Sunday Supersnipe (sans Supersnipe)

For our Sunday Morning Funnies this week, let's revisit Supersnipe. The comic, not the hero, this time. We spoke previously of some of the back-up features and promised to come back to them later. I checked the calendar - it's later.

All three of our strips today come from issues for which we've already seen the covers, so they're presented here in smaller size, just for reference:

So, first up, let's visit with Dotty.
As we've seen on previous covers, "Dotty Loves Trouble". In later issues, they added a dog named Trouble, perhaps to soften the character a bit. Here in her first appearance, there's no dog named Trouble - she's just fond of the concept. While Koppy McFad is "the boy with the most comic books in America," Dotty "gets into more trouble than any other little girl in America." An interesting counterbalance they attempted here, before the cultural assumption became "comics are for boys" in this country. Like Supersnipe, Dotty was also drawn by George Marcoux.

Dotty for the win. As speculated above, they may have added the dog so she didn't come across as a completely wicked child.
And speaking of "wicked children" - it's well past time to take that promised look at Huck Finn & Tom Sawyer and their Robot Duck!, don't you think? We'll skip to their second episode, because that's when they find it. The first episode had them find a haunted house and have a first encounter, setting things up for the strip to really get going...

But we won't be following along on their adventures. Unlike the Wing Woo Woo strip we peeked at previously, which seemed to be trying to be a positive character portrayal, in a fumbling way, Dwig has no such intentions. In the following episode we get one page...

...and then they go to the jungle. Even the sea monsters...

So, anyway - now that we've had our cultural sensibilities jarred, how about screwing with how perceptions of people over time. Today, one can't hear the name Lou Gehrig without the word 'Disease' following right behind. Once upon a time...

Here, his death was merely a too soon end to a stellar career. Now, his death defines him. A little reminder of how perception of people (and things, and ideas) shift over time.

Hmm.
That wasn't very Sunday Morning Funnies-y, was it?

pages from Supersnipe v.2, #s 2, 3, 7, & 9 (1944)

I Know Of No Reason...

Tomorrow is the 5th of November.

As a Public Service, to help minimize national embarrassment, please take note:

This is NOT a Guy FOX mask!

 Carry On.

More Than Mere Solutions (SS016)

Welcome back to our visit with Professor Quiz.

Last time, we touched briefly on the Professor's significance to radio & tv history. Though virtually unknown today, he was quite the celebrity in his time. You can see him here in this lobby card from the Three Stooges' movie Start Cheering...

...and even Superman was known to make reference to him:

The man was definitely a pop culture feature.

I told you yesterday how the questions for the show came from the listening audience. But that was only half of his genius for establishing himself as Professor Quiz. You see, he didn't ask the questions - he answered them. The players won their money if he failed to answer correctly. 
Here's a full breakdown on his show for you, courtesy of On The Air: The Encyclopedia Of Old Time Radio-

Another brilliant bit of radio with that payout in silver coins clinking by the microphone.
But more than being the artful master of quizzes, he was indeed a puzzle himself. Remember yesterday it was pointed out that he was only known as Professor Quiz when he began? Take a look at this old game card:

Note the elderly professor in the drawing above, bearing no resemblance to the photographs we've seen. His true identity was a carefully guarded secret in the early days. Those photos didn't start appearing until after Radio Daily outed the professor as actually being Dr. Craig Earle. After the secret was revealed, he started becoming more of a public figure in other media.

So, it probably should not have come as a great surprise to him when it was finally discovered that, too, was a masquerade. Dr. Craig Earle was another fictitious identity, hiding Arthur Earl Baird - a young man from Medford, Massachusetts, who had disappeared in 1935. It's much easier, you see, to avoid paying alimony and child support when you don't exist.

By the time this was discovered in 1942, Baird/Earle had remarried and had a new child. One can only speculate on the public reaction at this point, but he was ordered by the court to pay some $25,000 in back alimony and his show went off the air for a few years. Whether there was any relationship between those two events, you may determine for yourselves.

