Sure enough, his horse comes in at 20-1 and now he's got $100,000! But you can see trouble ahead:

When his father confronts him over his changed behavior, he decides to throw away the idol. But it doesn't work; when he gets home the idol has magically returned to his pocket. So he sells his rental property and invests in the stock market, which (thanks to the idol's advice) does spectacularly well for him. But as he continues to pursue wealth:

He partners up with another businessman, and they agree that if either dies, the other will be able to buy back his share of the business. But inevitably, the partner becomes an annoyance to Harry and:

Your wish is the idol's command, and the next thing Harry knows, his partner has fallen out the window to his death. He's horrified but again finds himself unable to rid himself of the idol, or his pathological greed. His son is lonely, so he buys the boy a horse. But tragedy strikes as the boy, inexperienced at riding, is killed. His wife leaves him, and even his father, who had always expressed pride in his son:

Devastated, Harry comes to a critical revelation:

And sure enough, the idol disappears. Harry leaves his magnificent estate behind, and wanders back to his old neighborhood. He sees boys playing and realizes that if he had not found that idol, his son would be out there with them. And then suddenly, there's Bobbie, running up to hug him! And his wife, and his dad, who found the Thanksgiving turkey on the park bench. Yep, somehow Harry's been transported back to the start of the story.


Comments: Wow, what a terrific story! I confess, I got about halfway through it and wondered if it was going to be too depressing for a holiday post. Stories like these, almost certainly from the fertile mind of Richard Hughes (who wrote and edited almost single-handedly the entire ACG line of comics) are why I consider American Comics Group to be the great unknown publisher of the Silver Age.

Happy Thanksgiving Day, everybody!

Why is Forbidden Worlds #73 famous (and the single most valuable comic ACG published in the Silver Age)? It's because of this story:

Yep, it's the first appearance of Herbie Popnecker, considered by many to be the greatest character of the ACG line.

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Single Issue Review: Adventures into the Unknown #82

I have talked a bit about American Comics Group in the past. ACG was a small publisher, putting out about 1100 comics over from 1945-1967, or about 4 issues a month. Adventures into the Unknown was their longest running title, lasting 174 issues before finally folding with the rest of the ACG line during the height of Batmania. They had generally good artists, including Ogden Whitney, who did the cover shown above, and a terrific editor/chief writer, Richard Hughes.

AITU had started out life as the original horror comic book, featuring stories involving vampires and werewolves and the like, although the stories were much tamer than the famed EC Comics line that followed it. After the advent of the Comics Code Authority, Hughes refocused the series on more light science fiction plots, without going into the excesses of the "monsters and aliens" that were common at DC and Atlas (the 1950s Marvel). Hughes excelled at the O'Henry twist at the end, and the story that leads off the issue demonstrates his superb plotting abilities.

A Bucket of Paint features Edward Finch, a meek, unassuming clerk for a Wall Street firm. In his daydreams, he's a sports star, a financial tycoon, a pirate sailing the high seas, but in reality, he's henpecked by his wife and bullied by his boss. But he consoles himself that if ever he got a big break, he'd know what to do with it.

Assigned to repaint the house, Finch notices a new paint store, and picks up the supplies he needs. The manager of the store gives him a free bucket, which he advises Edward to use on his cellar.

The first afternoon, as Edward paints the cellar wall, he's startled to see a scene coming to life:



Suddenly he finds himself in the scene, at the Olympics, competing for the United States. He wins the Pentathlon, setting records in every event as he does so. Then he spots the store manager who gave him the free bucket of paint, who tells him:



He decides to take the medals, as that way he'll have proof that he won all those events. But when he gets back to the normal world, he realizes that his wife will think him crazy if he starts showing off his Olympic medals.

He tries stopping by the paint store, but it's closed for the weekend. That night, he decides to paint another wall with the free bucket. This time it reveals the Wall Street office of a business tycoon. Finch makes brilliant moves and this time when the paint store manager shows up, he takes the money back to the real world with him. He blows off his boss and opens up his own investment firm, but his ability is not as high as his daydreams:



He stops by the paint store again, only to find that it's closed for a vacation. He has only enough paint left in the bucket to do one last wall. This time he's a pirate on the high seas. He wins a lot of treasure and when the store manager shows up again, he takes the gold and jewels back with him.

