MEDIA IN COMICS 011

I've heard of comics in the media, but media in comics?

Books:

This book is only our second example of a piece of media called Crime Does Not Pay! but I am confident in predicting that that particular phrase - the regular shouting of which appears to be the major means by which people in the 1940s discouraged children from adopting a life outside the law - is going to be the one we see the most as time goes on.

We don't learn too much about the contents of this particular book, but it makes a decent projectile for Robin here. (Detective Comics v1 050, 1941)

Spider Craft, on the other hand, is pretty clearly just a reference book on spiders, albeit one with a very charming name. (Detective Comics v1 057, 1941)

Movies:

While attending to his extremely unruly supporting cast, Captain Terry Thunder happens upon a movie improbably being shot in North Africa in 1941. This movie is unnamed, but G.G., the director, is also responsible for the film Lost Souls, about which nothing else is known. (Jungle Comics 020, 1941)

Radio:

Radio Quiz show How Do You Know is your place to try your luck at winning two dollars and a big double box of Kracked Korn in a knock down quiz-off against Dolliver King. (Feature Comics 034, 1940)

If there's one kind of radio program that comic books love the most it's the "man on the street" style with their handy remote microphone for all your evidence-gathering or (as seen here) confession-broadcasting needs. This particular show is called Public Opinion. (Nickel Comics 004, 1940)

Theatre:

The Fancy Follies of 1940 is a revue-style show that is the site of the first in a series of entertainment industry murders investigated by the Flash. (Flash Comics 002, 1940)

Billed as a musical, In the Groove is another show plagued by crime. The Purple Trio clear things up after they manage to scrape together enough dough to get inside. (Smash Comics 015, 1940)

Thanks to the fact that they had to pose as performers to solve the In the Groove case, the Purple Trio get their own self-titled show. The Purple Trio show probably involves more than the acrobatics we see here, but that's all that the group gets through in this issue before they realize that a) one man has bought out the entire theatre and b) he has been murdered. (Smash Comics 016, 1940)

This backstage conversation is all we get to see of the melodrama Remote Control, which is a real shame. What does a play with that title look like in 1940? (Crack Comics 008, 1940)

Finally we have The Totsy Revue, attended by Johnny Thunder in one of his many attempts to impress the ever-fickle Daisy Darling, thanks to a tip that the show's headliner Hoco tThe One and Only) is passing counterfeit money as part of his act. (Flash Comics 008, 1940)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 659: THE MASKED ARROWS

(Jungle Comics 005, 1940)

As far as being minor super-villains goes, the Masked Arrows are all right: a group of cloaked bandits who manage to run circles around the local forces of law until they push their luck too far and are wiped out.

The far more interesting thing about the Masked Arrows is the fact that they appear in a story that highlights just how literal the title Jungle Comics is, that virtually all of the stories that appear within take place in an undifferentiated jungle setting that is probably meant to be in Africa but which freely incorporates elements from Southeast Asia such as tigers and Indian-style palaces. 

The Masked Arrows' foe is Captain Terry Thunder of the Congo Lancers, a unit of a French Foreign Legion style outfit that I wasted a fair amount of time trying to parse before I realized that "Congo" in this instance was nothing so crass as a geographic indicator but simply meant "jungle" again. To this end, though Fort Death, Thunder's command, is located in a Foreign Legion desert setting it is never more than a days ride from the deepest jungle (and indeed is sometimes in the deepest jungle) and is just as likely to be attacked by South American tribes as desert nomads. Similarly, the Masked Arrows are simultaneously desert and jungle bandits.Wild stuff.