Number 1535: Clutching hands and faces of fear

I think the American Comics Group did a fine job of using a small number of titles to keep the company afloat during both boom and bust years of comic books. It started as Better or Nedor, and its early history is documented elsewhere. You can read about it in this preview PDF of Alter Ego #61, with a fascinating article by Michael Vance. When ACG came up with its supernatural titles, Adventures Into the Unknown and Forbidden Worlds, they became the two books that were their mainstays, and would take them to the end of their history in 1967.

The supernaturals, as assistant editor Norman Fruman called them, sold quite well, and ACG added Skeleton Hand, which didn’t make the crossover to a Comics Code-approved book (probably because of its title), Out of the Night, and a one-shot issue of The Clutching Hand, which isn’t identified as ACG on its cover. That’s likely because ACG was trying out stories that didn’t have the boy-girl happy endings that a lot of their “horror” stories did. Fruman is listed as editor of The Clutching Hand. According to one bio I read of Fruman, he wrote about 700 scripts for Better/Nedor/ACG.

Here are examples of the two styles, one with the happy ending, and one more typical of the horror comics from other publishers.

From Forbidden Worlds #17 (1953), drawn by Al Camy:

From The Clutching Hand (1954), drawn by Kenneth Landau:

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More Ken Landau, including a pre-Code story from Out of the Night, and a story for the very last issue of Forbidden Worlds in 1967. Just click the thumbnail.

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#662 - Continuing with Emile's collection

Here are 5 more gems from Emile's collection of Hi-Res Phantom daily strips.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/yhubu0ifr4tsvbe/D218_-_The_Doorman_-_2006-09-04_-_2006-12-30_-_17_weeks.cbr

http://www.mediafire.com/download/avwns04j5nbaj3c/D219_-_The_Jungle_Gang_-_2007-01-01_-_2007-04-28_-_17_weeks.cbr

http://www.mediafire.com/download/e2fjbme2v5b10bw/D220_-_Ordeal_at_Sea_-_2007-04-30_-_2007-08-25_-_17_weeks.cbr

http://www.mediafire.com/download/avwns04j5nbaj3c/D219_-_The_Jungle_Gang_-_2007-01-01_-_2007-04-28_-_17_weeks.cbr

http://www.mediafire.com/download/a8ngnd7893atlfb/D221_-_The_Grafitti_Mystery_-_2007-08-27_-_2008-01-05_-_19_weeks.cbr

Goes without saying that all credits and thanks should be directed towards Emile.

P.S. Will try to post every other week, but work and health issues may cause delay sometimes. Don't want any Mohammed Ghoris writing nonsense here regarding delays.

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Number 1534: The monster sets her Capp for Li'l Abner

It’s been a generation since Li’l Abner disappeared from newspapers. It was 1977 when creator/writer/artist Al Capp, sick with emphysema from a lifetime of smoking, shut down the strip. It, like Capp, had been in decline for some time. Capp died two years later, in 1979.

The strip was one of the most popular comic strips during the period of the thirties through at least the mid-sixties. It even influenced popular culture. Sadie Hawkins' Day, which is the subject of today’s post, became an annual event at some colleges and high schools. Up until 1952 Li’l Abner avoided being caught by Daisy Mae.

As biographical information about Capp shows, he had a troubled life and probably had personality disorders which caused him to be a total jerk at times,and then a generous, funny and friendly person at others. Maybe sitting at a drawing board for over 40 years, putting out sharp and oftentimes savage satire — Capp was a conservative when he died, but as a former liberal he still had a stinging view of the rich — will do that to a guy. Speaking of savage, the little character in this story who straps dynamite to his chest is a lot closer to today’s world than that of Li’l Abner.

I have shown this before, several years ago. These are new scans. From Al Capp’s Li'l Abner #74 (1950):

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Cartoonist Mel Lazarus (Miss Peach, Momma was an editor at Toby Press, which published this comic. The company was founded in 1949 by Capp’s brother, Elliott Caplin. This page of gag cartoons by Lazarus is from the inside front cover of the issue.

More Li’l Abner is available at the Hairy Green Eyeball blog, including Li’l Abner Sundays from 1960 and reprint strips of Li’l Abner that appeared in newspaper in 1988 and 1989: Part 1 and Part 2.

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Number 1533: I spy, with my little Eye...

“The Eye Sees” by Frank Thomas appeared for a short time in Centaur Publication’s* Keen Detective Funnies, and in a couple of reprint issues, Detective Eye. The Eye was a mysterious creature whose origin was never explained, although in one issue the splash panel proclaims, “The Eye! A symbol of the haunting voice of man’s inner conscience! That mystic all-powerful force that causes evil deeds to boomerang and destroy those who plot them!” With that sort of mystical status you’d think The Eye would be an unseen force, but it has a physical presence, as we see in this story (the second published) from Keen Detective Funnies #18 (1940) when it is spotted by one of the gang members plotting sabotage.

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*Centaur has the distinction of being a comic book company that went out of business during comics’ original heyday. According to Wikipedia, “Centaur Publications, Inc. ceased production at the end of 1940, but continued to produce comics under the name Comic Corporation of America. Centaur ceased publication four years later, primarily due to poor distribution.”

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 Here’s the first story featuring The Eye. Just click on the thumbnail:

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Those Pesky Asteroids!

And comets, meteors and rogue planets! Here's another thing I noticed in my reading of the Action Comics starting with #200. Superman seemed to spend half of his time saving Earth from one asteroid or other bit of cosmic debris after another.

 Action #204:

It took awhile for the next one to come along, but after that it was Katie bar the door.  Action #221:

Action #222:

And #223:

Action #227:

#229:

Action #232 featured not one, but two near impacts:

In some cases, these asteroids/comets/meteors performed functions similar to Red Kryptonite later in the Silver Age.  For example, the comet in #221 imparted to Superman a magnetic power that was handy at times, but gave him headaches in his secret identity as Clark Kent.  The meteor in #232 ended up giving Superman the powers of Superman Junior.  The meteorite in #204 appeared to force Superman to perform all his super-feats while standing on his head.  And the comet in #227 was thought to have caused his X-ray vision to become uncontrollable.

I'll see if there are any further examples of this.  I seem to recall that one of the episodes of the Superman TV show in the 1950s also featured Superman saving Metropolis from an asteroid.

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