But once again, his investments don't pay off and within a week he's ruined. He goes back to the store and is relieved to see it's open. But the store owner has bad news for him. This was Edward's second chance at being a success, but he'd blown it every step of the way. Instead of taking the health and vitality of a top athlete, he'd taken the worthless medals. And:



Finch begs for another chance, but he's already had that; he will have to go back to his old boss and plead for his job back.

Comments: Terrific story; it's kind of a mixture of the classic "three wishes" plot and Damn Yankees. The art is rather humdrum, but it suits the mood of the piece.

The second story is entitled Strangest Job In the World, and it's of interest chiefly because it was the subject of an obvious swipe by DC a few years later. In House of Secrets #23, DC introduced Mark Merlin. Compare and contrast:





In both stories, the investigator solves a supposed haunting that has the current owner ready to sell at a bargain. In both stories, they discover a secret behind a wall:





In each case the story closes with a bit about a supernatural event that may have been real. So it seems obvious that either both stories were written by the same person, or the Mark Merlin story (which is currently uncredited at the GCD) was a swipe of this Adventures into the Unknown tale, which predates it by two years.

Update: Commenter Jonathan Miller notes the possibility that both stories were inspired by a third, earlier story and points to the interesting Carnacki stories from around 1910. I read one and while the idea of a supernatural detective does seem to originate with Carnacki, I would note that Carnacki is significantly different from Mark Merlin or the psychic detective in this story; he's very much part of the mystical world, drawing pentagrams and the like to protect himself from evil spirits. Still, he may have inspired a similar detective character who in turn inspired the two comic supernatural detectives.

The third story is also interesting. Bob Morrison had strange abilities to foretell the future; he predicted World War II while in high school. He graduated and enlisted shortly after Pearl Harbor, and because of his precognition he correctly predicted the date for D-Day, and that the German offensive known as the Battle of the Bulge would be a disaster for the Allies. He meets a nurse named Alice whom he strangely refers to as Miriam. But it turns out that he's got another life far in the future as the President of the United States and that's his wife then. When he's wounded in battle, he realizes that he's not going to make it, but not to worry; that they will meet again in the future.

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Single Issue Review: Search for Love #2

This comic is, strictly speaking, out of my general bailiwick as it was published in 1950, but it contains such beautiful and interesting romance stories that I couldn't resist breaking the format for Valentine's Day.

The first story concerns a gal who's something of a klutz:



Resolving to try to overcome her problem Audrey signs up for horseback riding, but of course the animal can sense her nervousness and takes off with her. A friendly guy saves her and demands a date in return. They hit it off well, and he wants to help her conquer her demons, but:



Of course all Terry (who we learn is a construction engineer) cares about is that she admitted that he's someone who really matters. We learn the complication in the way of their happiness; a crooked contractor in town is bidding against Terry for a high-rise office building. Terry's bid is successful, but he soon encounters problems on the job and learns that Larson, the crooked builder, has agents of his stirring up trouble.

Terry confronts Larson and as they are fighting, one of Larson's henchmen creeps up behind Terry with a blackjack. Audrey tries to save him but as we've seen she's a complete klutz and trips and puts Terry in the water. He refuses to believe it was an accident, assuming that she's set her cap for Larson, and breaks off with her. Sure enough Larson comes courting, and in a weak moment Audrey agrees to date him, causing further insults from Terry. She becomes engaged to Larson, but burns for revenge against her former boyfriend. Which Larson can arrange:



Terry rescues the worker, but the unstable structure gives way and he's kayoed before he can get down himself. What will happen?



The ending of course writes itself; she saves Terry who realizes she truly loves him, Larson goes to jail, and they live happily ever after.

Comments: The sudden heroism by Audrey is breathtaking the first time through and the dramatic tension is well-served by the earlier parts highlighting her clumsiness. Is it somewhat unbelievable? Sure, but I talk most days about people with super powers on this blog, so I'm not going to quibble about that. There is certainly negative characterization of Audrey when she falls for Larson, but that makes her redemption at the end more powerful. A well-crafted story with excellent artwork.

