Falling In Love #13

From September, 1957. Bonus points for that cover for showing both a boy and a girl about to cry. The opener is about Celia, a young woman stuck in a dreary job (apparently as a typist). She fantasizes that she's a Cinderella, and when the clock strikes midnight one evening, she decides to use her savings to buy a trip to Italy. While on a tour through the countryside, she takes her lunch in an orchard and falls asleep, missing her bus. She tries to explain to the handsome Italian farmer:

Surprise, he turns out to be an American living in Italy. They have lunch together and he suggests that she stay for awhile (at a local inn, this was 1957 after all). She agrees and they spend the summer together:

But she's saddened by the knowledge that eventually she will have to leave. Rolf doesn't seem to be serious about her:

The Cinderella thing comes up again, and she senses that the clock is nearing midnight on her summer romance. Without telling Rolf, she gets a ride in a donkey cart to the airport, and prepares to depart, her heart breaking. Then:

And so she becomes a farmer's wife in Italy.

Comments: Art by Mike Sekowsky.  The Cinderella theme is well-handled and despite the simplicity of the plot, I found the story pretty effective.

The second tale is about a young florist who worships Ted Brennan even though he simply looks at her as the gal who sells him a dozen roses to send to his latest flame:

Then she meets Dale, another old schoolmate, who's become an artist:

And although she's a little torn at leaving the florist shop, where she catches her few precious moments waiting on Ted Brennan, she agrees.  And soon:

Well, you can probably guess who his friend is.  But when he makes it clear that he doesn't remember her at all, and is just interested in her beauty, she treats him coldly:

She even begins seeing Dale in an effort to forget about Ted.  But one night:

I'm kind of amused at the fact that she never seems to realize that the only reason she "loves" Ted is because he's so handsome.  They strike me as well-suited for each other.

There is an advice column called "To You... From Carol Andrews".  Most of the letters are pretty standard dating advice but I did blink a bit at this one:

 The third story is about a blind date that goes quite well:

But she's annoyed when it takes him a couple of days to call, and later she finds out that he's dating another gal too.  The friend that set them up originally has a pretty sensible observation:

And when she calls him up to invite him to a party that Saturday, he quite honestly admits that he already has a date.  Well, why not bring her to my party?  The more the merrier!  And of course, to hide her misery when he does show up with the blonde in tow:

Nothing says, "I'm going crazy now," like a handful of mambo records.  She dances with everybody in sight but Lowell and at the end of the night, the other girlfriend bares her claws:

But it turns out that's just what it took to get him to make up his mind.  He's not going to play the field any longer if it means that she can as well.

 The cover story winds up the book.  Vinnie (a girl) and Don have known each other since childhood.  But Vinnie meets a handsome stranger at the fair one day and they win a prize for dancing.  Second night of the fair and they win again.  And Don's in trouble:

But on the third night, she meets him again, and this time:

Ouch!  And to make matters worse, she seems to be losing Don as well:

So she assures Don that she loves only him by throwing away the prizes she had won dancing with the other guy.

Comments: Meh.  At least she ends up with the right guy.

Happy Valentine's Day everybody!

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GI Combat #125

GI Combat was one of the titles that DC inherited from Quality Publications in the late 1950s. As with their other war titles, DC created a continuing feature for the book. In this case, it was the Haunted Tank. During World War II, the US forces used a tank known as the M3 Stuart, named after the Confederate General, J.E.B. Stuart. In this series, the Civil War cavalryman haunts the tank named after him and which is commanded by a Jeb Stuart Smith (later stories dropped the last name).

The series mostly had the ghost giving cryptic and apparently crazy advice to his namesake, which later would be revealed as prescient. Smith's men were a little disturbed by his habit of talking to a ghost, but generally reasoned that he seemed to be a fine commander despite his eccentricity.

