Stupor, Snooper, or Blooper?

Today we've got a semi-random sampling of old comics with little connective tissue. They're all comedy strips and they offer up the choices titling this post - StuporMan, the Snooper Man, and BlooperMan.  The first two come from the '40s, and the last one comes from the '60s; twice. They all just jumped out as i was passing while thinking about another, harder to write, post.

Nonsense is always easier. Just ask our government.

From the first issue of Joker Comics, by Douglas Grant and Harry Ramsey, we've got StuporMan -

Twas only single digit minutes later when i bumbed into Soapy Sam, the Snooper Man - close enough for the rhyme to ring...
 

And not 15 minutes after that, BlooperMan got in on the act - and so a post was born. We've actually seen Blooperman before, on the cover of Go-Go Comics, back when we were looking at Bunny Luv, i think. Or maybe while visiting Grass Green's work on Superella. Either way, now we can finally see who that guy on the cover was, with Jon D'Agostino drawing the strip...

Some days are sillier than others.

page art by Douglas Grant & Harry Ramsey, ???, and Jon D'Agostino from Joker Comics #1, Terry And The Pirates #4, and Go-Go Comics #s 3 & 4 (1942, 1947, 1966)

The Yankee Wasn't From Conecticut (or Can't Get Enough Dick (your choice))

Before we dig in to today's Dick Briefer brief, let's make a quick stop at the first page of the first issue (#3, because - comics!) of Boy Comics, from whence today's tales originated. And bring back a logo we haven't seen since the early days of this blog...

We'll not be looking closer at this guy...

(Obviously the victim of steroid shrinkage)

...because who knows what we might see!

But, also - it shows one of the big problems for today's feature. The early issues of Boy Comics are scarce. So much so that i've only ever seen microfiche copies of most of them. Out of his first dozen appearances, i only have 4 paper copies.

So, naturally, those will be the ones we look at today. 

Yankee Longago - The Boy Of To-Day In The Land Of Yesterday, like another Yankee recorded by Sam Clemens and popularized by Bing Crosby, isn't so tightly bound by time as most folks. In his first adventure, instead of leaping back to King Arthur's court, he found himself in the lands of King Cole (who was NOT a merry old soul). He quickly established himself as someone worthy of note by putting out Bad Bimbo's eye with a rubber band & paper clip. Shortly after, he was cranking out bicycles, parachutes, and weapons of war to bring about change in the land before returning home.

However, on his second 'trip in time' he did find his way to Arthur's time - back before Arthur was King. After helping him to pull the sword from the stone, Yankee winds up facing off against an evil Merlin before returning to his own time.

And now we come to his 3rd tale, the first i have on paper. So let's join with Yankee as he meets Al - the Alchemist (and a couple more famous characters)...

A couple issues later, Yankee was meeting up with Napoleon...
 

Having previously corrected "Chris" that he was seeing Brooklyn, not India, Yankee's travels brought him closer to home...
 

Our final tale today brings Ponce De Leon to meet Longago at the Fountain...
 

Between 1942 and 1946, Dick Briefer did about two dozen of Yankee's adventures.
I'll see how many more i can dig up on paper.

page art by Dick Briefer from Boy Comics #s 5, 7, 12, & 14 (1942, 1943, 1944)

Mixing It Up With Tom

As noted in our postings on Jane and Snood, Tom Mix's gang on the TM Bar Ranch were known as the Straight Shooters. They used that phrase frequently, and applied it to others beyond themselves. So, in every issue of Tom Mix Comics there was a Straight-Shooters! page featuring a real-world figure in a biographical profile, starting with Tom Mix himself -

The feature went on to spotlight the kind of notable western history figures one might expect...

(Movies LIED to me about how Kit Carson looked, apparently)

Another way they used the Straight Shooters hook was to bring in the readers themselves...

They featured several spreads with the names of kids who joined the Straight Shooters Honor Role,<sic> building their fan base with readers and radio show listeners like the Supermen Of America, who might be more familiar to modern readers. 

But, as we've seen with Jane and Snood, the war came to the TM Bar Ranch and the book changed from Tom Mix Comics to Tom Mix Commandos. With that shift, the feature changed from Straight-Shooters! to Commandos And Their Weapons -

There was another change beyond just the war, but i can't quite put my finger on it. Maybe you can spot the oddness not related to WW2...

Wash was another member of the Straight Shooters, as you may have noted in the pic we use when talking about them -

Being an actual person helped Wash to avoid being drawn in the heavily caricatured style typical of the times, but didn't save him from the step'n'fetchit dialectics. He was saddled with them in the radio show, too, so there was no sparing him here.

page art by Fred Meagher from Tom Mix Comics #s 1-9 and Tom Mix Commandos #s 10-12 (1940, 1942)