561 – Super-Boners
No long story here, just a juvenile chuckle at the title of one of the stories in Superman #87 (December 1953). Moving on…
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552 – Eh!
If Crazy was a footnote on history’s page about Mad Magazine, Eh! must be a footnote of a footnote. Charlton Comics came out with Eh #1 (October 1953) which was basically another copy of EC’s Mad. Satire-based stories that included fake ads – a staple that became so important with Mad Magazine.
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550 – Crazy Mad Crazy
Atlas (Marvel) comics “flatters” EC’s Mad comic book by introducing their own satire comedy comic, Crazy #1 (September 1953). Most of the same shtick that’s in Mad is here: crazy antics and pop culture references (Dragnet-inspired narration of Frankenstein). The Crazy comic didn’t last long, it was later revived as a magazine, once again copying […]
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517 – Swerving Madly
In July 1952, EC Comics debuted a new comic: Mad! Filled with anthological stories from multiple genres with a silly bent, it eventually morphed into a satire magazine, rather than comic book and became the only surviving EC comic in just a few more years. One story is horror, one is crime, one is western, […]
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408 – Hey Look!
Harvey Kurtzman really started to get work in the late 1940s. He had a regular 1-page comic called “Hey Look!” with a distinctive crazy style to it, as evidenced by the above picture from November 1948. I love the stark black backgrounds, they really stand out in the Patsy Walker comic. Harvey would eventually go […]
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308 – The Three Dimwits Solo
The Flash’s comic relief supporting characters (Winky, Blinky and Noddy – cheap knockoffs of the Three Stooges) make their first solo appearance in All-American Comics #73 (March 1946). This is another signal of non-superhero / humor comics becoming more prominent. Phew! only a few more years of this stuff to go through before the Golden […]
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307 – Superman’s Pupils
Superman earliest comic book appearances always portrayed him as a dashing, heroic figure. Joe Shuster drew the character as always in command and never surprised. As a result, he eyes were always shadowed or squinting. Did Superman even have white eyeballs? Around the time of Superman #40 (March 1946) I started noticing more illustrations of […]
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269 – Patsy Walker
Timely Comics (aka Marvel Comics these days) introduced a new female character in Miss America Comics #2 (September 1944): Patsy Walker. Although the Patsy Walker feature was in the “teen humor” genre, like Archie, I did learn from Wikipedia that she is an important character for Marvel because she one of the few that bridged […]
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