When he returned to the air, he was joined by his family, with Betty appearing as Mrs. Quiz and Professor Quiz Jr. In all, Professor Quiz produced 630 episodes the course of a dozen years. After the show ceased production, he eventually had his name legally changed to Craig Earle. He died 3 weeks shy of his 90th birthday in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, on 13 August, 1985.
If anyone can dig up more of this odd little tale, please do let us know!

Oh...
You probably want the answers to the quizzes, too, huh?
Here ya go:

quizzes from Miss America Magazine, v5 #s 1-3 (1936)

The Professor Of Quizdom

I've made mention that my so-called Comic Archeology digs actually mine all old publications with an emphasis on any with illustrations. Beyond the Un-Comics that are found that way, there are also comics who got their start in non-comic publications. One in particular is a featured character on the Netflix Marvel shows. Patsy Walker got her start in Miss America magazine, which was eventually supplanted by a comic book with the same title 3 issues into volume 7. Oddly for comics of the time, the actually started renumbering from 1 instead of continuing from 4. My guess would be that they were changing postal categories so they couldn't take advantage of the usual regulations loophole.

Today, however, we're going to talk about someone else. He only appeared in Miss America for 12 issues 80 years ago, in 1936 and '37. He only received a single column in each month's magazine, but he was quite the celebrity in his day. He was-

Professor Quiz!

Who was Professor Quiz? Well, that was quite the mystery in the beginning. He was the man who created and popularized the radio quiz game show, and grandfather of their tv show descendants. And the public had no clue  to whom the voice on the radio belonged, beyond the name Professor Quiz.
It wasn't until he'd been on the air for a year that Radio Daily finally broke the news that he was actually Dr. Craig Earl. And the world believed that to be true for the next five years...

So why are we talking about the man who brought us the quiz show?

It must be our regular ceremonial whimp-out of Friday Night Fights with our own-

Professor Quiz had quite the clever gimmick working for him, too. Instead of having to create all the questions himself, he solicited them from the radio audience. Not only did this provide his quiz database, but also fostered a sense of participation at home. The terrific success of his show led to the above Radio Stars cover in 1938, and the following special tribute inside:

Here's an easier to read look at the text above:

The Professor will be our Master Of Puzzles today, as you might already have guessed. These quizzes were usually topical to the month of publication, so we've got both a November and December quizzes here, and another bit less topical to round it out to three:

Yep - he changed to a bigger network there. Remember that these questions were asked in the late 1930s, and adjust your answers according as needed. (Though obvious modern answers will be accepted as no prizes are issued. (No, that's not how GG spelled it.))
 
Return tomorrow for the answers, and to see how the Professor's story take a hard turn into Odd country.

Professor Quiz tribute from Radio Stars v.13 #11 (1938)

This Old Man Rambles On

If there can be said to have been a modern "Golden Age" of comics, it would have to have been the 1980s. While Miller and Moore and company were reshaping things at Marvel & DC, that's not at all related to my assertion. In fact, that's a half decade down the road yet.

I'm talking about the those glorious bright spots in the 80s expansion, before the 80s glut and the 80s collapse of the market. Printing tech had modernized and the new comics distribution network had developed to the point that it was suddenly feasible for small, independent publishers to make a fair go at putting out their own line. Independent vanguards like Dave Sim and Wendy and Richard Pini (WaRP) had proved it possible. A good number of people who truly loved comics decided it was their time, and they seized it with gusto. Many of my favorite comics of the time came from publishers like First, Pacific, Capital, Comico, Vortex, and -apropos to today's post - Eclipse. (I'm sure other excellent publishers from the time are being forgotten.)

