Number 1480: Thanksgiving Turkey Award 2013 featuring Shock Gibson

It is time again for our annual award, the Thanksgiving Turkey Award, which is given to the comic book story I think is the most oddball, stupid or awful (or some combination) that I have encountered in the past year. The judgment of what wins the award rests solely on me. You don’t get a say in the matter, so if you don’t agree with me you can tell me, but my decisions are final.

The 2013 Turkey Award story was a clear winner, which I picked out of Speed Comics #8 (1940) this past January. I figured I wouldn’t find a more worthy candidate for the honor of accumulating gobblers than this story of Shock Gibson’s trip to Africa to end the slave trade, wrestle a gorilla, fight a knight from a lost city, build a pyramid single-handed, rescue the sexy queenֹ’s son from some other knights, and reject the queen’s marriage proposal. (We are not told what happened to the former king, the prince’s father.)

The Grand Comics Database gives credit to writers Maurice Rosenfeld and Bill Scott as “Maurice Scott,” (it took two guys to write this?) and art credit to Norman Fallon ?, with that question mark meaning they aren’t sure. Whoever is to blame, it earns a solid three-and-a-half turkeys out of a possible four.

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From latest to earliest, the former Thanksgiving Turkey Awards winners. Just click on the thumbnails:

2012: “Yarmak’s yakety-yak”:

2011: “Andy’s Atomic Adventure”:

2010: “Satanas”:

2009: “The Million Year Monster”:

2008: “The Bride of Jungle Jimmy”:

2007: “The Beyonders”:

2006: “The Flat Man”:

Number 1328: “A whirlwind of flying fists and smoking guns!!”

Black Cat is really Linda Turner, Hollywood movie star, who has nothing to do when not filming but go around in costume fighting bad guys. As a member of the “Evacuation Corps,” Linda goes on a short mission to buy a ranch to keep children safe in case the war comes to California. Naturally, the owner refuses (it isn’t as if Linda asked him; it was more of a demand), and that lack of patriotism gets Black Cat involved. Although Linda tosses in a gratuitous personal insult and seems high-handed in her treatment of the ranch owner, it turns out the guy is in a with a ring of saboteurs. So, owing to the temper of the times, he deserves to get his butt kicked all the way to Berlin. The story, drawn by Arthur (Arturo) Cazeneuve, is from Harvey’s Speed Comics #22 (1942).

This is our last day of Pappy's “War is hell on the homefront” week. All of our stories this week have been from comic books published in 1942, and the subject is the war against saboteurs fought on American soil. I want to continue this theme in the future.

Number 1261: “. . . with the speed of protons — America's protector!”

As I promised yesterday, here is a later, better drawn version of Shock Gibson than the crudely done origin from Speed Comics #1.

Bob Fujitani was always one of the slicker illustrators in comics, and worked on a variety of features for several companies. He worked in comics virtually his whole career.

In this story, from Speed Comics #41, published by Harvey Comics in late 1945 with a cover date of January, 1946, World War II still raged several months after it ended in the real world. That was the problem of comics drawn well in advance of their on-sale dates, and even affected some newspaper comic strips, which were drawn many weeks or even months before their publication. The Japanese are still undefeated and still treacherous, even co-opting the Hindu god, “Vishnu,” for their nefarious ends. Just another culture crime by comic book publishers, for whom religious deities not common in the United States were often portrayed in some insulting fashion.

 Vishnu

My apologies to those who may be offended.

In the story Shock Gibson's name is not Charles Gibson, as in the origin story, but Robert Gibson. He has dropped the odd-looking helmet and put on a mask. I don't know why someone didn't put together that Shock Gibson and Corporal Bob Gibson were the same person.

I've also included the Heritage Auction scans of the original art for “The God of Steel.”