MEDIA IN COMICS 010

Is the media in comics any good, do you think? Do super-heroes get to watch good movies?

Movies:

Arizona Nights is a Western being produced by King Studios when a climactic gunfight scene is used as cover for a real-life murder. Detective Sergeant Carey clears up the mystery (it was the cameraman) but we never learn if the footage of a man dying in real life was used for the added verisimilitude. (More Fun Comics 052, 1940)

Call of the North, a Mounted Police picture by Pioneer Films, is not marred by murder, but if the Quality Universe IMDb userbase is on the ball the trivia section for the movie includes the fact that several of the mountie actors were used as backup by RCMP Sergeant Reynolds in the apprehension of a kidnapper. (Feature Comics 037, 1940)

Dread Castle has a place in comic book history as the film that drove Basil Karlo over the edge and into the persona of Clayface, as he saw the attempt to remake a movie that he saw as one of his greatest roles as an insult to him personally. Both Dread Castles are medieval films about a murderous hunchback called the Terror - not a terribly exciting prospect without the excitement of all the real-life murder that went on during production of the second one. (Detective Comics v1 040, 1940)

The other Basil Karlo role that we learn about in his initial appearance is the one that he takes his criminal moniker and appearance from, a movie seemingly also called Clayface. (Detective Comics v1 040, 1940)

Music:

Is "Star Dust" Clark Kent's favourite song as he claims it is while big-dogging this club maître d'? I sure hope so. No idea what kind of song it is, but you can slow dance to it. (Superman Comics v1 007, 1940)

Newspaper Columns:

"Town Talk" is the kind of snotty gossip column that inspired a thousand murder mystery plots. In this case, columnist Walt Willard turns up dead and Steel Sterling has to comb through the wealth of suspects to figure out whodunnit. (Jackpot Comics 004, 1941)

"Around the Town with Joe E. Brown" is your standard gossip column-as-exposition-vector, though why the writer has the same name as an old-time film comedian is unknown to me. (Special Edition Comics 001, 1940)

Paul Pryer, writer of the imaginatively-titled "Paul Pryer's Column" is one of those comic book celebrities who I am certain is based on a real person, but whether it's just someone like Walt Winchell or there's a Paul Prowler out there just waiting for me to learn about him is up to chance. (All-Star Comics 003, 1940) 

Meanwhile: "Society," the most pragmatically-named society column of all time. (Batman Comics v1 001, 1940)

We don't get to actually see "Tom Peeping's Column" in this Minute Movies strip, but I like to imagine that it features a cheeky little cartoon of the writer with big binoculars at the top. (Flash Comics 004, 1940)

Newsreels:

I don't know enough about newsreels to know if they normally had titles, but the Ace Films company is trying to capitalize on their beautiful camerawoman "Dot Daring," aka Beautia Sivana and so chooses to call this one Flirting with Death. (Whiz Comics 010, 1940)

MEDIA IN COMICS 009

I hope you like media from comics, because I certainly do and I am going to keep doing these.

Comics:

Bullied bootblack Timothy Smith just wants to buy a comic book with his last nickel and he has a whole selection of Fox Features titles to choose from, but what draws his eye is a book called The Land of Magic, a comic so fantastical and majestical that he wishes himself away to live inside its pages the next time he gets beaten up. (Green Mask v1 007, 1941)

We never actually see the Colossal Guy comic book, but this Colossal Guy superfan is evidence enough that he is a character with get-up and go. Enough to inspire Captain Bruce Blackburn to invent his alter ego of the Destroying Demon, in fact. (Feature Comics 039, 1940)

"Ripley's Believe it or Not" had enough cultural caché in its time that there are innumerable plays on it in comics, just as there were imitators in real life. These mostly differ by how successful a play on the name they have: "Don't You Doubt It," as consulted by Eve Colby as part of one of Spy Smasher's cases, is about average. (Whiz Comics 005, 1940)

