Comics For Hermits

These days the whole world seems to be contemplating the hermit lifestyle. 

There are two types of 'successful' hermits. There's my way - Happy Loner - and there's the alternative - Bitter Recluse. You see, in order to spend all that time alone with yourself, one must either really like yourself (the Happy Loner) or really dislike everyone else (the Bitter Recluse). Well, we've seen how this world runs on bile and hate these days - most folks could never make it as Happy Loner Hermits.

So, to help out with that rough adjustment period, let us visit 1937 for a spot of Dick Ryan's look at humans in Missing Links -

Feel more like avoiding people now?

page art by Dick Ryan from Funny Pages #s 13, 15, & 16 (1937)

Steele Sidetrips And Dizzy Distractions

So... I was on my way to meet up with Steelgrip Starkey when i got distracted by Skyrocket Steele. You might not know either of those guys, but i suspect most of you know Bill Everett, the creator of Sub-Mariner (among others).

His Skyrocket Steele first appeared on the cover of Amazing Mystery Funnies #1...

Oddly enough, despite the cover he did not appear inside. It was in the next issue that he made his debut...

The tale continued in issue #3...

...and then it gets tricky. I thought i had the next part in issue #4. Nope. There were two #3s! 
Silly me, i thought there was only One.

So, i'm off on a hunt now. And not just for the other 3, but also for the debut chapter for this guy -

Whether i can find one better than my crappy copy or not, we'll be meeting up with Tippy Taylor soon. I assure you it beats the hells out of the new Fantasy Island.

While i'm hunting, here's a slightly deranged little strip to enjoy, Adam The Atom-Smasher...

As far as i know, that's just what he did and we never saw him again.

But we'll be back to see more of those other guys.

page art by Bill Everett, Grieg Chapian, and Fred Schwab for Amazing Mystery Funnies #s 2, 3, & 17-19 (1937, 1938, 1940)

Brief Oddities

We've got an extra post with a smattering of oddities, as mentioned above, and no real theme beyond having accumulated in the blog files. And, y'know... being Odd.

Here's a beautiful and mysterious first page from Omandu -

You may perhaps wonder where the figure absent from the white space in the middle has gone?

He escaped to the cover -

I admire an artist who is wholly committed to the work over the modern obsession for Branding. In fact, the only way to know that this is the cover for The Little Book Of Inner Space #1 is from the indicia box, hand written at the bottom of the first page -

Sadly, this seems almost completely forgotten today. The Grand Comics Database has almost no info, only the front cover.
Every time i put together a list of titles to update in their database, i lose it.
Somebody remind me after a bit and see if i've entered the particulars on this comic.

Elsewhere in Time and California...

What's this crowd waiting for...?

...the chance to party with Mary Fleener! 
Why me not there?

For a purely odd sidestep in time and space, yet somehow reminiscent of now, here's a one-pager from Look Magazine's second issue, just over 80 years ago...

And buried way down here is the single page comic that started this post going. A simple piece in every way, that works so nicely from the team of Ross Andru and Mike Esposito...

Omandu say bye-bye -

pages from The Little Book Of Inner Space #1, Life Of The Party, Look v.1#2, and Get Lost #3 (1937, 1954, 1972, 1996)

Jack Of If

It's been a goodly while since we ran any Un-Comics. Long enough that i feel the need to explain them once again.

Un-Comics is what we call comics that didn't appear in typical comics. Sometimes that means special promotional comics. Other times, like today, it means comics that came from magazines that featured text stories. They might come from books or other places. 
Today, they come from the '30s & '40s editions of Thrilling Wonder Stories.

One thing that often tweaks my attention is things that force a little perception shift. Most are likely familiar with at least the Otto half of EandO Binder - one of the great Old Men of the industry and a leading voice of Science Fiction in the comics back in the day.

But, did you know that Earl and Otto had a big brother who led the way? (Okay, if you know the name Eando, you probably did) It skews my brain a bit thinking of back when a venerable old man of the industry was the punk kid brother breaking in.

Jack Binder both wrote and drew a science fiction strip for the magazine for a few years called IF. In later decades it likely would have been What If-?, but i guess we were saving that name. 

These were short pieces, only one or two pages each, so here are a dozen and a half of them for you to check out the series -

There was at least one other Un-Comic from Thrilling Wonder Stories, and a bunch of interesting connections to comics yet to come.

We'll definitely be back to look deeper into the magazine.

page art by Jack Binder for Thrilling Wonder Stories (see file names for individual months) (1937-1940)