Theagenes

Wow! And what a great way to do it!

I know that this post will likely get pushed aside on account of the huge argument that is a brewing....but I will give it a shot. I agree that as historical importance goes Bat #1 is in a diffent leaugue than MF 52! Is bat #1 a better long term investment that MF #52? Of course! Is bat #1 demand going to go up while MF #52 demand will stay stagnent? You bet your ! My argument is that I personally would rather have the MF #52 mostly because it is a better looking book in high grade! Bat #1 is a good looking book but from mid grade up it doesn't present TOO much different. I would be just as happy with a 5.0 as I would a 8.5. Now with the MF #52 the difference, at least in how it presents, between a 9.2 and 5.0 is huge. I feel the same way about a lot of simple one color covers. Tec #1 is another good example. In general though Bat #1 is a far more superior book! No argument there. I pretty much agree with everything Socratic Wonder has said here. Bat 1 is the better investment but MF 52 is cooler, etc. But for that kind of money I'd have to choose the better investment and go with Bat 1. I agree though that most midgrade copies present just as well -- I'd rather spend my $110K on a 6.0 copy of each. (thumbs u Also, I would not be bothered really by the glue that much, but I understand how others might be. What I don't understand is how people can pay a different price for the same book with the same amount of glue depending on whether it's in purple label, blue label w/notation, or blue label w/o notation. Well, actually I guess I do understand - those people are label chasers - but I just think it's ridiculous.

Overall, a pretty solid offering from the Eisner/Iger shop. The artwork was a little weak for the most part, with a couple of exceptions (Powell, Fine) and some of the characters were a bit a generic, but as GA goes it was pretty readable. Okay, I'll start with the Clock. As I mentioned this is the first Clock story I've read so I was looking to seeing what the first masked crimefighter in comics was all about. Truthfully, the character is pretty derivative. The Clock may have been a novelty for comic books when he debuted in 1936, but basically he is a knock-off of the other suit-and-fedora wearing masked adventurers of the pulps and radio like The Shadow, The Spider, and the Green Hornet. Organized crime is the protagonist, a theme common to several of the stories in this issue and I thought the hooded mob boss was a nice touch. The Jane Arden strip reprints were kind of ho-hum. More interesting were the Lena Pry back-ups which I had never seen before. Interesting mainly due to the stereotyping of hillbillies/Okies (women doing the plowing, men are lazy drunks) with an incongruous labor movement twist. The hillbilly archetype would pop up a few more times in the issue in various guises. Space Legion was my favorite piece in the issue, by far. Granted I'm a big fan of early sci-fi so I'm probably biased, but truthfully most of it is really bad. This story, while somewhat generic, was just a lot of fun and contains many of the elements that I like to have in my sci-fi: spaceship dogfights, rayguns, space pirates, etc. Great stuff! The main protagonist, Buck Bradford... er... Brick Gordon... uh... Spurt Dexter... Oh whatever his his name was -- he was pretty one dimensional, as was Harg the pirate, but over all I enjoyed it more than many of the offerings in early Planet Comics. (thumbs u The Spider was interesting, just to see another bow-and-arrow costumed hero that I had never seen before. GCD credits Paul Gustavson with this feature, and if that's correct, I have to say I was disappointed with both the writing and the artwork. I'm trying to remember some of the Fantom of the Fair stories I've read - was Gustavson's grasp of anatomy that bad? Maybe it was. Wizard Wells was a bit different, with the science-based hero who dislikes physical confrontation, backed up by Tug, the former boxer turned sidekick. Probably would have been more effective if we hadn't just seen Pug, the Clock's former boxer turned sidekick a couple of features back. Once again organized crime is the heel, with the very ethnic-sounding Black Morda as crime boss. Molly the Model by Joe Devlin was not bad and was one of the better drawn features IMO. Of course having a couple of cutsie lingerie panels didn't hurt. Ned Brant strip reprints - just couldn't get into it. Sports strips do nothing for me unless it's boxing. Lee Preston by Bob Powell was enjoyable and original, with a female aviator as the protagonist. To put this in context, Amelia Earhart's disappearance was a couple of years before this. Once again the hillbilly stereotype appears. As you can probably imagine, Red Torpedo was one of my favorites. I love these stories that give some insight into what America was thinking about the war in Europe prior to our own entry. This story would have been written in early 1940, when The Battle of the Atlantic was well underway. At this point, the advantage was with the U-Boats, as an effective strategy to deal with them had not yet been developed. To the creators of these comics, many of whom were children of Jewish immigrants, the threat of refugee ships from Europe being torpedoed must have hit close to home -- some those refugees would have been cousins, aunts, uncles, etc. trying to escape Eastern Europe. Although Germany is not explicitly named, the leader of the "aggressor nation" is obviously supposed to be Hitler. Actually my intitial thought was that the figure in the middle in that panel was supposed to be Admiral Doenitz, who was the commander of the U-boat fleet at the time (later Hitler's successor after the latter's suicide), but I'm not sure how well known he would have been at that time - it may just be a coincidence. The figure on the far right bears a slight resemblence to Goering as well. Madam Fatal - Transvetite hero out for revenge dressing as an spoon-kicking granny. Of course, even after he gets his revenge he decides that he enjoys dressing as an old lady so much he's going to keep doing it to fight crime (not that there's anything wrong with that). Honestly I'm just not sure what to make of this one. Slap Happy Pappy - two of our favorite themes: Unnamed-Foreign-Power-that's-supposed-to-be-Germany vs. sterotypical dumb hillbillies. Love it! Black Condor - First appearance of the Black Condor. Right off the bat, the first reaction is Wow! The art blows away everything else in the issue - by far! No surprise though as the artist is Lou Fine. Having his work at the end of the issue, after all the other features, really punctuates just how far ahead he was of most of his colleagues. GCD credits Eisner with the -script, and if that's right then I have to say this one of his weaker offerings - the origin story stretched credibilty, even for a GA comic. I found my self glazing over the dialogue and just enjoying Fine's work. I did like the fact that his dad was an archaeologist though. (thumbs u