Magazines:

I have a lot of affection for the concept behind Jim Dolan, two-fisted magazine editor, who solves crimes and then writes about them for Daring Detective Magazine. The magazine itself is fine. (Slam-Bang Comics 001, 1940)

Movies:

We never learn more about The Big Snatch other than that it is a mystery thriller. The big joke here is of course that the star of the film is comics creator Joe Devlin. (Smash Comics 014, 1940)

Likewise, we never learn much about the Western Hearts of the Range other than the fact that it starred the blowhard Sheriff O'Toole. (All-American Comics 021, 1940)

Melody of 1941 here is likely a play on Broadway Melody of 1940 and as such a musical, and stars a couple of classic mixed-up name actors in Tyrone Taylor (Tyrone Power/ Robert Taylor) and Myrna Rogers (Myrna Loy/ Ginger Rogers). (Detective Comics v1 046 1940)

We have no information at all about Old Bill. It has a pretty big premiere for a movie with such a drab name, so it must have something going for it. (Action Comics v1 028, 1940)

Oriental Horror is the name of the hit movie that made Barry Moore's name just before he quit acting, moved back to Center City to become a police scientist and adopted the identity of the Scarlet Seal based on the yellowface character he played in the movie. I would venture a guess that the film is not considered an enduring classic in the present day DC Universe. (Smash Comics 016, 1940)

She Made Him Love Her! is the name of a romantic movie attended by Sisty and Dinky, aka the daughter of the future Red Tornado and the brother of teen cartoonist Scribbly, aka the future Cyclone Kids, after the former falls in undying love with the latter. And to be fair to her the duo are canonicall later married, so this is a proven tactic. Eventually.

The movie itself might be loosely based on the film They Knew What They Wanted, or I might be grasping at straws. (All-American Comics 012, 1940)

MEDIA IN COMICS 008

We're not out of the extremely crusty scan woods yet, but the media of comics must be recorded, folks. Hang in there.

Books:

When Diamond Jack defeats his early foe the Witch and transforms her book of magic into 1000 Ways to Cook Spinach, there is one big unanswered question: did this spinach cookbook already exist or did his ring magically compile 1000 recipes on its own? (Slam-Bang Comics 001, 1940)

Early Batman foe the Wolf, meanwhile, got his start after suffering a head trauma and fixating on the crime thriller he was reading, titled The Crime Master. (Batman Comics v1 002, 1940)

Human Knowledge, a book compiled by the sinister Professor Universe that contains "every fact known to man" is used by Slaughter Slade to imbue his assistant Dr Allirog with the mind of a human genius. (Special Edition Comics 001, 1940)

Usually when you hear about a reclusive scholar writing a book about how "sinister persons or forces plan to deliberately stave off the return of national prosperity" you're in for some paranoid fascist rantings, but in this case it's the early 40s, so the sinister forces discussed in Prosperity's Foe *are* the fascists. (Superman Comics 004, 1940)

Wretched Marine character Strut Warren attempts to peddle a book called The Jolly Homemakers' Manual around Bali in an attempt to win a prize, a typically tiresome adventure for the character. (Fight Comics 016, 1941)

When a mysterious virus called the Purple Plague starts ravaging Metropolis, Clark Kent and his pal Professor Henry Travers his the library to research a historical instance of the same disease, in a book also called The Purple Plague. It turns out that the Ultra Humanite had also checked out the same book and that it had given him the idea to unleash the modern plague in imitation of the original. (Action Comics v1 019, 1939)

Movies:

Air Circus is a airplane stunt-heavy film that is plagued by accidents while filming until pilot Gary Hawkes gets involved and exposes the scheming director's plot to scuttle the production and then turn a quick buck by buying up the incomplete footage. (More Fun Comics 039, 1939)

