Number 1362: Funky Funnies: Torrid Torchy!

This is the second day of our Funky Funnies theme week. Today we light our internal fires with Torchy.

Torchy, who may be the sexiest female character to come out of the golden age of comics, began her career as a filler in Quality Comics’ Doll Man, then earned her own book in 1949. Gill Fox, a master cartoonist who could work in a variety of styles, did a terrific job interpreting Bill Ward’s original vision of the statuesque blonde, and today I’m showing you the first story from Torchy #1 (1949), drawn by Fox.

Putting aside the obvious sexism represented by Torchy (who was drawn to attract young male readers, including servicemen), who do you think drew a sexier Torchy, Bill Ward,  or was Fox’s Torchy “foxier”? (One female reader told me Ward’s Torchy “looked like a hooker.” That’s one opinion.) I have a love comic story by Ward coming up soon where we see again Ward's very sexy, slinky women. Should you need evidence, if you’ve never seen Ward’s work, if you have seen it and need reminding, or if you just want to ogle Ward’s beauties, click on the picture below for a Pussycat story he did in the sixties, along with a forties Torchy story reprinted in black and white in the nineties. Warning: lingerie panels abound. No more than you’ll see in the average Victoria’s Secret catalog, but I thought I’d let you know what you’re in for.

Click on the picture for Pussycat and Torchy:

From the Hairy Green Eyeball blog, Pussycat #1 in its entirety!

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Number 1361: Funky Funnies: Powerhouse Pepper!

 In January of this year we had a theme week called "Funky Funnies Week," and I’ve decided I haven’t laughed enough lately, so I’ve lined up more Funky Funnies.

First up, Basil Wolverton and his great Powerhouse Pepper. Powerhouse was super strong, but not a superhero. Because he was a little guy the big guys usually misjudged him. As you can see in these two stories from Powerhouse Pepper Comics #2 (1948), they did so at their own peril.

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More funny, funky Basil! Click the pics:

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S177 - Revenge in Rhodia

Here is the latest daily strip of The Phantom, the Ghost Who Walks, which just concluded a couple of weeks ago on April 14, 2013. Written by Tony DePaul and art by Terry Beatty.

Download the strip here.

The story is courtesy Emile. So all credits are owed to him.

Enjoy,

Venkitachalam

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Number 1360: Boyoboy: The Newsboy Legion!

Just thinking here. Have I ever seen a newsboy? I mean, an actual kid standing on a street corner, hawking papers and hollering, “Wuxtry! Wuxtry!” The answer is no. I grew up in the suburbs of a Western city, not inner-city New York, where most of the Simon and Kirby characters sprang to life. In our town the newspaper came without a "wuxtry!" but with a plop! when it landed on the driveway. The newsboy, or newsgirl, was a delivery person, a carrier on a bicycle.

Ah, but that doesn’t have anything to do with the Newsboy Legion, and their protector, the Guardian, does it? The prolific imagination of Jack Kirby was always providing characters, and his kid characters were a combination of fictional ideas of New York City street kids and the kids Kirby grew up with in the Hell’s Kitchen area of that city. In the Newsboy Legion stories Hell’s Kitchen became Suicide Slum, and the beat cop was the civilian identity of the masked Guardian. There is a real New York flavor that comes through in the stories, as Kirby and Simon practiced the advice of their high school English teachers: “Write what you know.”

This is the last in our “Boyoboy! Week,” featuring some of the kid gangs of the comics.

From Star Spangled Comics #15 (1942):

More Simon and Kirby Newsboy Legion from Pappy! Click the pics:

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Number 1359: Boyoboy! The Boy Commandos

We’re in day three of our “Boyoboy! Week,” where we’re celebrating those kid-gang comic book heroes of the past. Today, the Boy Commandos, created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby after they slipped the tether at Timely Comics, then moved to DC. The Boy Commandos were created as a wartime group but lasted until 1949. While they were popular they had their own title, and appeared also in Detective Comics and World’s Finest Comics.

Even during their wartime days the stories occasionally slipped into fantasy and science fiction, and so it is with “The Triumph of William Tell” from Boy Commandos #30 (1948). The Grand Comics Database credits the penciling to John Severin and the inking to George Klein? (Question mark means they’re not sure.)

I’ve featured Boy Commandos a half dozen other times on this blog, but in this posting from 2010 I explain how I lost my near-mint copy of the first issue at the San Diego Comicon. It’s a sad story, and a cautionary tale at that. You may need a hanky when reading it.

Click on the picture to go there:

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