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)

I'll Have This Solved In 24 Hours----

 It's time for Sunday Morn...

Oops.

Kind of got distracted and skipped a day along the way. You got today's post yesterday, so now it's time for Monday Morning Funnies with Fred!

Fred Schwab, that is. Fred passed with the 20th century, but was there for the dawn of comics. He was there for the beginnings of the Big Two comic publishers, his work appearing in both Detective Comics #1 and Marvel Comics #1, not to mention working with Eisner-Iger Studios. His gag cartoons appeared in glossy magazines of the time as well.

Today, however, we're sticking with some of his work for Fox from the first years of Mystery Men Comics. We were already looking at the rather deranged adventures of Hemlock Shomes and Dr. Potsam - let us carry on...

Schwab had another sleuth appearing in the early issues of Mystery Men Comics to whom i alluded a couple of days ago. Meet Billy Bounce, The Kid Detective -

(Is it just me, or did that trail of spinach lead to a slightly better dressed Wimpy?)

You may have noticed that Fred, like many others of the time, worked under a variety of names. By the late '40s, Schwab quit comics for a real job with The New York Times and stayed there for the next 30+ years until he retired.

But he left us of lots of comics to enjoy during the decade he spent creating them.

page art by Fred Schwab from Mystery Men Comics #s 3-7, 10, 14, & 15 (1939, 1940)

Any Similarity...To Any Persons, Living Or Dead, Is A Darn Shame - Honest It Is!!

Those reading in the now are likely aware that i've been digging through the past of this blog, picking up some dangling threads left hanging along the way. I got lost in a mass of the bits you don't see - things that were pulled for planned posts but have yet to make it across the digital divide to appear here.

I dug in so deep, in fact, that i lost track and completely neglected to work on actual postings. And here we are, already nearly 6 hours past the typical posting time and my brain is scattered across a dozen topics. I'm not going to try to reel it in and write about today's comics lest i lose the work in progress on upcoming posts. Let's just say that Fred Schwab still has yet to even appear in the blog, so here's a quick correction with more pending.

From 80 years ago in 1939, here are 3 of the first 4 episodes of Hemlock Shomes and Dr. Potsam. (The first i only have in microfiche. Perhaps we'll try to clean it up for a later post)

I expect Billy will Bounce in to join them tomorrow for some Sunday Morning Funnies.

page art by Fred Schwab for Mystery Men Comics #s 3-5 (1939)