Number 801

Continuing Wash Tubbs and Captain Easy...

We're showing Wash Tubbs Dell Four Color #53, from 1944, reprinting 1939 and 1940 comic strips. This is part 2 of our story...if you haven't done so yet, go back to Wednesday's posting to start from the beginning.

During the 1980s there was a resurgence of interest in cartoonist Roy Crane. NBM published 18 volumes of his collected dailies and Sundays, and Dragon Lady Press out of Toronto did some really fine-looking compilations in several saddle-stitched magazines. There was interest because it was recognized, even 50 or 60 years after the original Crane Wash Tubbs and Captain Easy strips had appeared, that these were great stories, told by a master. Thanks to the people who put their money where their mouths were, Crane's classic work was introduced to a new generation.

In the heyday of the comic strips people bought a newspaper every day so they wouldn't miss an episode of their favorite continuity strip. Roy Crane was one of the forefathers of modern comic books. He started that move toward adventure comic strips, which in turn were reprinted in comic books, and when that supply ran short spawned an industry doing original stories using original characters.

D2-035 Derelict of the Skorpi War

Writer: Harvey Kurtzman
Art: Dan Barry

Summary: Travelling back to Earth from Venus (see D2-034 Space Construction Corps), Flash and Dale discover a damaged battleship drifting in space. Soon pair soon must bail out in a rescue capsule as their ship is shot to pieces by robot defences on the drifting vessel.

Boarding the massive battleship, Flash and Dale assume that they are completely alone in what proves to be a centuries-old floating coffin, but it is not long before a strange voice can be heard and a young girl rises from the grave...

(Source of summary: www.ipcomics.net)

Download  D2-035 Derelict of the Skorpi War


It's from Emile's e-collection. All credits go to her & "Allen Lane" who scanned and first shared at net.

What Century Is That?

I don't ordinarily highlight simple and obvious mistakes, but this one is rather amusing and unusual. Consider the cover of Jimmy Olsen #31:

Okay, so Jimmy's going to wake up in the year 2058, or about midway through the 21st century, right? Err, no, not according to the splash page:

Okay, so he's going to sleep for five hundred years and wake up in the 25th century or presumably somewhere around 2458. Got that? Nope, not according to the story itself:

D2-034 Disaster at Bigtree

Writer: Harvey Kurtzman
Art: Dan Barry

Summary: Leaving Marsair for Marsport (see D2033 Colony on Mars) Flash receives reports about a massive earthquake on Venus and agrees to join the rescue effort by piloting an emergency relief ship to the planet.

Shortly after takeoff, a stowaway in the form of TV presenter Andy Pace emerges from his hiding place to declare his intention to film the devastation and relief work for his viewers’ benefit - the first sign of big complications ahead...

(Source of summary: www.ipcomics.net)

Download D2-034 Disaster at Bigtree

It's from Emile's e-collection. All credits go to her & "Allen Lane" who scanned and first shared at net.

D2-033 Colony on Mars

Coming soon
First Hindi Asterix:  Estriks Olampik me 

****************************************************

Writer: Harvey Kurtzman
Art: Dan Barry

Summary: Wrapping up the hostage situation on the solar satellite (check D2-032 Solar Mirror) Flash picks up an urgent Mayday from a Mars-bound relief ship and hurries to intercept before the ship’s pilot perishes.

Piloting the ship to Mars, Flash finds himself mediating between the inhabitants of a Marsair colony in desperate need of water and a local landowner with access to water in his wells but determined not to let anybody trespass to retrieve it - with feelings running higher by the minute...

(Source of summary: www.ipcomics.net)

Download 

It's from Emile's e-collection. All credits go to her & "Allen Lane" who scanned and first shared at net.

Trivia Quiz #40: Answers

1. Who taught Roy Harper how to use a bow and arrow?
Brave Bow, an Indian chief, taught Roy Harper how to be an archer:


2. Name the three major differences between the Silver Age Mr Mxyzptlk and his Golden Age counterpart.
There are more than three major differences: the spelling of his name (the GA version was named Mxyztplk), the costume, the GA version had a different look and hairstyle, the GA version only vanished for a month when forced to pronounce or spell his name backwards, while the Silver Age vanished for ninety days, and the GA version had a job as a court jester.

3. What souvenir did Batman bring back with him from the planet Zur-En-Arrh?

Batman brought back the Bat-radia:


4. Who was Barry Allen's childhood sweetheart?
Daphne Dean, as I discussed last year.

5. What famous actor was Hal Jordan's appearance patterned after?
Hal Jordan was intended to look like Paul Newman, as Julius Schwartz revealed in the letters page of Green Lantern #3.

Kudos to Scott Nesmith, who aced the test and to Ed, who got #1, #2 and #5 and was on the right track with #3.

Number 800

Wash Tubbs and Roy Crane

Cartoonist Roy Crane created the comic strip, Wash Tubbs, in 1924. Within a short period he transformed it into one of the very first continuity comic strips. Crane added Captain Easy to the cast in 1929 and the strip became a true classic.

Crane never worked for comic books, although his work was pasted up for several issues of Dell's Four Color series. This particular issue is #53, published in 1944, which reprinted Wash Tubbs strips from 1939 and '40. In this pre-War sequence Wash and Easy travel to a tropical island for the "secret of beauty." They find beauty, and they find the secret, and a few villains and fistfights along the way.

This is part 1; come back Friday for part 2.

Continued Friday...