MEDIA IN COMICS 012

It's a very literary day here in Media in Comics Land.

Books:

There are many potential reasons to get into super-science and super-crime, but "reading a get-rich-quick scheme in a book" is one of the better ones, as demonstrated by Wizard Wells foe Mota here and his copy of Cash in Chemistry. (Crack Comics 010, 1941) 

Crime in the Afternoon (A J.J. van Snyde Detective Novel), enjoyed here by Nickolas, henchman to Black Condor foe the Sophisticated Lady. (Crack Comics 010, 1941)

This book, The Ritual, has the cover of a murder mystery or other popular bit of fiction, but seeing as the man reading it is a fanatical leopard-worshipper we must allow for it being something a bit more sinister, such as instructions of conducting a human sacrifice. (Jungle Comics 020, 1941)

As covered in the Bram Thirla entry, Billy Batson learns about the dos and don'ts of vampire hunting from a book called The Vampire Legend, written by HP Lovecraft. A different Lovecraft, perhaps, or did the regular one go in for a bit more of a reference works-based career in the Fawcett Reality? (Captain Marvel Adventures 001, 1941)

This particular comic adventure involves Darrell "Doll Man" Dane taking exception with the fact that some roughneck are using his local library. While I must decry the classism on display here, I must also begrudgingly acknowledge that Doll Man was right: these guys were learning for all the wrong reasons, specifically as part of a school of crime that the diminutive super-hero later breaks up. 

Titles on display include: The Art of Murder, Famous Crimes, How to Win Friends, Jiu-Jitsu, Right and Wrong and The Way of All Flesh. (Feature Comics 047, 1941)

Comics:

 

Golden Age comics companies loved to depict their characters reading their own comics, which is why it is not at all unusual that Doiby Dickles here is reading a copy of Flash Comics in an issue of All-American. What is unusual is that rather than describing one of the actual features in Flash, Doiby has apparently been reading some alternate version of the book that exists in the DCU and involves a character named "Colosso." (All-American Comics 032, 1941)

Magazines:

Though modern depictions of the original Dr Mid-Nite tend to categorize him as a crime novelist, his original job post-blindness was in writing for the crime pulps, and more precisely for Crime and Detective Tales. (All-American Comics 025, 1941)

Freedom Magazine is one of those patriotically-named publications that any good citizen of the 21st Century must immediately suspect of being a cynical way to whitewash fascism, but no, this one seems to be on the up-and-up. They give Les Watts, Radio Amateur a prize for being a cool teen!. (Flash Comics 023, 1941)

Peep Magazine, on the other hand, is merely concerned with the news, and is willing to help out patriotic hero Don Glory to get it. (Hit Comics 011, 1941)

It's possible that Scoop Magazine is entertainment-focused, as they send a photographer to cover this publicity-stunt party in support of a play by a new writer. A party that inspires the Masked Man's murder spree! (Batman Comics 008, 1941)

Movie Mag and Screen Stars are just two of the publications covering the meteoric rise of movie star Portia Storme, aka Julie Madison, the former fiance of Bruce Wayne. (Detective Comics 049, 1941)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 244: THE GREAT ARTURO

(Flash Comics v1 013, 1941) 

Like Crime & Corruption Inc before him, I almost skipped over the Great Arturo or banished him to the ranks of the generic villains, because a) the Great Arturo is a terrible villain name and b) he appears in a Les Watts comic. But the more I looked at this guy, the more it became clear that he was like a savoury stew made up of all the things I love about comic book creepos.

We've already passed judgement on his name (bad), but let's run down some of the other pertinent details of the Great Arturo's career:

Appearance: he's seven feet tall and both dresses like a vampire and also looks like one - whether his widow's peak, fangs and shadowed eyes are natural or stage makeup matters not.

Motivation: According to his henchman Spider, Arturo just "went insane" one day and decided that he was going to acquire the US' new warship tech or destroy it, which is meh so far as villainous origins go, but according to Arturo himself he sometimes believes that he is the Devil, and if you're going to be an insane villain I think it's important to go big. 

Powers: According to his henchman Spider, Arturo was a great enough hypnotist that he held Spider completely in thrall to his will. Emphasis added because it's entirely possible that ol' Spider is just a fast talker looking to save his own hide.

Hideout: He lives in a secret tomb that you enter through a hollow tree in a graveyard - one of the top secret lair types of all time.

In conclusion, he's a seven foot-tall goth hypnotist with a henchman named Spider who lives in a cemetery. Wotta catch!

BONUS: About Les Watts, Radio Amateur

I don't think I'm going to do a full entry on ol' Les, but in brief, he's an earlier example of a character archetype that persists through to today, probably, the Teen Hobbyist (I initially went with Boy Hobbyist, because they are almost all boys). The Teen Hobbyist has a healthy obsession with the hot new tech of the day: ham radios, light aircraft, hot rods, CB radios, computers, the Internet... They don't usually invent things, but they are completely up to date on the latest developments in their field, leaving the adults around them admiringly befuddled.

Teen Hobbyists had their heyday in the 40s and 50s, but were still going strong in the 60s - Snapper Carr and Rick Jones were absolutely from the hot rodder school of Teen Hobbyist - and on into the 80s and 90s as Computer Whiz Kids and so forth. I'm sure there's some version of them running round today.

Les Watts (later renamed Les Sparks for some reason) is a kid who likes fooling around with ham radios, as do all his friends. He specializes in picking up hints of a crime in progress on the radio waves and then zooming to the location with a bunch of teens. That's about it.

NOTES - FEBRUARY 2023

The Whip is an okay character aside from the brownface bit but one thing I absolutely love about him is that although he does a credible job at the Ineffectual Secret Identity act he also just travels from town to town with an enormous black horse.

(Flash Comics v1 005, 1940) 

Names:

This old dude shares his name with Kurt Busiek's Astro City character Samaritan! The tally of comics characters named Asa Martin stands at 2! (Flash Comics v1 010, 1940)

Same issue's Hawkman story features a (bad) guy named John Denver!

I'm usually pretty good at catching allusions and so forth in these old comics but I have no idea why Joe Magee = "always bungling something" (Flash Comics v1 015, 1941)

Places: It's a bit hard to make out but the flash on this armoured car seems to place Seguro in "New Texirona" rather than New Mexico, which might just be the most egregious example of 40s comics writers avoiding real place names that I've ever encountered. (Flash Comics v1 016, 1941)

This is how I order in restaurants, too. (Flash Comics v1 017, 1941)

Number of references to "the Third Degree" aka the cops torturing someone as a positive thing this month: 3