Number 1274: Babes, BEMs, and butt-kickin' heroes

After presenting Captain Tootsie yesterday I have a hankering for more of that old time science fiction. You know, the “crazy Buck Rogers stuff,” with rocketships, bug-eyed monsters and beautiful women. Oh yeah, mustn't forget the squarejawed, two-fisted hero.

We're having a theme week this week, “silly science stories,” of which this is the second of four.

These two stories are from consecutive issues of Captain Flight Comics. Rock Raymond, who looks like he just stepped out of the barber's chair (still wearing the cape around his shoulders), is from issue #10 (1945), and Red Rocket, who lives in year 2046, where people wear the same civilian clothes as they were wearing a hundred years earlier, is from issue #11. (1946).

Thing in the Graveyard / Third Grave on the Right...

Time again to journey out into the pre-code comics graveyard and see what we can dig up-- and how about a couple buried tales from two of the more interesting artists in the classic Atlas bullpen-- Jack Keller and Al Eadeh. First story from the October 1952 issue of Journey into Unknown Worlds #13, and our second yarn from the July 1954 issue of Journey into Unknown Worlds #29.

Vintage AD

Number 1273: Captain Tootsie and the interplanetary joyride

This will be the first of four postings this week that, for lack of a better term, I'm calling “silly science.” That would be stories that use science fiction themes, rocket ships, aliens and in one case, time travel, but share a certain screwiness in the plots. First up, Captain Tootsie, who stepped out of a series of popular candy ads and into two issues of his own comic in 1950.

Captain Tootsie full-page comic strip ads appeared in the forties and fifties, well drawn by the C. C. Beck studio, which also did artwork for Captain Marvel comics. Tootsie Rolls, in those days touted as giving a kid energy (think sugar high), are still being sold.*

I've chosen three examples of the actual ads, with art credits.

C. C. Beck

C. C. Beck and Peter Costanza:

Bill Schreiber:

Two issues of Captain Tootsie were published by Toby Press in 1950, neither of which mentioned Tootsie Rolls. I'd have thought a story of Captain Tootsie taking his Secret Legion kids** on a rocket ride to Venus would have been ripe for product placement. The kids stowed away in the rocket, which Captain Tootsie had volunteered to fly 200 miles in space, orbit for a couple of days and then come home, (“What is there to eat, Captain Tootsie?” ”Why, I just happen to have brought along a whole case of delicious Tootsie Rolls, boys!”)

Captain Tootsie, apparently forgetting his mission, ended up being gone a lot more than a couple of days. If Dr. Wertham had examined this comic book he might have concluded it was a lesson in taking someone else's property, like a car, then bringing it back after joyriding for several days. 

Go to Sherm Cohen's Cartoon Snap! blog for Captain Tootsie #2

*I haven't eaten a Tootsie Roll in years. Not that I wouldn't like to — I still recall the taste and texture — but the last one I ate pulled a filling out of a tooth. Tootsie Rolls are yet another product that brought me pleasure as a child that I have had to give up as an adult.

**And what was it with comics about grown men spending their time hanging around with young boys?