The second story is the one highlighted on the cover. Pearl Erskine's boyfriend dumped her because she was too feminine, so she resolved to be the toughest gal alive, becoming a famed adventurer and big game hunter. And she has custody of her niece Janice, who she's bringing up to be just as tough as she is.

When one of the boys accidentally hits a ball onto the roof of the school, Janice decides to show her abilities:



That last line is stolen from the then-current film Annie Get Your Gun:



Janice is attracted to the boy and they have a fun time together, but Auntie discourages romance:



So she breaks off with Dick, but:



Amazingly, Aunt Pearl ups the pressure; she's going on a wild game hunt in Africa and when she returns she wants Janice to make her final decision. The time slips by too quickly and:



So you can see that the story has become a psychological drama; can Janice break free of the influence of her aunt?

And right off the bat, Pearl's scheme goes awry. She wants Janice to learn from the archaeologist Harvey Presser, but he very quickly starts giving her the "wrong" lessons. Pearl confronts them in a rage:



Aunt Pearl drags Janice off to Africa, where she's hunting a giant tiger (okay, so they got the geography lesson wrong). Harvey is going to be over there as well on an archaeological expedition. As it happens, the giant tiger is unstoppable and attacks Janice and Pearl. Harvey manages to kill it, but not before Pearl is fatally wounded:



Comments: I've always been a fan of psychological drama stories in comics, so this one is right up my alley.

No one could say that this comic lacks for strong women pursuing unusual and interesting lives, especially when you see the splash for the next story:



Lorraine has no interest in men or relationships and she pursues her studies instead of romance. But then one night on a train, there's a mixup and:



Of course the "Baby, it's cold outside," line refers to the pop song of the late 1940s of the same name. It turns out that Lorraine is actually in the wrong car, so she's embarrassed, and the next morning the only seat that's available in the dining car is across from Eddy:



So he proceeds to do a carnival barker act on the train, embarrassing her even more. But as she runs away, her glasses fall off and Eddy gets a good look at her. Of course this was a cliched moment even back then. For a moment she submits to a kiss from him but then she remembers their relative stations in life:



At the conference in Chicago, Lorraine meets the other man, who seems to be perfect for her--another highly respected scientist in her field. Of course, his satanic beard gives him away as the villain of the piece:



And he does seem to be more interested in the weapons applications of her research than might be considered normal. But later he shows that he can handle the pesky carnival barker:



And he can think of a way she can repay him. She falls for Pierre and when he suggests that they elope she agrees. But:



She learns the truth shortly:



Now that's a panel. Of course Eddy bursts in, has a big fight with the phony Pierre, saves Lorraine and:



Comments: Another great story, with interesting characters. Similar to the first one in that the girl falls (on the rebound) for the bad guy but realizes in the end who she really loves.

The final story concerns an artist's model. Barbara falls in love with Dean, the struggling artist, but is enticed away by the man who buys her portrait. We can see the warning signs of problems ahead:



After a quarrel with the artist, she marries Robert. But Robert turns out to be gambling with his clients' money (shades of Bernie Madoff!) and cheating on her with Myrna, and when his empire collapses he commits suicide. To try to make up for his theft, Barbara sells all their property, including the painting that started it all, which Dean, now more successful, purchases. Apparently he's still got a thing for Barbara. But Myrna has other ideas. This time Barbara is ready to fight, though:



Fortunately Dean hears the argument and reveals that he's completed Myrna's portrait, which shows her hidden side as a bitter and vindictive woman.

Comments: Clearly the weakest story in the issue as the characterization is secondary to the plot, but the artwork is nice and the other stories are tough competition.

Unfortunately, Search for Love #3 was never issued, although it was advertised; I believe its contents were published as Romantic Adventures #8. I'm not sure what happened; first guess is that ACG discovered that the romance market was getting saturated. But these were terrific comics (I've read SfL #1 as well) with outstanding characters and they deserve to be remembered as among the finest of their time.

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