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Post by MWGallaher on Mar 6, 2024 17:30:49 GMT -5
Captain Marvel Adventures #72
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Post by MWGallaher on Mar 5, 2024 23:11:07 GMT -5
JO-JO CONGO KING, Part I Hey, don’t laugh. Well, okay, you can laugh at first, because JO-JO COMICS debuted from Fox Feature Syndicate as a humor book featuring a variety of funny animals and humorous humans, none of whom went by the less-than-imposing monicker of “Jo-Jo”. Why “JO-JO”? Maybe Fox thought it sounded funny—it does!—or perhaps the series began development as “HO-HO COMICS” and either another publisher had already trademarked the name. I can’t find evidence of a competing HO-HO COMICS being published, but “HO-HO” may have been considered potentially infringing on Four Star Publications’ HI-HO COMICS or ACG’s HA HA COMICS, both of which hit the stands earlier. So for whatever reason, JO-JO COMICS it was, and it began with a Spring 1946-dated issue cover-featuring the “O’Brine Twins”, a cartoony pair of sailors whose stories had already been running as backups in other Fox anthologies. In July 1947, though, the initial premise was scrapped, and with its seventh issue, the cover read “Jo-Jo Congo King”. The formal title, according to the indicia, was still “Jo-Jo Comics”, occasionally simplified as “Jo-Jo”, sufficient to cover Fox’s claim that it was the same comic, to avoid paying a new fee to establish the desirable second class mailing privileges in the United States. (It appears that earlier in the history of comics, publishers were more concerned about plausibly claiming continuity between two obviously different comics being in some sense the same series, so name changes, when necessary, were more subtle, such as the classic example of EC’ MOON GIRL becoming A MOON…A GIRL…ROMANCE! As the years went on and the Post Office apparently demonstrating little concern, title changes were more abrupt, leading to instances such as Marvel/Atlas treating publishing BLAZE CARSON, REX HART, WHIP WILSON, and GUNHAWK as different issues of the same comic, at least for the purpose of postal registration.) Jo-Jo Congo King took over with the 7th issue, but it appears to have been a hastily-arranged coup, with only two Jo-Jo stories—a total of 12 pages--backed with a couple of adventure features yanked from inventory: the last Bronze Man story, following the character’s previous appearances in BLUE BEETLE, and The Purple Tigress, a costumed heroine who had previously appeared in ALL TOP COMICS, and a non-jungle 2-page text story. The first two Jo-Jo stories show him involved with two different women. The first, Gwenna, is queen of the Bonangi tribe. The synopsis on the GCD suggests that Gwenna is Jo-Jo’s “first mate”, but a careful reading of that story does not suggest that they are lovers, but friends. The second story, involving a mad scientist who makes plant life into dangerous monsters, clearly establishes another woman, Geesa, as Jo-Jo’s “betrothed”. The next issue was mistakenly also number 7, so these issues are listed as 7a and 7b at the GCD. 7b has 22 pages of Jo-Jo Congo King, a jungle-themed text story, and a humorous Western back up, Popgun Pete. As of the 8th issue, Jo-Jo seems to be romantically attached to Tanee—with Geesa long forgotten. Tanee will remain as Jo-Jo’s girl through the remainder of the feature’s run. But before getting to the stories, I’ve got to address the elephant in the room—uhh—jungle… Back in this post ( classiccomics.org/post/480474/ ) on DOROTHY LAMOUR, JUNGLE PRINCESS, also published by Fox, I speculated on what I assumed would have been a controversial aspect of the comic in 1950, perhaps even so controversial as to lead to Fox leaving the comics market. That aspect was what appeared to be interracial relationships between dark-skinned African men and light-skinned women with conventionally Caucasian features and hair. Well, judging from JO-JO CONGO KING, published several years earlier, I suppose that if there were any objections, they weren’t strong enough to drive Fox from the stands, because Jo-Jo lives in a version of the African jungle where all the native women are colored and drawn to look like white women, while the native men are all brown-skinned, with hair and facial features more generically characteristic of Black men. It’s a very curious convention to adopt, and I can only guess that Fox wanted to take advantage of the prurient appeal of having lots of scantily-clad women, but thought that only light-skinned, Caucasian-looking women would appeal to the comics’ readers. As a commenter on comicbookplus.com put it, in reference to a similar comic, ZAGO JUNGLE PRINCE (which I’ll cover later): Zago exists in a strange universe. He is claimed to be a "Jungle Prince", but unlike, say Dell's BROTHERS