Their assignment for this issue is fairly straight-forward:

Intially, they fight a Messerschmidt that has been temporarily grounded, but is about to take off. They shoot it but:

Later, they defeat two German tanks, but one of their fellow American tanks is destroyed. As they head into Crecy, the General gives Smith some encouragement:

The fighting is fierce inside the town and the other two tanks for the American side are destroyed. But Smith and his men account for a few themselves:

They even run into Sgt Rock of Easy Company briefly. In the end, they hold out till dark and:

Comments: Entertaining story and gorgeous art by Russ Heath. I was particularly struck by the expressions on the faces of the men during the battle:

The backup story is about a submarine that is forced to fight on the surface due to problems. Eventually it is able to submerge, but even then things don't go perfectly:

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The PSAs

DC ran PSAs (Public Service Announcements or Ads) in their magazines for many years. I'm not sure exactly when they started but it appears that they ended around July 1967; I was unable to locate any in Silver Age comics dated August 1967 or later (although I remember that DC had a similar series of ads in the 1970s called "Justice for All Includes Children"). But up until then, they appeared in almost every comic book DC published, with only occasional exceptions.

They were mostly pushed the "Be A Good Citizen" message, although some were geared at self-improvement, or safety, or family life. Here's a pretty good example:

I did some research on these over the last few days. The PSAs were very organized, to the point where you could probably identify the month of publication of a comic missing the outer wraps just by checking what PSA appeared in it. The monthly and eight times a year magazines all had the same PSA based on the cover date, while the bi-monthly mags all had PSAs based on the month prior to the cover date (i.e., Oct-Nov 1963 magazines would have a November cover date and the October 1963 PSAs, while Nov-Dec 1963s would have a December cover and the November 1963 ad). There was, however, one big exception: None of the romance comics published by DC carried the ads. My guess is that DC felt the readership of their love mags would be turned off by the ads, which were mostly aimed at young boys.

Some of the PSAs featured DC characters, such as Superman and Batman. DC's teen characters Buzzy and Binky popped up in quite a few ads, and as the series based on those characters had often ended years before it was often puzzling to readers. Just who was this kid Allergy? And why was Wolfie such a nasty little weasel?

Paulette Breen, the winner of a beauty pageant held annually at Palisades Amusement Park (a longtime DC advertiser) appeared in this one:

That appeared in October 1964, shortly after the Surgeon General's Warning first started appearing on cigarette packs. Hence the bit about adults not knowing any better.

The Health Myths Debunked ad convinced me to get a tetanus shot after I stepped on a nail one time. Some of the ads appeared more than once. According to several sources, the ads were written by longtime DC editor Jack Schiff and drawn by Bob Kane's ghost on Batman, Sheldon Moldoff.

Only one PSA that I was able to locate had text-only; this was the Big Dance, which appeared in many DC magazines in September 1956. It's about two teenage girls, who are bummed out that their parents have set a curfew for them to be home. To their surprise, they learn that their boyfriends (apparently a year or two older) also have a time limit.

I was able to assemble a list of almost all the PSAs published by DC from 1955 onwards using this list as a starting point, although a few proved elusive:

