Well, there were no puzzles or quizzes in yesterday's Friday Fun & Games, so why the Saturday Solutions?
There are still puzzling ponderables and quizzical questions raised. Like -
Where did Supersnipe come from?
He was quite popular, the first character to regularly get long form stories, often doubling the page count of other comic stars. What happend? Where did he go?
Let's look at the inside front cover from the second issue of Supersnipe, #7:
Before you ask, yes - De Grouchy is a real name (with a prestigious lineage), not a fictional character.
So, Supersnipe was birthed entirely from the mind of George Marcoux., who saw his opportunity and ran with it. But, wait - what? There were other appearances of Supersnipe before the Army & Navy Comics story we saw?
Yep. In Shadow Comics, volume 2, #s 3...
...#4...
...#5...
...and in #6, we find out that last blurb was a lie. We got this advert instead:
It's worth noting again that the superhero comic was still in the very formative stages - Superman & Batman had premiered only a handful of years previously - and Marcoux was already poking fun at the newly budding tropes of the barely formed genre. George was an established cartoonist with a career before comic books were a thing. That may have helped to give him a 'lofty perspective' from which to observe and note these things.
Or it could just be part & parcel of that delightfully twisted sense of humor he displayed.
So, what happened? Where did Supersnipe go?
The answer to that is a sad one. George Marcoux died only a few years later in 1946. The book carried on for a little while without him - and i haven't read that far yet, so i cannot comment - but i suspect that Supersnipe was too personal in essence to continue without his creator.
I'm slowing my reading to savor what remains.
There are still puzzling ponderables and quizzical questions raised. Like -
Where did Supersnipe come from?
He was quite popular, the first character to regularly get long form stories, often doubling the page count of other comic stars. What happend? Where did he go?
Let's look at the inside front cover from the second issue of Supersnipe, #7:
Before you ask, yes - De Grouchy is a real name (with a prestigious lineage), not a fictional character.
So, Supersnipe was birthed entirely from the mind of George Marcoux., who saw his opportunity and ran with it. But, wait - what? There were other appearances of Supersnipe before the Army & Navy Comics story we saw?
Yep. In Shadow Comics, volume 2, #s 3...
...#4...
...#5...
...and in #6, we find out that last blurb was a lie. We got this advert instead:
It's worth noting again that the superhero comic was still in the very formative stages - Superman & Batman had premiered only a handful of years previously - and Marcoux was already poking fun at the newly budding tropes of the barely formed genre. George was an established cartoonist with a career before comic books were a thing. That may have helped to give him a 'lofty perspective' from which to observe and note these things.
Or it could just be part & parcel of that delightfully twisted sense of humor he displayed.
So, what happened? Where did Supersnipe go?
The answer to that is a sad one. George Marcoux died only a few years later in 1946. The book carried on for a little while without him - and i haven't read that far yet, so i cannot comment - but i suspect that Supersnipe was too personal in essence to continue without his creator.
I'm slowing my reading to savor what remains.
pages from Street & Smith's Shadow Comics, v.2 #s 3, 4, 5, & 6 and Supersnipe #7 (1942)
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