Digital Comic Museum
General Category => Comic Related Discussion => Topic started by: JGray on April 04, 2014, 11:58:10 AM
-
The Golden Dames Project has a simple goal: find positive portrayals of women from the golden age of comics (public domain only, of course) and present them to the world in webcomic form. Once I've picked a character to spotlight we present a complete story (one entry from a single comic) page by page, updating on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I also include commentary with each page on the characters, creators, book, publisher, and history of comics.
With a little encouragement from Yoc, I've decided to post my commentary here as well as on my site. We've posted six pages on Golden Dames so far (five of Betty Bates, Lady-at-Law and one of Futura). I'm going to post the commentary here one per day until I've caught up and then I'll post here as I post there.
Hope you enjoy it! Please feel free to discuss, ask questions, and point out where I'm wrong.
-
Commentary on Betty Bates, Lady-at-Law (from Hit Comics #5) page one.
Welcome to the Golden Dames Project. The goal of the project is simple: find great examples of empowered women from the golden age of comics that have lapsed into the public domain and share them so they can inspire a new generation of comic readers. There'll also be commentary on the characters, creators, books, and publishers to give readers a taste of comic history.
Let's begin with a five page story featuring Betty Bates, Lady at Law. Betty Bates was created by Stanley Charlot (a pen name of artist Bob Powell) and this story was illustrated by Nick Cardy. It debuted as the second story in Hit Comics #5, an anthology book put out in November 1940 by Quality Comics.
The Jerry Corona casefile, presented above, is actually Ms. Bates' second story. She debuted in Hit Comics #4 in October of 1940. A Betty Bates story would appear in every issue of Hit Comics until the book folded with issue #65 in 1950. That's 59 comics over a period of ten years. As far as I can tell, that's the longest consecutive run any comic book lawyer would have until Matt Murdock put up his shingle over at Marvel Comics as Daredevil in 1964.
Betty Bates was as tough as they come. She began stories as a defense attorney for hire but moved on to become a respected district attorney. Ms. Bates never hesitated to investigate cases herself, often with the help of her sidekick, an investigative journalist named Larry. Don't let her having a male sidekick fool you, though. Ms. Bates was an attorney of action. She let her fists or her gun do the talking when called for, and needed the protection of no man. The men in Betty Bates' life followed her lead, not the other way around.
-
Today you'd expect Betty to be teamed up in cross-over stories with Quality's other long running female crime fighter Sally O'Neil. I don't believe it ever happened but I haven't read all of their stories by any means.
:)
-
Yoc: Sadly, that never happened. In all her appearances, Betty never stepped outside of her own unique world (which I assume was NYC).
Commentary on Betty Bates, Lady-at-Law (from Hit Comics #5) page two.
Tracking down information on who did what, specifically, in the golden age. Publishers weren't as forward thinking about credits as they are today. Often only one name is on the comic when multiple people worked on it. Even more confusing, creators often used different pen names depending on which company they were working for at the time. To add another layer of complexity atop that, publishers sometimes contracted out content creation to an entire studio such as the famous Eisner and Iger Studio. That isn't even taking into account how some creators, such as Bob Kane, got credit for work they didn't even do.
That being said, the man credited with creating Betty Bates and writing this particular story is Stanley Charlot. Charlot was the pen name used by Bob Powell, a rather prolific artist and writer who worked for Will Eisner at his studios. Working for Eisner, Powell's work appeared in books for multiple publishers and he is credited with work on stories featuring the Spirit of '76, Mr. Mystic and the first Blackhawk tale. During this time Powell became rather well known for his "good girl" art, including work on Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.
Like many artists, Bob Powell entered military service during World War II - specifically, the Air Force. After his discharge Powell formed his own studio and did work for a number of different publishers including a stint at Marvel Comics in the mid-60s. At Marvel, Powell worked on stories featuring Giant Man, the Human Torch, the Hulk, Daredevil and, believe it or not, the Beatles. Powell also provided art for the infamous Mars Attacks trading card line from Topps.
Bob Powell died in late 1967. At the time of his death he was the art director for Sick magazine, a contemporary of the more famous MAD magazine.
-
Hi J,
I saw this and thought you might have an opinion -
In this week's Beauology 101 column, courtesy of Westfield Comics,
Beau Smith breaks down the art of writing women in comic books. He
talks about fictional women in a male dominated business. See if you
agree or discover just how simple Beau is in his complexity.
http://westfieldcomics.com/blog/interviews-and-columns/beauology-101-i-am-woman-hear-me-roar-and-write-it-correctly/
-
Yoc,
First, he's missing historical context and he's limiting himself to the idea that comics have always been "superhero comics for boys". We both know that isn't true.