Jan 1955
Feb 1955 Binky's Special Christmas Quiz: Christmas in Many Lands
Mar 1955 Your United Nations at Work
Apr 1955 Peter Porkchops Don't Be Afraid to Speak Up
May 1955 Binky Gives Tips on Camping
Jun 1955 Buzzy There May Be a Career In Health For You
Jul 1955 Binky Gives Tips on Camping
Aug 1955 Buzzy Never Underestimate a New Idea
Sep 1955
Oct 1955 Buzzy Asks What Are You Getting Out of School
Nov 1955 Buzzy Do You Know Your Neighbors
Dec 1955 How a Nation Is Born Your United Nations at Work
Jan 1956 Binky in the Best Present of All
Feb 1956 Buzzy Asks Do You Know How to be a Good Babysitter
Mar 1956 Binky Healthy Teeth for You and Your Pet
Apr 1956 Binky Says It's Fun to Belong
May 1956 Get Your Ticket to the Treasury of Books
Jun 1956 Binky Presents Pioneers of 1776
Jul 1956 Do It Yourself Safety Rules
Aug 1956 Peter Porkchops Solves the Case of the Careless Camper
Sept 1956 The Big Dance
Oct 1956 Binky Shows How to Spend a Summer Week
Nov 1956 Binky's Special Election Exhibit
Dec 1956 Gifts to the United Nations
Jan 1957 Buzzy's Famous Books Quiz
Feb 1957 Winter Sports Champions of the World
Mar 1957 Buzzy's Special Brotherhood Week Quiz
Apr 1957 Buzzy Learns about Careers in Nursing
May 1957 A Date With Effie
Jun 1957 Worldwide Adventures in Science
Jul 1957 Binky Shows How to Make New Friends
Aug 1957 Earn While You Learn!
Sep 1957 Danger Prejudice at Work
Oct 1957 How Not to Enjoy a Vacation
Nov 1957 Teddy Roosevelt Guardian of Nature
Dec 1957 The Trick is to Treat All the World's Children
Jan 1958 Wanted: A Teen-Age Code
Feb 1958 The Flushing Remonstrance
Mar 1958 Do You Know What's Behind a Law?
Apr 1958 Peter Porkchops in the Secret of the Happy Pig
May 1958 Buzzy Scoffs at that Deep, Dark Secret
Jun 1958 Nature's Prize Pupil
Jul 1958 Are You a Litterbug?
Aug 1958 Wanted: A Pal
Sep 1958 Know Your Pet
Oct 1958 Binky: Lost--A Free Education
Nov 1958 Look to the Stars
Dec 1958 Sharing--the United Nations Way
Jan 1959 Formula for Success
Feb 1959 The Magic Card
Mar 1959 The Family Favorite
Apr 1959 What's Your BQ (Brotherhood Quotient)
May 1959 Do You Make Life Hard for Yourself
Jun 1959 Fred Finds a Way
Jul 1959 Buzzy Says Be Sure of Your Facts
Aug 1959 Peter Porkchops Gives Tips on Summer Fun
Sep 1959 Water: A Friend or Deadly Enemy
Oct 1959 It's Fun to Learn
Nov 1959 New Stars for Old Glory
Dec 1959 The Atom Servant of Man
Jan 1960 Binky in the Best Present of All
Feb 1960 Superboy Says It's Fun to Help Others
Mar 1960 Buzzy's Famous Books Quiz
Apr 1960 Aloha Hawaii
May 1960 What's Wrong with These Pictures?
Jun 1960 Be Your Own Boss
Jul 1960 Buzzy Says Free Speech Free for All
Aug 1960 Superman Lend a Friendly Hand
Sep 1960 Bike Safety=Bike Fun
Oct 1960 How Are Your Shopping Manners
Nov 1960 Keep Learning the Key to Success
Dec 1960 Children of Tomorrow
Jan 1961 Get a Grip on Your Gripes
Feb 1961 Our American Heritage
Mar 1961 Don't Sell Nature Short
Apr 1961 A Salute to Our American Indians
May 1961 How's Your Eye-Q?
Jun 1961 Parents Have Rights Too
Jul 1961 Gifts from Your Elders
Aug 1961 It’s Fun to Serve
Sep 1961 The Right to Be Different
Oct 1961 A Message from Otto the Robot
Nov 1961 Wanted: Safe Bus Riders
Dec 1961 People Are People
Jan 1962 Peter Porkchops in the Secret of the Happy Pig
Feb 1962 Let Science Serve You
Mar 1962 From Many Lands
Apr 1962 Do You Know Your Neighbors?
May 1962 Time Out for Talk
Jun 1962 Your Pass to New Worlds
Jul 1962 Superman Says Be A Good Citizen
Aug 1962 Not Wanted: High School Dropouts
Sep 1962 Buzzy's Rules of Water Safety
Oct 1962 Nature's Prize Pupil
Nov 1962 Health Myths Debunked
Dec 1962 Superman Talks about Pennies for Unicef
Jan 1963 Touchdown for Picasso
Feb 1963 Health Myths Debunked
Mar 1963 Safety First: All Year
Apr 1963 Salute to Our Fellow Citizens of Puerto Rico
May 1963 Countdown on Excellence
Jun 1963 Not Wanted: High School Dropouts
Jul 1963 A Tree Grow on Second Street
Aug 1963 How Not to Enjoy a Vacation
Sep 1963 Binky Shows How to Spend a Summer Week
Oct 1963 Play It Safe
Nov 1963 Your United Nations at Work
Dec 1963 Your Free Trip Around the World
Jan 1964 You Get What You Vote For
Feb 1964 Christmas in Many Lands
Mar 1964 Give and Take
Apr 1964 The Golden Rule
May 1964 Names Do Hurt
Jun 1964 Are You a Good Neighbor?
Jul 1964 Learn From Your Hobbies
Aug 1964 Rx Against Accidents
Sep 1964
Oct 1964 Smoking is for Squares
Nov 1964 Honesty is the Best Policy
Dec 1964 Children of Tomorrow
Jan 1965 Salute to Courage
Feb 1965 Superboy Says Don't Give Fire a Place to Start
Mar 1965 Friends Across the Seas
Apr 1965 Are You a Silent Witness?
May 1965 What's Wrong with These Pictures?
Jun 1965 Happy Hobby Time
Jul 1965 Binky Shows How to Make New Friends
Aug 1965 Summer At Home Can Be Fun
Sep 1965 Nature's Bill of Rights
Oct 1965 Are You a Litterbug?
Nov 1965 The Hip Way To Learn
Dec 1965 Builders of the Future
Jan 1966 The Magic Card
Feb 1966 The Invisible Handicap
Mar 1966 Do You Make Life Hard for Yourself
Apr 1966 What's Your BQ (Brotherhood Quotient)
May 1966 Health Myths Debunked
Jun 1966 Your Free Trip Around the World
Jul 1966 Natural Beauty--Everybody's Right
Aug 1966 The Policeman is Your Friend
Sep 1966 Get Hip to Old Folks
Oct 1966
Nov 1966 Lost: A Free Education
Dec 1966 Superman Talks about Pennies for Unicef
Jan 1967 Champs Against Odds
Feb 1967 Peace on Earth
Mar 1967 Countdown on Excellence
Apr 1967
May 1967 BEM Shows Up
Jun 1967 Mystery of the Million-Dollar Briefcase
Jul 1967 Make Your Summer Count