OF THE SPEAR, that title is never explained. Zago exists without benefit of origin or hint of a backstory of any kind. He lives in a native village where all the females are light-skinned like himself, but all the males besides himself are dark-skinned. There are several instances where we see a dark-skinned native refer to a light-skinned girl as his daughter, or his mate (or the light-skinned girl refer to a dark-skinned male as father or husband). In addition, all of the women are young and attractive; and children or elders are never seen -- either female or male. In the one story where a child seems to appear, he actually turns out to be a 20-year-old midget! That not only seems to present an extremely odd picture of Africa but seems especially puzzling when you remember these stories were published in 1948. Native women are, without exception, whether good or evil, portrayed as light-skinned. We never, ever see a dark-skinned woman, yet all the male natives are dark-skinned (as you would expect for Africa). At first when I noted this in a couple of stories, I simply wrote it off as a mistake of the colorist (they are notorious for not actually reading the scripts), but after a goodly number of stories, it became obvious that this policy was not only consistent, but quite deliberate, and somewhat baffling.This also raises the question of whether Jo-Jo’s girl-friend Tanee is supposed to be one of the native females or a white like Jo-Jo…assuming that Jo-Jo is white! After all, in his first appearance, he addresses the bad guys as “white”, almost as if he doesn’t consider himself to be of the same race: Or does any of that even matter in Jo-Jo’s fantasy jungle world? Are we to imagine Jo-Jo’s world is a utopia where skin color is irrelevant to society? If so, though, why the gender distinction between light and dark skins? Heck, this is one of the most difficult-to-write-about issues that’s arisen in these jungle comics, riding some line that feels racist to me, but I can’t clearly articulate why—it’s some kind of racist/sexist/exploitative/fantastic jumble of hard-to-process choices. Help?! More Jo-Jo could be found in ALL GREAT JUNGLE ADVENTURES, which was (sort-of) a one-shot release, 132 pages for 25 cents, published by Fox in 1949. Fox published several of these extra-long giant comics by removing the covers from four unsold, leftover, regular-length comics and reassembling them under one new cover. I say “sort of” a one-shot because the contents to be found behind these covers might vary, even between copies with the same cover. Fox published several such collections of their romance comics and superhero comics, but this appears to be the only giant jungle comic Fox attempted to recycle. The format might have seemed like quite a bargain, but as I mentioned in prior post, Fox had a policy of printing the first story page of its comics on the inside front cover, colored in tones of a single print color (cyan or magenta), plus black, of course. Consequently, four of the stories in each giant--stories which would have been the lead story in their respective original releases—would start on the second page, lacking splash or title page! The copy that you can read at comicbookplus.com/?dlid=16553 evidently collates interiors from ALL TOP COMICS #16 and JO-JO COMICS #18, but as I said above, collections of other Fox jungle comics were also issued between these same covers. From a stack of cover-stripped unsold jungle comics, they would grab four and rebind them under this cover, so there’s really no telling what combinations might have been released. Since the component comics are considered elsewhere in this thread (or are not relevant to the topic of jungle comics), I’ll refrain from digging into the stories on this one. The inside front cover is a one-pager in black and magenta called “Man Eater”, about the Bengal tiger. The stories feature Rulah, Jo-Jo Congo King, Phantom Lady, “Tropical Topics”, and a “True Crime” story narrated by Phantom Lady. That's a lot to say about Jo-Jo, so I'm splitting this into multiple parts. Coming up, a proper sampling of an issue of JO-JO CONGO KING...
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Post by MWGallaher on Jan 27, 2024 20:35:05 GMT -5
Green Lama #6, August 1945, by Mac Raboy
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Post by MWGallaher on Jan 18, 2024 13:36:49 GMT -5
Ouch...somebody please tell me I'm not the only one aggravated by the attempt to re-use the 'C'. My mind rebels at allowing this to be anything other than "En Bee Comics", even though I know they wanted us to read it "NBC comics"...
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Post by MWGallaher on Jan 16, 2024 14:46:12 GMT -5
foxley for posting the only comic bold enough to print its "coming next issue" tease on the freakin' cover!