I thought I had read that someplace, but maybe I was mistaken. Anyway I think it was Harold Hersey that published it.

That is stunning! Look at those reds! we disagree thea--i just don't see the bad guys as communists on that cover. Yeah, you're probably right. More likely they're Albanian anarchists.

So, you've opened and can read the comic and you will contribute a review, right? I hope so! I'd love to read a Bangzoom review! Anyway, I'm home from work and downloading right now. (thumbs u

Sweet! Never read a Clock story! Jeff

That is stunning! Look at those reds!

I love it! This is one of the issues we reviewed in the Dead Artists thread. We should start that up again sometime - I enjoyed it.

Cool! I've been waiting to see your Flash Gordon pulp! That one is definately on my want list. Interesting thing about that issue is that the publisher apparently did not have authorization from King Features to use theeir characters - it's basically a bootleg.

Thie Whiz IS nice, but I really dig the Jumbo! Richard you have an amazing collection! Jeff

You should have come by my VCC booth. Jeff

All this talk of Buck Rogers made me pull down my copy of 1969 hardcover The Collected Works of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century to get another look at that kooky and corky Calkins art. The scans aren't great because the book is oversized (Gerber guide size but thicker). Here are some early examples: IN order, we have first Wilma getting into trouble (again), getting captured by the Tiger Men in 1930. Second is a 1929 depiction of a television (as we talked about that in another thread) and some bizarre navajo armed forces. Finally, circa early 1931, we have Wilma putting off Buck. Pish! Pish! Enjoy. (Sorry for the stretch) The "Collected Works" is a must have for any Buck Rogers fan! Great stuff. Calkins is obviously not a great artist by any stretch; awkward anatomy, lack of proportion, etc. but somehow it works for this strip, which hovers between serious and campy anyway. Rick Yaeger, who did the Sundays, was a much better artist technically, but somehow his work just isn't as much fun. Gotta love the Tigermen with the little soul patch goatee and all the Dr. Suess-like contraptions! Nowlan and Calkins were breaking new ground with this strip - when they started it in January 1929, no one else was doing a non-funny adventure strip. Even Foster's Tarzan dailies, which started at the same time, were less a true strip than a series of captioned illustrations (and that was very intentional). It helped show that the medium could successfully carry genres other than cartoony sit-coms like Bringing up Father, Blondie, etc. and paved the way for Tracy, Terry and the Pirates, the Phantom, and yes, even Superman. Jeff

Exactly - it's a text story by Nowlan retelling Buck's origin, with new color illustrations by Calkins:

Wow, no kidding! Do you think it was a legitmate mistake or was he trying to pull a fast one? It's a tough mistake to make. BTW here's the bc on this one:

This was waiting for me when I got home today. I must have upgraded (or attempted to upgrade) this book a half a dozen times, but I think now I'm finally satisfied. Jeff

Amazing collection of Tecs! My favorite has to be 122 though. I love this cover with Catwoman kicking Robin's ! Jeff

Wow, that Power Nelson story is great! 1982 - I love it! Early sci-fi rules!

The water's probably cold.

Wow that is cool!

Crackajack Funnies # 5. Sneaky (thumbs u Arrgh! I knew this one! Congrats again, Scrooge! Jeff

Ha! Yeah, I would say BZ gives a new meaning to the term BSD!

nice indeed scrooge. remember the doublemint gum commerical from way back? here are "three runs, three runs, three runs in one!" just closed two of them in c'town; literally from A to Z. Cool runs! You are definately a man with eclectic tastes. (thumbs u

Nice! Senorita Rio....

Awesome, Bill! What a nice looking copy, too! I tried bidding on one a couple of weeks ago on ebay, but I got blown away. Soon or later I'll have to get one, too. Jeff