Favorites? I think everybody loved BEM:

I also liked How Not to Enjoy a Vacation, with the family pet describing the misadventures his owners had on a summer trip, and Honesty is the Best Policy, about three boys who find a wallet in a phone booth.

As far as I know, none of the other comics publishers did anything similar during the Silver Age.

Update: More discussion of the PSAs here.

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Secret Six #1

As the 1960s drew to a close, DC began to experiment more. Whereas previous titles had almost always required a tryout issue or two in Showcase, Secret Six debuted in their own magazine. The only earlier Silver Age title I can think of given that treatment was Captain Storm.

The first part of the story is tied up with introducing our six characters. King is a Hollywood stuntman, Crimson is a top model, Carlo is an escape artist, August Durant is a physicist, Lili is a cosmetologist and Tiger is a former pro boxer. We learn that a mysterious person called Mockingbird has a hold over them, and wants them to defeat criminals that the law cannot touch.

The hold he has over them is somewhat like blackmail, although in each case it does not appear to be something the Secret Six member did wrong:

With the arguable exception of King. I point this out because while the idea of the "anti-hero" was very popular at the time, DC was not quite ready to present their readers with characters that were more than a teensy bit flawed, although that would soon change.

To add an element of suspense, it is indicated that one of the members of the Secret Six is probably Mockingbird operating incognito. He (or she) uses his control of the group to force them to attack criminals who are outside the reach of the law. Their initial misson:

Crimson seduces and drugs one of the financiers. Lili then makes up Tiger to look like the drugged moneyman. Carlo uses his escaping abilities in reverse to find a way into the evil genius' hideout.

They succeed in rather undramatic fashion; in the end the criminal dies by his own gadget as is cliche in these stories.

Overall the story (by E. Nelson Bridwell) is entertaining but nothing special. The art by Frank Robbins (Correction: Frank Springer, as pointed out in the comments by Dan) shows some promise; if I recall correctly, this is an early work of his for DC. The series is obviously inspired by the very popular Mission Impossible show on TV at the time.

