Number 258

Herbie, Boy Beetle!

On Sunday, February 9, 1964, the Beatles made their initial appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show. My whole family was there in front of our TV. My brother Rob and I knew what we were seeing, but our parents didn't. I could practically see the drop-shadowed question marks over their heads.

I enjoyed it when the Beatles popped up in comics, even though the people who produced the comics were of my parents' generation. Richard E. Hughes, under one his many pen-names, Shane O'Shea, wrote the story of mop-topped Eibreh Rekcenpop taking the pop world by storm. Artist Ogden Whitney did a fair job drawing the Beatles. Both Hughes and Whitney probably shrugged their shoulders and wondered what the Beatles' appeal was, but they knew the age of their readers and to sell comics were more than willing to put them into Herbie's strange little universe. They even threw in Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra, singers more appealing to their generation. Even an extrinsic view of the Beatles phenom was a sort of validation of my own Beatlemania, I guess. Though the Beatles--or "Beetles" as they are known here--are secondary to the story, I loved this when I first saw it in Herbie #5, Oct-Nov 1964. For those of us who remember the original British Invasion, when the Beatles conquered the known universe, it has all the more meaning.

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Number 257

The Lovesick Clown

Rudy Palais does a "true" crime comics version of I Pagliacci in Crime Does Not Pay #43, January 1946. The clown gets turned down by the woman he lusts after, then goes into a murderous rage.

I empathize. Without killing anyone, at one time or another every guy has made a clown of himself over a woman. So many times for me I coulda gone to work for Ringling Brothers-Barnum and Bailey!

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Number 256

Underground comics

Here are variations on a theme: two stories about people who find utopian civilizations underground, with two different endings. "The Men In The Mole" was published in Atlas Comics' Journey Into Unknown Worlds #65, March 1957, and "The Spelunker" appeared in Atlas' Marvel Tales #141, December 1955.

"Mole" was illustrated by John Forte, and "Spelunker" by famous Mad-man, Mort Drucker.

The Men In The Mole

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The Spelunker

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Number 255

The Thing On Sputnik 4

I bought Race For The Moon #2 in July, 1958. I loved all things science fiction, and thought this comic was neat-o, daddy-o! I didn't know Jack Kirby's name, but I recognized his artwork from several other comics. "The Thing On Sputnik 4" was inked by Marvin Stein. The Grand Comics Database says the cover and the other three Kirby strips in this comic were inked by Al Williamson.

Race For The Moon #1 was an anthology science fiction comic drawn by Bob Powell, and issues #2 and #3 were by Kirby. It's a shame it only lasted three issues. It's hard to see why this cover of Race For The Moon wasn't at least as intriguing to comic buyers as issues of DC Comics' Mystery In Space.

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Number 254

Dead man's chest

Bob Oksner sure could draw cute girls. He could draw anything, actually, and was one of DC Comics' best caricaturists. He drew both Jerry Lewis and Bob Hope comics for years, because he had a good humorous style. But it's the pretty girls I like.

Lady Danger was a character from Sensation Comics in the late 1940s. This particular tale came from Sensation Comics #85*, January 1949. It's written by Bob Kanigher, who was editor of that title. In those days DC's artists were told to "draw it like Caniff!" who was one of the most popular newspaper cartoonists in America. Oksner was like the rest of the artists and drew it like Milton Caniff, but then, Caniff also had a way with pretty girls.

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*According to the Grand Comics Database, it was reprinted in Lois Lane #115, October 1970.

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Number 253

Operation Monster

Here's a doctor who thinks it's a good idea to hide his surgical mistakes in the attic. Instead, he should've kept up his malpractice insurance.

"Operation Monster" is from Harvey Comics' Chamber of Chills #5, February 1952. It's drawn by Manny Stallman, who we last saw in Pappy's #128. Heritage Auctions sold the original art in 2004 for $414.00. Here's a scan of the splash page.

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Number 252

Alan J. Hanley was a real Goodguy

The late Alan J. Hanley was a talented cartoonist/writer who self-published in the 1960s and '70s. He loved Captain Marvel and funny animal comics of the 1940s, and his comic strips are nostalgic pastiches of that era.

"Goodguy" is from his magazine, Comic Book #6, from 1974. It's the second part of a story, but mostly self-contained, so you can figure it out. Hanley could be didactic, but was still entertaining when sharing his political and moral views. In this strip Goodguy and Green Lama of the Limbo League discuss sex and violence in the comics while Goodguy is strapped to a guided missile headed for Disneyland!


Hanley died tragically young. His friend and contemporary, cartoonist Jim Engel, wrote of Hanley in an e-mail to me:

Alan Jim Hanley (he was going by "Alan" when I first met him in person in--I THINK-- 1970. Later he went more by "Jim") was both a friend and cartooning idol of mine. I thought then (and still do today) that his work was just the greatest---both (as you said) modern and nostalgic all at once. Goodguy, The Mitey Buggers, The Spook, Captain Thunder, All-American Jack (I love Goodguy, but my single favorite Hanley story is, I think, "BACK ON THE TRACK WITH ALL-AMERICAN JACK") were all just perfect by my standards. I wrote a memorial thing about him in THE COMIC READER when he died, and I'm pretty sure I said something like "there's nothing I would have liked better than to do the kind of wonderful stories he did", and 27 years later that's STILL true. I had somebody scan a picture I took of him at the San Diego Comicon in 1977. The hotel screwed up our rooms, and Jim, Chuck Fiala & I were given a big suite to share. That was Jim's first time there. On the easel that's Goodguy shouting "Good Garbage!", and Pogo & Albert as Batman & Robin.

He died in the winter of 1980. He'd driven into the small town he lived in to get his morning coffee & mail. On his way home, his car went off the road & hit a tree. They think he'd blacked out, and the day before he'd complained of a headache/pain . He had a wife and two small daughters. He was 42. Jim's funeral was in a small town called Tomah, Wisconsin, which had cool old metal signs on the lamp posts that pictured Walt & Skeezix, and proclaimed Tomah as the birthplace of Frank King. Chuck & I thought that was kind of appropriate... I often wonder what he could've/would've done in later years if he'd lived. I'd have loved to done some collaborating with him for real as I got better as a cartoonist in those years.

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