After establishing their presence with a string of graphic novels, Eclipse launched their first ongoing title in 1981 with their eponymous anthology, Eclipse Magazine. Taking an obvious inspiration from Heavy Metal, their book pre-dated Marvel's similar Epic Magazine by a year. Though limited by black & white printing, they seemed unbounded in any other way. Talent was stellar - to kick off the premiere issue, they featured the above cover by Paul Gulacy, and stories by Steve Englehart & Marshall Rogers, Jim Starlin, Howard Cruse, P. Craig Russell (raw pencils!), Marc Hempel, Chris Browne & Trina Robbins, and Max Allan Collins & Terry Beatty with the premiere of their long running Ms. Tree.

As for freedom to break from the superhero lock on the market at the time, and to explore new formats and try new things, how about Jim Starlin's take on the children's nursery rhyme, This Old Man...

...and from there bounce lightly to Howard Cruse pontificating on Death...

...

...and Marc Hempel having meta fun (back before 'meta' was really a concept) with the nature of reality in a comic book...

It was a glorious time when the rules were tested & broken,  new things were tried constantly, and one never knew what might be lurking in each week's shipment of comics. A couple of years later, Eclipse Magazine would be replaced by Eclipse Monthly, in traditional comicbook format as a launch point for their expanding line. One of my personal favorites, which was actually kinda-sorta superhero-y, in a timey-whimey kind of way, followed not too long after that...

Fine Times...

page art by Jim Starlin, Howard Cruse, and Marc (sans Mark) Hempel from Eclipse Magazine #1 (1981)

Hunting Season

November is here, as noted earlier, and hunting season is in full swing sixty-one years ago. (I've mentioned my relationship with time is kind of loopy, right?)

To mark the season, we turn to Professor Tom Lehrer, a most noteworthy social educator. For the unfamiliar heathenry, other songs from our delightful maestro include The Masochism Tango and The Vatican Rag, classics & personal faves both, and many others.

The Dude brought in Jim Davis to illustrate their presentation of Prof. Lehrer's words and music for The Hunting Song:

The Hunting Song
by Prof. Tom Lehrer

I always will remember,
'Twas a year ago November,
I went out to hunt some deer
on a morning bright and clear.
I went and shot the maximum the game laws would allow -
Two game wardens, seven hunters, and a cow.

I was in no mood to trifle,
I took down my trusty rifle
and went out to stalk my prey.
What a haul I made that day!
I tied them to my fender and I drome them home somehow -
Two game wardens, seven hunters, and a cow.

The Law was very firm, it
took away my permit,
the worst punishment I ever endured.
It turned out the was a reason,
cows were out of season,
and one of the hunters wasn't insured.

People ask me how I do it,
and I say there's nothing to it.
You just stand there looking cute,
and when something moves, you shoot!
And there's ten stuffed heads in my trophy room right now -
Two game wardens, seven hunters, and a purebred Guernsey cow.

Jim Davis banner art was savaged in the presentation above, so here's the original page layout for your perusal:

We'll definitely have to come back to The Dude again. Not only did they pair Davis & Lehrer as we've seen here, but you might have noticed some names on the cover tucked up the corner there. Top of the list is D.H. Lawrence, who provided a social essay:

and hidden in the back unannounced was new fiction from Harlan Ellison:

Most certainly worth a return visit, don't you think?

the works from The Dude v.1 # 2 (1956)

When Is We?

Welcome to November.

As the end of the year approaches, an evil (definition: much work) urge arises - to put together a 2018 Voice Of ODD! Calendar. Perhaps not surprisingly, this has led to digging through old calendars, and an entirely different calendar feature has manifested that is planned to start the last week of this year, and run for the following two years - or until the blog dies. Whichever comes first.
But more on that in a couple of months.

For this morning, just enjoy your choice of 3 different November calendars for your convenient reference. (One might be just a tad more convenient for readers of Russian)

Please do make note that next Thursday is Bill Mantlo's 66th birthday. (That pic might be a smidge out of date)

calendars from Al Moore/Esquire (1950), Extreme X3M (2006), and Mighty Marvel (1978)