Update: I read through the next several issues in this series and I have to say that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Although the individual stories are not all that strong or unique, I like the way the series develops. As time goes by we learn more about the background of the Secret Six and the people responsible for the problems that Mockingbird exploits to force them to do his bidding--the crooks that wanted Tiger to throw a boxing match, the charmer that conned Crimson out of the family fortune, the torturer who forced King to reveal army secrets, etc.

Update II: Commander Benson's take on the Secret Six series is here. Commander Benson discusses the logic process that led to his deduction of the identity of Mockingbird here. I should mention that in my reading of the series, I noticed that while there were six issues after the first, and that each issue revealed more about the backgrounds of the characters, the only character whom we did not learn more about was the one that Commander Benson identified.

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Cancelled Comics Cavalcade

DC did very well during the Silver Age, although the seed were sewn that would result in their well-documented struggles in the 1970s. But life for DC, as for all of us, was a process of death and regeneration, and so it might be interesting to look at the comics that dropped by the wayside in the Silver Age.

1955: Congo Bill. Short-lived effort to graduate the Action Comics feature to his own magazine.

1956: Frontier Fighters. DC's attempt to make money off famous Old West characters like Davy Crockett, Buffalo Bill and Kit Carson fails.

1956: It's Game Time. DC's bizarre entry into the puzzle magazine line lasts only four issues.

1956: Legends of Daniel Boone. Another Old West character fails to make a successful transition to comics.

1957: Dodo and the Frog. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, DC's funny animal series all crashed and burned with the exception of the Fox and the Crow.

1957; Nutsy Squirrel. Another funny animal series reaches its expiration date.

1957: Raccoon Kids. Bad year for funny animals.

1958: Big Town. One of DC's licensed series. Big Town featured the adventures of a crusading newspaper editor named Steve Wilson. The radio show lasted for 15 years, with the first five seasons featuring Edward G. Robinson in the leading role. The TV series picked up the tales in 1950 and lasted until 1956. The comic thus outlasted the TV series by well over a year.

1958: Buzzy. DC's long-running teen title comes to a close.

1958: Gang Busters. Another licensed series that had bit the dust a year earlier on the radio.

1958: Jackie Gleason and the Honeymooners. A licensed series that actually started after the TV show had gone off the air, although it would remain in syndication for many years and skits often appeared on Gleason's variety show in the 1960s.

1958: Leave it to Binky. Another teen title ends its run (it was brought back in the late 1960s for another brief series).

1958: Mutt and Jeff. DC's long association with the original comic strip characters comes to an end.

1958: Peter Panda. I talked about this funny animal series here.

1958: Robin Hood Tales. Public domain characters were even less successful than licensed characters.

1959: Adventures of Rex, the Wonder Dog. I commented on why comics featuring dogs were so popular in the 1950s; the cancellation of this title (after 46 issues) is a sign that the bloom was off the rose.

1959: Hopalong Cassidy. The film series ended in 1948, while the TV show disappeared in 1954.

1959: Mr District Attorney. Licensed title, dead show.

1959: New Adventures of Charlie Chan. Yet another licensed title.

1960: A Date With Judy. Another licensed title that had outlived the radio and TV shows it was based on.

1960: Flippety and Flop. Another DC funny animal comic drops by the wayside. This one was basically a rip-off of Sylvester and Tweety-Pie.

1960: Pat Boone. A teen idol for whom the hits stopped coming. I talked about the Pat Boone series here.

1960: Peter Porkchops. Another funny animal comic ends.

1960: The Three Mouseketeers. No, not Annette Funnicello and two of her buddies; this was a funny animal comic featuring rodent versions of Athos, Porthos and Aramis. (Corrected)

1960: Sergeant Bilko and Sergeant Bilko's Private Doberman. Two more licensed titles end after the TV show.

1961: All-Star Western. The comic that had early on been the home of the Justice Society (and featured the first Wonder Woman story), found its grave on Boot Hill, along with the rest of the Westerns.

1961: TV Screen Cartoons. Last issue of this variety funny animal title, which usually featured the Fox and the Crow on the cover.

1961: Western Comics. DC's Western variety series comes to a close, leaving Tomahawk as DC's only arguable oater (although the series was set in the Revolutionary days it shared many attributes with Western-style comics).