For a long time the readership was pretty evenly split - 52 percent male, 48 percent female. It is only when the CCA rose and more or less destroyed every genre BUT superheroes that female readership dropped off.
And, certainly, we can find tons of examples of strong, empowered, and fairly well written females in the golden age (or, at least, women who were written as well as the men at the time). And even going past that we had career women like Millie the Model who, while somewhat stereotypical, were still the stars of their own books.
He is right, of course. Wonder Woman has been neutered multiple times throughout her career. After Marston stopped writing her, Diana went from a superhero who happened to be someone's girlfriend to a girlfriend who wished she didn't have to be a superhero. Then she was depowered for a while. But I think great strides were made with the character under Perez and Simone and Jimenez. The problem is they were strides that would speak more towards, I believe, female readers rather than male - and the comic book industry has been steadily alienating them for decades now.
I agree with Mr. Smith's basic premise. We need more women creators and characters, better written, and better illustrated. However, the premise that it is only in modern times that we're starting to get these empowered women is false. Mr. Smith needs to look to comic history so we can learn from what came before.
-
Hi J,
I suspect Beau is strictly looking at the silverage and later and almost for sure ignoring anything but Marvel and DC. For sure there have been some very interesting books outside of the big two. But if you include DC they have done the odd good thing. Did you get a chance to read 'Y: the last man'? The star might have been male but he was the only one and the series was fun on many levels. Some of the better characters in the popular Walking Dead comic are female as well.
To be honest I lost interest in the hero books of the big two back in the early 90s so I haven't seen what has become of Wonder Woman. When I was reading hero books in the 80s Beau was right about most Big 2 female characters being pigeon holed into the same roles most of the time though I do recall the whole Phoenix saga ending in 137 as impressive. Jean Grey was fleshed out a lot before she was killed off.
I have seen the DC animated adaptions which didn't feature WW much but did raise my eyebrows when they hinted at a relationship with Batman in the Justice League Unlimited series.
I think Beau was mostly complaining about the current state of DC/Marvel and pushing for better work from them. I wonder if they still shy away from books built around female leads as being unsalable? A good story and art will bring readers - female lead or not. As a male I would be nervous about writing it though I bet it would be a challenge some writers out there would enjoy if the chance came up and they didn't have to worry about their futures should it fail.
-
Yoc, Marvel has made a lot of strides in recent years. I highly recommend checking out their new Ms. Marvel title about a teenage, Muslim, female superhero. It is on issue 2 right now and a great read. DC could be doing better. A lot better. Both companies could do better at hiring female talent. In fact, most of the companies could. The president of Image recently went on a huge rant on the state of the comic industry. Among the things he said was that all the companies could be doing a much better job attracting female readers.
But, as one critic of his speech pointed out, Image's record for hiring female artists and creators isn't any better than Marvel's or DC's. In fact, it may be worse.
Y, the Last Man was one of the great examples of how comics aren't just superhero books. :)
Commentary on Betty Bates, Lady-in-Law (from Hit Comics #5) page three.
Today you can buy a comic and quickly know who wrote it, who did pencils, inks, colors, lettering, editing, and quite a few other duties besides. Comic publishers weren't quite so diligent about giving credit where credit was due back in the golden age, however. Fifty-five Betty Bates stories were published between 1940 to 1950. Some of those stories aren't credited to anyone at all but those that are credited only to Stanley Charlot. Initially Stanley Charlot was the pen name of Bob Powell but we know for sure Mr. Powell didn't work on every story. In fact it isn't very likely he created the Betty Bates stories he did create by himself. There's enough evidence out there that I'm crediting the art in this Betty Bates story to Nick Cardy.
Born in 1920 as Nicholas Viscardi, Nick Cardy entered the comic field working for Will Eisner's studio. Eisner's studio was a comic book "packager". Many publishers were interested in producing comic books but didn't want to invest in an art team for a venture that might fail. Eisner's studio created full comics, ready to print, for those publishers - which included the Quality Group, publisher of Hit Comics.
Cardy created the character Lady Luck which ran as a backup feature to Eisner's famous the Spirit. Like many comic artists of the time, Cardy joined the military to fight in World War II. In the army, Cardy worked as both an illustrator and a tank driver. He earned two purple hearts during his time in the army.