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Post by MWGallaher on Jan 5, 2024 8:48:34 GMT -5
JUMBO COMICS #166
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Post by MWGallaher on Dec 24, 2023 7:49:06 GMT -5
1. SUPERMAN’S PAL JIMMY OLSEN #142, October 1971, DC Comics Published cover by Neal Adams and Jack Kirby, Kirby’s original version on the right By Jack Kirby and Vince Colletta Spun-off from SUPERMAN #13, November/December 1941 via SUPERMAN #91, August 1954 (debatably attributed as the first appearance of the “Earth-1” Jimmy Olsen) There’s a saying you might have heard: “Dance with the one that brung ya.” For me, that’s the 142nd issue of this spin-off series starring Superman’s best friend, Jimmy Olsen. Jack Kirby’s Jimmy is the comic without which, I may not have ever been here in this forum or have ever begun reading comics. It was the first, in a tale I’ve recounted several times here: 11 year old monster movie fan can’t get his Famous Monsters of Filmland fix at the newsstand and happens to spot this convenient substitute. I know Superman and Jimmy from tv, and here’s a vampire in the Count Dracula mold and a werewolf, and I’ve got a quarter to spare, so why not? Years later, I would see this issue spotlighted in an AMAZING HEROES article on (I think) “the 10 worst Jack Kirby stories ever.” So even at his “worst”, and with his often-cited “worst inker”, Vince Colletta, the Kirby magic was strong enough to make a convert out of me. There was a lot I wasn’t equipped for in “The Man From Transilvane”: the Newsboy Legion, the DNA Project, the Guardian…and it was a continued story, so I didn’t even get a full serving! More than 50 years later, I can’t reconjure how this story affected me, what exactly thrilled me or disappointed me, but I was captivated enough to return to the comics rack, as recounted in my thread on my first year of comics collecting. Here’s what I said about this issue in that thread. I don’t think I can improve on the fuller commentary I worked up there, but I think I’ve more than justified my high ranking of this comic for Class Comics Christmas 2023. (I used to own this original art for page 1 of the 2-page DNA Project backup in this issue, one of the saddest things I ever had to give up: a page from my first comic, bought for only $35 at a con where I met and spoke with Jack Kirby for a good 15 minutes. No waiting in line for expensive autographs, just walked up and talked to a god of the art like an ordinary guy. He wasn’t being mobbed by fans, just hanging out at his booth and shooting the breeze with anyone who wanted to talk. Between that experience and hanging out with Jim Aparo for a couple of days, I never had much interest in going to later cons to “meet” favorite pros the way it goes at these things now.) And may I wish you all a happy holiday, and express my appreciation for this annual tradition, and give thanks to Cei-U! for developing and hosting the celebration each year (and apologies for beating him to the Bizarros, but a huge part of the sense of community here is discovering common love for specific pieces of this huge domain of comics--read CROSSFIRE!). This forum has been so important to me, especially over the past 4 or 5 years. Its existence is a gift that rewards me every time I log on. Thank you all, friends and fellow fans, for everything you’ve done to keep the joy of comics alive in me, and for your ongoing comradeship, encouragement, and positivity. And finally, here’s to brutalis , whose untimely passing I remember each Christmas season. Wish you were around for this one, Bruce.
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Post by MWGallaher on Dec 23, 2023 19:14:29 GMT -5
I've managed to go pretty far on a leftover resolution from 2022 by exploring the world of jungle comics, sampling one of every jungle-based series I can dig up. My list has grown a lot as I poke around, but right now I have only 23 individual comic book titles left, and some of those are so closely related that I'll cover multiples in a single review. I'll finish this up in the new year...I've got a real whopper of a post cooking, with a jungle hero that turned out to be a richer mine of commentary, history, and company policy than I'd ever have expected. I've got an early example of shared universe jungle comics from a company that wasn't known for that kind of thing. I've got inexplicable name changes, comics that no one but me would categorize as jungle comics, an under-the-radar tv adaptation, and more from a character who got a lot of attention in the Classic Comics Christmas 2023.