1962: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. These comics were Christmas annuals, intended as stocking suffers.

1964: The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. Yet another licensed series that had outlasted its original inspiration.

1965: Rip Hunter, Time Master. First failure of a Showcase-launched comic.

1966: All-American Men of War. This long-running magazine (originally derived from All-American Comics) never established a strong lead feature. Johnny Cloud, a Navajo pilot, seemed like a natural, but his series also ran into Batmania.

1966: Mystery in Space. Science fiction wilts from the pressure of Batmania.

1967: Captain Storm. Another of DC's war titles strikes out. I talked briefly about Captain Storm here.

1967: Sea Devils. The skin-diving fad exemplified by shows like Sea Hunt had faded.

1968: Adventures of Bob Hope. Another licensed title that had gotten a little long in the tooth. Hope's long and successful movie career was ending; it was getting hard for a 65-year-old man to credibly play the horny single guy that Hope had been typecast as at that point. Many of the Bob Hope comics are an absolute hoot, including some by Mort Drucker. I reviewed Bob Hope #85 here.

1968 Blackhawk. DC had inherited this title from the Quality Comics line, and basically ran it into the ground, with an ill-advised attempt to turn the Magnificent 7 into 007.

1968 Bomba the Jungle Boy. A short-lived effort to bring back a Tarzan knock-off from the 1920s.

1968: Doom Patrol. DC's version of the Fantastic Four turns out not to have staying power.

1968: Fox and Crow (last four issues named Stanley and his Monster). DC's longest-running and most successful funny animal strip finally meets its maker.

1968: Hawkman. Briefly continued in Atom-Hawkman. DC's flying hero is grounded.

1968: Inferior Five. DC's effort at a humorous knock-off of their superhero teams proves unfunny at the cash register.

1968: Metamorpho. DC's version of the tormented superhero/freak lasts only 17 issues.

1968: Plastic Man. DC's failed revival of the hugely popular and influential Golden Age classic probably ran into the revolt against camp.

1968: Teen Beat/Teen Beam. DC's ill-fated venture into teenybopper mags. I talked about these two issues last year.

1969 Angel and the Ape (last issue titled Meet the Angel). A platinum blonde and an ape try to make their detective agency work. A silly effort at humor, although I remember that at least one issue had Wally Wood art.

1969 Anthro. Howard Post's caveboy vanishes into history. I have not read any Anthro although it's been recommended to me a few times. (Note: The original post credited Joe Kubert; I should have remembered to look that one up, especially since I knew I wasn't familiar with the feature.)

1969 Atom and Hawkman. With sales of the two titles dwindling, DC hit on the novel idea of having the two share a magazine; in several of the issues the stories were teamups, while in others they were separate.

1969 Bat-Lash. A hippie in the old West? I've enjoyed the few Bat-Lash issues I read; they're funny and well-drawn by Cardy.

1969 Captain Action. DC's first foray into a comic based on an action figure. The comics actually weren't bad.

1969: Beware the Creeper. DC's short run with Ditko ends.

1969: Hawk and the Dove. Another Ditko title, this one exploring the lives of two brothers, one a ruffian and the other a peacenik.

1969: Metal Men. DC's offbeat robot title had been very successful in the mid-1960s, actually selling almost 400,000 copies per issue in 1966. But it crashed and burned to only 230,000 copies the following year, a staggering decline, which led to the inevitable (in the late 1960s) effort to turn it into a spy-oriented title.

1969: Secret Six. Yet another spy title fails to find its readership.

1969: Spectre. The last revival of a GA character comes to a close.

1969: Windy and Willy. DC updated some Dobie Gillis stories to try to cash in on the Archie teen craze inspired by the TV cartoon.

1970: Showcase. The launching pad had mostly sputtered lately.

As you can see, the 1968-69 period was a very bad one for DC. In mid-1969, DC raised its cover prices from 12 cents to 15 cents; this resulted in steep declines in circulation, which led to many of the titles being canceled or dramatically revamped.

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Cool Comics Calendars!

