Cartoonists Make Better Lovers: Ogden Whitney

Growing up in the 60’s as I did, I came upon my love for comic books during the height of the Silver Age Superhero boom. Despite this, I still made time for other genres too. Horror, humor, war, classics, Movie & TV tie ins were all consumed in my voracious comics reading habit. However, in my maleness, there was one milieu that I didn’t dare explore; Romance comics. Besides them not being “butch” enough, a quick scan through them found nothing of any particular interest by me. It’s only as an adult that I’ve come to have any appreciation for the genre. Looking at them now, I realize the fatal error in my logic. Nothing of interest? How about beautiful depictions of women done by some of the best cartoonists of the comics industry? So I’ll be posting a series to explore this ‘forbidden fruit’.

  

For the initial entry, our subject is Ogden Whitney. He was born in 1918 and was another member of the group of artists inventing the comic book during the medium’s infancy. His earliest cited job was published in ADVENTURE COMICS #42 in 1939. The following year he took over the Sandman strip for Craig Flessel and he co-created the character Skyman with Gardner Fox.

To folks of my generation he is best remembered for the ACG character Herbie. This unique and bizarre strip about a obese child found an audience and survived to be published for 23 issues between 1964 and 1967.

 

In 1954 Whitney drew “Jailbird Romance” in an issue of ROMANTIC ADVENTURES. The story managed to combine both the Love and Crime genres that were popular then. His draftsmanship on this job is remarkable and is as fine as anything that I’ve ever seen by him.

 

 

 

 

 

Sadly Ogden Whitney’s life did not end well. He was an alcoholic and in his later years extremely dependent upon his wife Anne. When she passed away he could no longer function and was eventually forcibly evicted from the apartment the couple had resided in for many years.

Pat

Creature Feature Classics: The Cyclops

 

The first “Creature Feature” I saw as a child was Bert I. Gordon's The Cyclops. Back in 1963 when we were living in New York I accidentally stumbled upon this movie on the Chiller Theater TV broadcast. Chiller  was one of the first Horror Shows back in the 60's and was popular enough to be on prime time saturday night at 8pm.

This movie is the one that probably started my fascination with the horror host/show that continues through this day. The Horror show was a staple of local TV all through the 60's to the early to mid 70's. By the eighties most of these shows had past their prime and were to be replaced by the expansion of cable TV, syndicated broadcasts, infomercials and late night comedy shows (SNL) Some of the Horror host/Shows have returned as of late but I will elaborate more on this topic on a later post.

The plot of The Cyclops concerns a woman Susan Winter (Gloria Talbot) looking for her fiancée who was lost somewhere in a remote area in Mexico. She hires a team to help her find him. As they investigate the area they begin to find giant animals and high radioactivity in the mountains. Eventually they come face to face with the large and angry Cyclops and of course bad things happen! This Cyclops is one of my Favorite Bert Gordon creations. Reminiscent of the monster in War of the Colossal Beast (also directed by Gordon) this creature really freaked out the 4 year old me.

Rounding out the cast are James Craig (The Revenge Of Dr X), Tom Drake and the great Lon Chaney Jr! The Cyclops himself was played by Duncan Parkins who also played The Colossal Beast.

In 1955 Bert Gordon (Mr B.I.G. as he was known) made his first feature “King Dinosaur”. He was primarily known for his Giant Monster movies (The Amazing Colossal Man, The Beginning of the End, Earth vs The Spiders, Attack of The Puppet People, Food Of The Gods, Village Of The Giants). All are B-Movie classics and worth seeking out I might add. 

Warner Archives has finally released The Cyclops on DVD through their website only. It was previously available on the Elvira Thriller Videos series back in the 80's. Apparently Warner's originally put out the new DVD with the eye gouging scene of the Cyclops missing but it has been restored.

So if your looking for a fun Creature Feature keep an eye out for The Cyclops, I highly recommend it! 

Morbius 

And here's a clip

Terrors Of Dracula

We've Got Some Eerie Publications 

Cheezy Greatness Here!

A couple of stories from 
the Gory Grindhouse 
of Comic Book Companies
with art by Dick Ayers
And Oscar Fraga.

And A Video Of Eerie Publications

Harrys Heroes

Harry’s Heroes: The Hangman

In an earlier post I expressed my profound admiration for the artistry of cartoonist Harry Lucey. I’d like to start a series of postings that feature his work on “straight” heroic adventure heroes. Today I’m featuring the MLJ character the Hangman.

Harry drew more pages featuring the Hangman, than on any other of the costumed heroes that he worked on. Granted other artists did significant turns on the strip, notably Paul Reinman and Bob Fujitani, but Lucey produced well over a hundred pages for the feature.

Here is his striking cover for SPECIAL COMICS #1 (Winter 1942). For the following issue the book was renamed HANGMAN COMICS. It went on for a run of 8 issues, before it changed into BLACK HOOD COMICS

That issue also found Harry delineating a 1-page recap of the character’s origin. Long before Marvel or DC, MLJ killed off a major player in their stable of heroes when the Comet met his demise in PEP COMICS #17. That crusader’s brother took on the struggle to continue the fight against crime under the guise of the Hangman.

Hangman’s original home was PEP COMICS where he shared page space with the company’s star hero the Shield as well as with a new humor strip about a high school boy and his friends… a kid by the name of Archie. The following tale was told in PEP COMICS 26. In the same issue that funny strip introduced readers to Veronica Lodge.

Pat