Number 1619: Joy buzzers in space

We begin another theme week. Our three postings this week will be what I call Spacey Stories. That is, stories which take place in space, and also have a degree of spaciness (as in off-the-wall) in the storytelling, deliberately or not.

Gardner Fox wrote and Fred Guardineer drew this spacey tale of Space Ace, from the ME one-shot, Space Ace #5 (1952). The stories are all reprints from Manhunt. This particular story is originally from Manhunt #6 (1948). Space Ace (Jet Black) and his young crew member, Jak Tal are in orbit doing their Space Patrol duties when they encounter an alien spaceship. The story’s title calls the aliens men, but they look more like something out of H. P. Lovecraft. That isn’t enough to make it oddball...it’s the use of a common novelty item, a joy buzzer, called a handshake buzzer here, to help defeat the invasion-minded aliens.

Here is another posting with Space Ace. Just click on the thumbnail.

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Number 1498: The back-ups

These three well-drawn short stories, all from Police Comics #11 (1942), struck me for different reasons. The first, “Chic Carter,” has a swamp monster (or at least what appears to be). Something shambling out of a swamp, fake or not, gets my attention.

“Firebrand” was the first cover feature of Police Comics. He lost the position to Jack Cole’s Plastic Man. “The Mouthpiece” appears to be one more Spirit lookalike from the company that owned the Spirit. In addition to Spirit, who dressed in a suit and wore a mask, Quality had Midnight and the Mouthpiece. Are there any more blue-suited crimefighters with Lone Ranger masks from Quality I have missed?

Fred Guardineer, who drew the Mouthpiece, is responsible for the above head-spinning electric chair panel. Fred drew many a similar panel when he went to work for Charles Biro at Crime Does Not Pay. Lee Ames, who drew this episode of Firebrand, went on to a career which included book illustration and how-to-draw books. Vern Henkel, artist on the Chic Carter story, began his career by sending a story he wrote and drew to publisher “Busy” Arnold in the days when comic books were in the so-called Platinum Age.

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Number 1379: Ace of Space, meet Space Ace

With a comment in Pappy's #1346, reader Darci sent me on a hunt for the character, Ace of Space. Ace Egan is considered to be a precursor to Hal Jordan, the Silver Age Green Lantern. The story is from Feature Comics #38 (1940), and crams a lot into an origin story, but whether it inspired editor Julius Schwartz or writer John Broome, who knows? It’s an interesting thought. The writing on this five-page origin story is clumsy, especially as Ace discovers his powers. After putting on the power belt bequeathed him by the dying alien he says, “I seem to know the answer to all problems!” Despite growing to be nine-feet tall, jumping a quarter mile or having super vision, I’d think just having answers to all problems would be power enough. Harry Francis Campbell did the artwork, and H. Weston Taylor the writing.

I’ve included the Space Ace story by Gardner Fox and Fred Guardineer from Manhunt #4 (1948). Here Space Ace is Jet Black, a “space patrolman” (space would be a mighty big patrol area). The Space Ace character from the four issues of Jet (Jet Powers, not Jet Black) a couple of years later, also published by ME, is more of a pirate.

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Number 1335: Bad batman and a crud named Krud!

The last time I showed a story by Fred Guardineer was just last month on George Washington’s birthday, for a story of a magician bringing Washington’s statue to life. Guardineer, who had drawn magician Zatara in Action Comics, seemed to have been typecast as a magician artist. Here's another, Merlin the Magician, from National Comics #21 (1942). This strip caught my eye the way it might have caught yours: the incredible logo, which foreshadows a story of giant vampire bats, and a stocky, gap-toothed costumed character who looks like a caricature of Batman.

As a bonus, I'm throwing in a Quicksilver strip Guardineer did in National Comics #39 (1944). Who could resist a story with a villain called Dr. Krud?

I've mentioned before about Guardineer’s precise ink line. In many ways it reminds me of the work of Charles Burns, whose inking is so perfect that it hardly looks like a human hand did it. I'm fascinated by artists who have such control of a brush.

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