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Post by MWGallaher on Dec 19, 2023 7:39:31 GMT -5
6. THE HEAP in AIRBOY COMICS, Hillman Spun off from Skywolf in AIRFIGHTERS COMICS v.1 #3, December 1942, with its own feature as backup and occasional cover feature in AIRBOY COMICS #32 (October, 1946)-111 (May, 1953) You can read the entire Heap saga here! It’s public domain! The Heap was exactly the kind of comic book I would have wanted at the very start of my comics collecting career: a monster’s journey, following a fearsome, misunderstood and hideous creature as it traveled the world, encountering strange situations and conflicts, and escaping to follow its instincts. I found it in SWAMP THING, an early favorite, and soon after that in Marvel’s Man-Thing, never suspecting at the time that path of the comic book swamp monster had been established decades before in an utterly unique backup feature. After four appearances as a threat to Skywolf ( not Airboy!), the folks at Hillman made the crowd-pleasing decision to install The Heap, a World War I German pilot, Baron Emmelmann, whose crash into a Polish swamp led to his resurrection as a mute, blood-drinking mass of ambulatory vegetation, as an ongoing feature. Initially acting as a sort of a pet to an American boy, The Heap became less of a general menace but a more selective deliverer of deadly justice to the wicked. As time went on, the feature’s creative team bothered less and less with tying The Heap’s stories into the comic’s aviation theme, delving into outright horror, morality tales, science fiction…it was sui generis in its day. The Heap was untethered to any home base, wandering across the globe, unable to share its thoughts with the reader. The closest contemporary that I can think of was Dick Briefer’s Frankenstein, which happens to be another favorite of mine, but that character could at least express himself, show some personality and intent. In The Heap, we see a feature that is in many ways a precursor to not only the obvious Man-Thing, Swamp Thing, Morlock 2001, Bog Beast, and Skywald’s own version of “The Heap” but also to characters like The Hulk, Werewolf By Night and The Zombie. It’s probably no coincidence that all of those, as well, are favorites of mine. I really dig seeing creators tackle the challenge of an ongoing feature based on characters that are not relatable in conventional terms, and the fact that Hillman was able to make such a successful run of it with The Heap is impressive. Reading The Heap’s adventures in their entirety is one of my 2024 goals, but every sample I’ve read so far has justified my confidence in including it here.
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Post by MWGallaher on Dec 16, 2023 7:33:26 GMT -5
9. ELONGATED MAN #1-4, January-April 1992, DC Comics By Gerard Jones, Mike Parobeck, and Ty Templeton Spun off from THE FLASH #112, April/May 1960 The Elongated Man and I go way back. Not only do he and I share the same cover date for our debut appearance in this world, I read an Elongated Man story, FLASH #210’s “A Tasteless Trick” by Skeates and Giordano, in my first month of comic collecting. With such a significance in my personal comics history, Ralph’s 1992 miniseries was an early addition to my slate. He appears today substituting for my original #9, a series that I decided was just too dark and grim to suit the spirit of the season (but which held a revelation that I was only able to appreciate on re-reading this week, thanks to my #10 pick…and I’ll bring that up elsewhere!). In stark contrast, ELONGATED MAN is a high-spirited romp, by a writer whose skills at humor I always enjoyed (let’s separate his talent from the serious crimes for which he is being punished) and two artists, Parobeck and Templeton, whose every drawing has been a consistent delight! I was sold on this immediately by the idea on which the miniseries is predicated: just as Jerry Lewis was (supposedly) respected as a cinematic genius in Europe, so was Ralph Dibney celebrated as a great superhero, despite his lesser regard in the DC pantheon among American comics fans. Taking Ralph and Sue on a European tour made perfect sense given their life of luxury, thanks to Sue’s status as a wealthy heir of the Dearbon dynasty—why wouldn’t they be solving mysteries as they live the life of carefree jet-setters? The creative team visits established DCU European state Modora, where they encounter Green Lantern villain Sonar, “Master of Sound”, new European-themed villains like the wonderful Calamari and a gang of sausage-themed Germans, with slinky Silver Age villain Copperhead plaguing them throughout their adventure. Elongated Man may be considered a poor imitation of Plastic Man, but this was way funnier than any of DC’s attempts as spotlighting Plas in the Silver or Bronze Ages. I can’t imagine any creative team better suited to this assignment: clever script, gorgeous art, bright, cheery coloring, fun, fun, fun!
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Post by MWGallaher on Dec 12, 2023 15:26:48 GMT -5
chaykinstevens
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Post by MWGallaher on Nov 28, 2023 21:33:38 GMT -5
It has indeed been an excellent topic! My nod goes to tartanphantom, with apologies for following with a much later Spectre cover. I usually try not to step on the heels of any other contestant unless the topic requires it, but I felt pretty confident that he wouldn't object since his selection was clearly more fun.
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Post by MWGallaher on Nov 22, 2023 14:31:50 GMT -5
Adventure Comics #434 by Jim Aparo:
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Post by MWGallaher on Nov 21, 2023 10:28:11 GMT -5
Going on personal meaning for the comic moreso than for artistic merit, jester
Runner-up, also on similar lines, chaykinstevens
Aparo's Batman & Joker cover was a shocker when it hit the stands (and led directly to the Joker's getting his own series), and hey, it's Jim Aparo in his prime. Starstruck is one of my favorite comics ever, and one of most re-readable, so I always take the opportunity to show it some love!
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Post by MWGallaher on Nov 15, 2023 18:38:02 GMT -5
FEATURE COMICS #127 (Quality Comics, October 1948) Dan Barry, artist
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