Thursday, March 28, 2013

SPIRIT "League of Liars"

Of all comic strip/book detectives, none was as complex as The Spirit...
...even when creator/writer/illustrator Will Eisner wasn't the man behind the story, as in this case, where future Oscar, Obie, Pulitzer, and Writers' Guild award winner Jules Feiffer scripted and laid out the tale...
The Spirit was unique among comic heroes since he had not only his own feature in an anthology comic (Police Comics), his own monthly/bi-monthly comic book (from Quality, and later Fiction House), and a weekly comic book (distributed with Sunday newspapers throughout the country) from 1940 to 1952!
The newspaper weekly comic contained new stories which were then reprinted in the other comic books.
It also didn't have slick covers, using the same newsprint stock as the inside of the booklet, making them extremely fragile and hard to find in good condition today despite having a circulation of several million (you read that right) per issue!
This particular story initially appeared in November 25, 1951 newspapers before being reprinted in Fiction House's Spirit #3 (1952), where this version is taken from.
Written and laid-out by Feiffer (who started as an art assistant in Eisner's studio), the penciling and inking was done by Jim Dixon with Eisner himself editing, art directing, and occasionally retouching to keep characters "on-model".

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

SPACE DETECTIVE ""Metal Murderers of Mars"

Art by Joe Orlando & Wally Wood
Note: this was at our "brother" blog, Atomic Kommie Comics™, so faithful readers of this blog haven't missed anything!
Now, on with Part 2...
The story concludes tomorrow back at  
Atomic Kommie Comics
Nobody's been able to identify the writer or artist(s) of this middle of a kool 3-part tale from Avon's Space Detective #2 (1951).
Personally, I see elements of Wally Wood, Joe Orlando, and Joe Kubert in the art, but nothing definitive.

Friday, March 8, 2013

Tell a Tale of Terror TWICE! #2 THIS IS SUSPENSE "Short Step to Oblivion"

We saw this tale of terror and justice uncut in Part 1...

...at our "brother" blog Seduction of the Innocent™!
Now let's see how it looked after the Comics Code Authority took their censoring scissors to the reprinted version...
The knife, seen in panels 5-7 on the original page HERE, is now missing!
The knife in panels 3 and 5 HERE is missing in the reprint page!
Despite being removed from the previous pages, the knife is shown to be the murder weapon!
But how did the knife get there if it was deleted from the earlier pages?
Ruth's word balloon in the last panel is rewritten to eliminate reference to the knife shown HERE on the original page!
Why is Ruth screaming? It's not like there's a dead body, like there was in the original page HERE!
Why did the villain fall to his death?
Maybe it's the fact that Holiday shot him in the original version of the first panel HERE!
This Comics Code Authority-eviscerated reprint appeared in Charlton's This is Suspense # 24 (1955).
The writer is unknown and the illustrator is George Evans.
A comic with no more violence or blood than a TV cop show of the period is gutted by the CCA to Protect the Morals of the Youth of America.
Take a good look at your parents.
Did it work?