I won a trivia quiz over at Golden Age Comics, and as a result, I received two delightful comics calenders that would look great on your office or living room wall. The calendars are published by Asgard Press, where their motto is "Old School is Now in Session". As you can see at that site, they publish an astonishing array of calendars, including just about every college football team, Mad Magazine, and Pulp Sci-Fi.

The two comic calendars are DC Comics and Marvel Comics, with the DC edition spanning from the Golden to the Silver Age, while the Marvel Comics calendar is mostly drawn from the 1960s. Here's the cover of the DC calendar:



As you can see, the colors are bright and sharp, and the black background really makes them pop out at you. The DC Edition contains the following covers:

Superman #9
All-Star Comics #3
Superboy #147
Batman #48
Captain Marvel Adventures #19
Detective #122
Superman #120
Green Lantern (Silver Age) #40
Action Comics #10
Wonder Woman #156
More Fun Comics #101
Superman #14
All-Flash Quarterly #1
Adventure #48
Detective #31 (also on the cover)
World's Fair 1940
Adventure #113

Note that's more than 12 months; this is a 16-month calendar (Sept 2009-Dec 2010), so there's no reason to hold off buying until Christmas.

The Marvel calendar has the following covers:

Amazing Spiderman #1 (Also on the cover)
Amazing Spiderman #33
Fantastic Four #28
Avengers #87
Amazing Spiderman #68
Tales of Suspense #49
Journey into Mystery #89
Luke Cage, Hero for Hire #1
The Incredible Hulk #2
Strange Tales #135
Daredevil #10
Silver Surfer #4
Captain America #100
X-Men #35
Fantastic Four #50
Avengers #57
Iron Man #1

The calendars also come with a brief history of each company, with Bill Jourdain himself doing the DC, while the Marvel calendar is introduced by Dr Arnold T. Blumberg. They also contribute a capsule discussion of each cover on the monthly pages.

The colors are beautiful and extremely realistic. The World's Fair Comics cover has some discoloring (looks like dirt on the cover), which I actually appreciate; this is almost a 70-year-old comic. It shows that Asgard Press did not do a lot of photoshop work to make the covers look better than they are; rather they found very nice specimens of each cover and reproduced them exactly.

Update: Peter Shin, the publisher, stops by in the comments section and says that while they did do some restoration to the covers, they tried to maintain the balance between fixing problems and presenting something that wasn't there in the original. I do have to say, they did a wonderful job!

About the only criticism I have is the inclusion of the Captain Marvel Adventures cover as a DC mag; of course that is only true retroactively, after DC acquired the character around 1970. But that quibble aside, these are beautiful calendars that would make a handsome addition to your wall. The individual covers can also be detached from the calendar and framed. If you are interested in buying, Bill Jourdain mentioned a promo code in this podcast that will give you a break on the price. Highly recommended!

Update: Bill has further details (and that promo code) here.

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Trivia Quiz #34: What Do They Have In Common?

1. The Silver Age Green Lantern and the Golden Age Flash?
2. The JSA and the Frightful Four?
3. The Doom Patrol and the X-Men? (not that they were led by men in wheelchairs)
4. Sea Devils and the Fantastic Four?
5. Whitey Ford and Frank Sinatra? (Yeah, it's off-topic, but it's one of my favorite trivia bits.

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Best Character Motivation of the Silver Age

This again proves to be a very easy choice, but I want to dwell on it for awhile because it is so crucially important. Every character must have a motivation for what he or she does, and although the Silver Age writers frequently forgot about positive characterization for their heroes and negative characterization for the villains, they never forgot that either must have some motivation for what they do.

If you look at the supervillains, they usually start with one motivation: to steal lots of money. But if you watch them closely, you'll see that almost all of them start their second and often later appearances with a different motivation: To defeat the superhero who put them in jail.

Looking at it this way does also emphasize the similarities between Lex Luthor and Dr Doom. Both of them hate their nemesis (Superman and Mr Fantastic respectively), at least partially because they blame them irrationally for botched scientific experiments--which left Luthor bald and Dr Doom hideously scarred.

