Number 1572: Tough-talkin' and straight-shootin' — Good night, Irene!

Irene Shrader  (sometimes spelled Schroeder), took up with Glenn Dague, who had left his wife and children for her. What interested me about the story is that a part of it (the part that got the pair the electric chair) took place near my son’s home in Western Pennsylvania. This article from The Lawrence County [PA] Memoirs is one of the better articles I’ve read about the pair.

There is a way crime comics presented women as criminals, which was to show them tougher than their men. The males were portrayed as being followers, even wimpy. The women robbed and killed without mercy and ordered their significant others to do the same. This version, drawn by George Tuska for Crime Does Not Pay #57 (1947) has a fairly standard panel-by-panel description of Shrader/Schroeder and Dague’s short but murderous career. Lots of tough dialogue and action to match. There is also Irene’s speech in the final panel where she says to Dague, “We were wrong in goin' bad, Glenn! It doesn’t pay!” Considering Irene’s psychopathy I doubt she ever expressed such a thought. Part of any psychopath’s mental make-up is to blame their victims rather than themselves.

Shrader/Schroeder has the dubious distinction of being the first woman executed by electric chair in Pennsylvania, and only the fourth woman in America executed by that method.

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Number 1571: Captain Marvel goes Mad...then Nuts

A couple of things caught my eye when I read this Captain Marvel-King Kull tale in Captain Marvel Adventures #141 (1953). First, it has walking dead. That’s good. Second, it is told in the second person, which isn’t good or bad, just different than the usual third person that Captain Marvel stories were written in by chief scripter Otto Binder.

Then there is the so-so, which is a satire on Captain Marvel, “Captain Marble Flies Again,” done for Premier’s Nuts!#5 (1954), after Captain Marvel was cancelled. The story has its moments, but it depends on your tolerance for this type of satirical treatment. (It has a hooker under a street light putting the moves on Captain Marble; that’s interesting and solidly pre-Comics Code).

You remember another story done for Mad #4, “Superduperman” (below) featuring Captain Marbles and Superduperman in battle. It was a reference to the lawsuit against Fawcett by DC for copyright infringement, which which was ultimately decided in favor of DC. Go to Apocolyte’s World of Comics for the Mad story and some bonuses.

Ross Andru drew “Captain Marble Flies Again.” He and partner Mike Esposito published their own short-lived satire comic, Get Lost!. I wonder if this story was originally something they had prepared for that book.

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Number 1570: Sea Devils — the devil’s in the details

Despite dropping almost all my DC Comics purchases in '61-'62 after Marvel introduced The Fantastic Four and the rest of their early hero lineup (a fickle fan, wasn’t I?), an exception was DC’s Sea Devils. I bought it because of Russ Heath’s artwork. It’s telling that I stopped buying the book after issue #10 when other artists took over. It wasn’t that they were bad artists, just that I was buying the book because of Heath.

Looking at #1 after 50+ years makes me wonder if I just looked at the artwork without reading the stories, because I don’t remember them. Like this first story from issue #1, about a movie with a robot Octopus Man who roams the ocean floor walking a huge octopus on a leash. Then a real Octopus Man shows up. Next to this The Fantastic Four seems almost non-fiction. But there is that Russ Heath artwork, and that makes up for the implausibilities and overall silliness of editor Robert Kanigher’s scripts.

From Sea Devils #1 (1961).

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#669 - The latest Tarzan strip reprint

Emile has been kind enough to send me the latest Tarzan story that completed its run last week. This has artwork by John Celardo, who is my favorite Tarzan artist.

This is the story where get to meet ITO's real mother. Less talking and more reading.

Download from Emile's original link and shower your thanks on him.

Enjoy the story.

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Number 1569: The naked Archie

In this tale of teen tension and body dysmorphic disorder from Archie Comics #27 (1947), Archie takes a shower in front of a leering, sadistic personal trainer.  It isn’t such a big deal except for our usual expectation of more clean, wholesome fun from an Archie comic book. That cleaned-up Archie came later, when the transition from the wild-and-wooly days of Archie’s publisher, MLJ Comics, was fnally complete. This story, drawn by longtime Archie artist Bill Vigoda, is part of that earlier style.

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From the same issue, here’s a titillating look at Archie’s girls, Betty and Veronica. Click on the thumbnail:

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