Number 1233: Captain Marvel Jr exposes the real candidates!

This is number two of four postings this week from Fawcett Publications.

Only a few more weeks to go, fellow Americans, and the torture of a presidential election will be over for another cycle (hang in there!) Going back a few elections (think 1952), candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower was running on the Republican ticket against Democrat Adlai Stevenson. So it seemed appropriate to reference elections in comic books, but one of the few election stories I've been able to find is this Captain Marvel Jr tale.

It addresses a situation many voters face when going to the polls. Do they really know a candidate? Is he really who he is portrayed to be? In this case the candidate made it through the process to the nomination, and he's definitely not what he pretends to be.

The second story has a misleading title. “Vampira, Queen of Terror” doesn't even bite anyone. But, she’s got a gorilla, and that's enough for me.

“The Space Voters” is credited by the Grand Comics Database as being drawn by Joe Certa, and “Vampira” is drawn by Bud Thompson. Both are from Captain Marvel Jr #116 (1952).

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Number 1232: The Marvel Family gets hissed off

 I've lined up a week of stories from Fawcett, publishers of Captain Marvel, The Marvel Family, Captain Marvel Jr, and Captain Midnight, all of which I'll be showing during my usual postings through Friday.

First up, the Marvel Family “Battles the Hissing Horror.” In this instance the “horror,” the Hissmen, look more like Albert the Alligator than evil sentient reptiles from a million years ago, but that's because despite the title, the cartoony art* dispersed any real horror. The Hissmen come bent on conquest from the dinosaur era, through a time tunnel which Billy, Freddy and Mary, and their friend Dexter, discover.

It's a very entertaining story, written by Otto Binder. 

P.S. Does it look to you like Mary Marvel is taking a bloody shot to the head on the cover? No such scene appears in the comic book. In the period before Fawcett, publisher also of crime and horror comics, closed down their comic book line in 1953, horror elements were used on the covers.

From The Marvel Family #74 (1952):

*I had originally credited Kurt Schaffenberger as artist. In the comments section of this post R.A.M. '67 credits C. C. Beck,  and after another look at the story I agree with him. The GCD credits Pete Costanza with a question mark.

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Number 1231: Funnyman — tragic, man!

I wrote in Pappy's #798 my opinion of why Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, Superman's creators, created Funnyman in the wake of being sacked by DC Comics, losing their most famous creation.

Funnyman wasn't funny — at least not as funny as the premise of the character made him out to be, a baggy-pants, old school shtick comedian with a secret identity:

Yuk, yuk.

Funnyman is an interesting failure, and also interesting as part of the still ongoing history of the world's most iconic superhero, and the tragic story of its creators.

From Funnyman #2 (1948):

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Number 1230: Gonna yo-ho-ho once mo’

It's Talk Like a Pirate Day, and usually I post a tale of the Jolly Roger on this date. I missed it last year, but made up for it in other ways. So far this year I've posted at least a couple of stories of the boundin' main.

But I reserved today for the Hawk, a series from Jumbo Comics, which has a bounty of piratical patois in the speech: “Cast an eye at th’ bilge rat kickin' yonder! Fair winds fer yer last voyage, Captain Hawk!” “Ye devils! If ye've killed ‘im I’ll...’ “Cap'n Claw...Cap'n Claw! Avast! Lashed on to me sword th’ wench ‘as!’ And that's just the dialogue in one panel. The whole story is like that.

That's a Fiction House comic book, though, mateys. That and a comely wench, this'n in short-shorts (Arrrrrrrrh!) and of course the saucy lass be tied up. I knew that splash panel’d have ye clutchin’ ’ard at yer belayin' pin, eh, me bucko? Kinky, yarr.

(All right, and that will be all the pirate talk I'll be talking today.)

Enjoy this saltwater saga, drawn by Robert Webb, from Jumbo Comics #102 (1947):

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