So now let's look at the major DC heroes' motivation during the Silver Age:

Flash: Barry Allen is already a policeman and he had read the Golden Age adventures of the Flash and this inspired him to be a superhero.

Green Lantern: Hal Jordan was a test pilot who was judged worthy to become the new Green Lantern when Abin Sur died.

Atom: Ray Palmer acts as Ivy Town superhero to help his fiancee Jean Loring become a successful defense attorney so they can marry.

Martian Manhunter: Stuck on Earth so he might as well be a cop.

Hawkman: Sent to Earth to learn our police methods.

Now contrast that with Marvel:

FF: Get superpowers and are generally good people to begin with who are willing to take risks.

Iron Man: Gets a terrific defensive costume and he's already a weapons manufacturer so he might as well fight the commies.

X-Men: Save the humans from the evil mutants.

Daredevil: Fight crime while not being Matt Murdock because he promised his dad he wouldn't fight.

Thor: His motivation is never really explained; he's just a noble god.

Spiderman: He didn't stop a robber and the guy ended up killing his uncle Ben.

Whose motivation in there is compelling? Whose is the most believable? Whose motivation has the reader saying, "That's what I'd do, too!"

It seems pretty obvious to me. Spiderman's motivation is personal. It involves a close family member; family motivations are always compelling. It's directly tied to fighting crime in a superhero costume; nobody else can say that.

Daredevil's motivation is close. Certainly his father's death is what inspires him to break up the Fixer's gang. And the Atom has an interesting personal motivation.

But I think overall Peter Parker's motivation is the best in the entire Silver Age; indeed it is matched only by Batman's for personal drama.

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The Great DC Contest Boo-Boo

In Superman #169, DC editor Mort Weisinger had a rather unusual little contest for his readers:



Readers were encouraged to scour the story for the missing "D and C", which was only supposed to appear in one place in the book; here as it turns out:



That should have been a clue that something odd was up, especially since, as it happened, the story was NOT continued on the next page (there was a subscription ad). However, Weisinger didn't look carefully enough at the issue before shipping it to the printers:



Both the word "and" and the word "goodbye" contain a D, although as far as I know, there was no other C in the story.

The results were published in Superman #174:



And when the story was reprinted in Superman #202, the "and" was contracted to "an'", and "goodbye, boss" became "so long, boss".

End of the errors with regard to this story? Not quite. DC reprinted the story again in the book, Superman in the '60s, only this time a production error left the "Continued on Next Page Following" out of the story, so that anybody reading that story would be quite confused, as for example this person:

"The Bizarro Invasion Of Earth" -- also known as "The Great DC Contest", this story invited readers to use their detective skill to find out what made it so unusual. The answer was that the story was crafted to only use the letters D and C once each.

(SPOILERS HO! -- as far as I can tell, the letters only appear together in the opening splash panel which takes place in front of the "City Dump" sign. However, the bottom panel on page 4 has a caption referring to the "Daily Planet." I believe this was said to be an editorial mistake.)

I don't have the Superman in the 1960s book to check this out, but in the original, there are a couple references to "The Planet" without the "Daily" part. And the opening splash panel was specifically mentioned in the rules as not counting.

The usually reliable Fred Hembeck misremembers the situation here.

Of course, the whole carefully conceived plan backfired when, at the very bottom of page 3, the production department had mindlessly pasted in one of their standard "Continued on the next page following" blurbs because, well, the story WAS continued on the next page following, dig? Several issues later, the prize--an autographed Curt Swan cover!!--was awarded not to someone who discovered Mort's strategically hidden letters but who was first to recognize his stupid error!

Actually, as you can see from the announcement in Superman #174, the prizes went to those who discovered the intended "DC" (which was in the "Continued" blurb) and not to those who discovered the mistakenly included two Ds, and there were 25 Swan covers awarded, not just one.

Hat Tip: Commenter Kelly, who pointed this out in a comment on my post about Weisinger's earlier Great Superman Boo-Boo Contest.

Update: Is this story cursed or what? My longtime buddy Snard notes in the comments that there was a D added to the reprint in Superman #202, shown here:



This is probably what the guy who reviewed Superman in the '60s was talking about. In the original it's just "Later, in the parking lot...."

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