Its the same old story: a film called The General's Daughter shoots some scenes at the Army installation where Skip Schuyler works, there's a series of incidents and then Skip has to save the day. Not too sure what the movie is supposed to be about. (Adventure Comics 043, 1939)

It may be the crustiest and crunchiest lowest quality scan here, but Public Enemy #13 is a pretty fun name for a movie and I think that that makes up for it, at least a little. (More Fun Comics 040, 1939)

Newspaper Columns:

"Around the Avenue" is one of those old-school society gossip columns that they used to have in papers, and while Rennie McCavoy here is playing into Wesley Dodds' hands by writing him up as a wild party dude/ potential victim for the story's villain, it's hard to respect the journalistic effort involved in seeing a guy being quietly drunk at a nightclub and pouncing on him like this. (Adventure Comics 044, 1939)

MEDIA IN COMICS 007

We've got some real early media for you today, so get ready for the crustiest scans of microfiche you ever saw.

Movies:

Steve Rogers and Bucky almost get to the movies to see a flick called Million Dollar Robbery before being interrupted by a real, if smaller-scale, robbery. BONUS: a classic case of real movies stars barely obfuscated by having their first names swapped, in Humphrey Raft and George Bogart, aka George Raft and Humphrey Bogart. (Captain America Comics 004, 1941)

Hired to look into dirty dealings on the Stupendous Films lot, Slam Bradley and Shorty Morgan go undercover as stunt doubles. The comedy film that Shorty works on is never named, but Slam briefly works on a film called Jungle Man. (Detective Comics v1 004, 1937)

Larry Steele's own investigations into a series of high-profile kidnappings take him to the set of Too Much Money, a movie we never learn anything about. (Detective Comics v1 005, 1937)

It's just barely possible to make out that this movie that the Radio Squad boys watch is called The Fighting Cop. A bit on the nose, boys! (More Fun Comics 038, 1938)

Music:

Detective Bruce Nelson investigates a series of murders committed on stage while each victim was singing the same song. That song was originally called "The Night is Blue," but is now known as "The Song of Death." (Detective Comics 020, 1938)

In Action Comics 006, a grifter named Nick Williams falsifies some contracts and begins licensing Superman's name all over town, and one of the results of this is a song! Specifically, a big band tune called "You're a Superman!"

I wouldn't call it the greatest song ever written (no song should include the word "resistless," for example), but it's not entirely terrible. (Action Comics v1 006, 1938)

Newspaper Columns:

Written by Paul Revere Sr, ultra-patriot and father to comic book adventure kid Paul Revere Jr, "America Awake!" is one of those exciting titles that works for an anti-Nazi column in 1941 and also potentially for a pro-Nazi one in the present. (Banner Comics 003, 1941)

Jay Garson Jr, aka the Ragman, wrote his "Crime Does Not Pay" column right up until someone tried to kill him for it and he was forced to fake his own death. And then kept on writing it for a while afterward, seemingly mostly in order to give his old editor a hard time. (Cat-Man Comics 001, 1941)

Radio Shows:

In addition to "You're a Superman!" Nick Wilson's Superman-licensing deals included a Superman radio show, meaning that the DC Universe had one a full two years before we did.

Wilson also mentions having sold movie and comic book rights, but as he is beaten up and forced to stop his scheme by the real Superman not long after this conversation it's likely that those never saw the light of day. (Action Comics v1 006, 1938)

Theatre:

Slam Bradley and Shorty Morgan investigate the crimes of the Broadway Bandit by getting jobs on Broadway, specifically as tap dancers in a production called Love on Ice that despite its name seems to be a variety show rather than anything with a discernible plot. (Detective Comics v1 016, 1938)

Renick's Frolics, the show in which "The Song of Death" appears, is another of these variety productions. (Detective Comics v1 020, 1938)

 

We learn nothing about Darkest Dawn other than the fact that someone is trying to kill the lead actress and Nadir, Master of Magic, is on the case. (New Adventure Comics 028, 1938)