Nick Cardy is most famous for his work for DC comics during the 50s, 60s, and 70s. He drew 39 full issues of Aquaman and did covers for the remaining 17 issues. Cardy also penciled (and often inked) all 43 issues of the first volume of Teen Titans. That means Nick Cardy was responsible for defining the visual look of DCU characters Mera of Atlantis, Donna Troy, Bumblebee, and Lilith Clay.
Nick Cardy was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2005. He died of heart failure in November of 2013.
-
Hi J,
Wow, that sure is a new twist on Ms Marvel! Seems to me didn't they give the 'old' Ms Marvel a new name back in the stone age 90s? Is Carol still in the Marvel universe?
It would take something exceptional to make me curious about today's heroes. I think I will give the new Ms Marvel a look. Thanks for the pointer.
-Yoc
-
Carol was Binary and then Warbird for a while. Then Ms. Marvel again. Currently she has taken the mantle of Captain Marvel. Which leaves Ms. Marvel open for this new character.
-
Thanks for the update J. I recall the strange look she had as Binary with that bizarre hair. Speaking of Marvel women I wonder which will be featured next in a movie? Electra bombed though I didn't mind it over all. She Hulk might be a natural with hopefully the humour of the character's later appearances. If an Ant-Man movie is almost on us will the Wasp be included. I know the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are in the next Avengers.
BTW, feel free to share links to anything on DCM in your blog if wanted. There is an incomplete Lady Luck collection in the archive section for instance.
-Yoc
-
Yoc: Who will be the first Marvel Cinema Universe, female solo movie character is a matter of debate. I'm hoping to see Carol up on the screen in the next few years. As for Janet... I don't know. I think it is an absolute shame that the Wasp is the only founding Avenger who hasn't gotten her own movie or even her own solo title in comics.
Commentary on Betty Bates, Lady-at-Law (from Hit Comics #5) page four.
This Betty Bates, Lady-at-Law story was printed in Hit Comics #5 (cover date: November, 1940), published by the Quality Comics Group.
Like most comic books of the day, Hit Comics was an anthology title. Each issue would feature between six and twelve comic stories, each showcasing a different character. A story could be as short as a single page or run as long as a dozen. Stories in Hit Comics were usually self-contained rather than serialized. Betty Bates had one adventure in issue #5 and another in issue #6 and still another in issue #7. A Betty Bates tale never ended with the words "to be continued". Instead, readers were told Ms. Bates would be solving another thrilling case in the next issue.
Hit Comics had a sixty-five issue run that lasted from June 1940 to June 1950. It started out as a monthly comic but quickly switched to bimonthly. During US involvement in World War II, perhaps due to paper rationing, Hit Comics switched to a quarterly schedule. Finally, after the war, Hit Comics returned to a bimonthly schedule which Quality kept until the final issue.
Since it was an anthology book, a number of characters were featured on the cover of Hit Comics over the years - none of them Betty Bates. The original cover star of Hit Comics was the Red Bee, a Lou Fine creation. Like Betty Bates, the Red Bee was a lawyer in his civilian life. However, when the law wasn't enough, the Red Bee he donned on a bright red and yellow costume, grabbed his stunner gun and fought crime with the help of his pet bee Michael. Michael lived in the Red Bee's belt.
Other characters that graced the cover of Hit Comics include Neon the Unknown, Hercules (not the Roman/Green demigod but a mortal using his name), Stormy Foster the Great Defender, Kid Eternity and riverboat man Jeb Rivers. Red Bee, Neon the Unknown and Kid Eternity have all been revived and used in the modern day by DC Comics.
Red Bee and Stormy Foster the Great Defender are notable because some stories were written by Toni Blum, one of the few known female writers in comics at the time. The Golden Dames Project will be spotlighting Ms. Blum's work down the road.
-
Hi J,
Funny, I thought that Wasp was in her own mini-series but maybe not. The old memory isn't the best anymore. If Wasp is used I suspect it will only be as comedy relief. She's treated like a member of Sex In The City cast in most of her appearances. I never read the Ultimates or the whole Hank is a wife beater story line. That's just too heavy for me. Gimmie the fun loving Perez era or the cool Roy Thomas stories.
-
Yoc, I don't believe she has even gotten her own miniseries.
Commentary on Betty Bates, Lady-at-Law (from Hit Comics #5) page five.
Printed at the bottom of Hit Comics #5, page 1 are the following words:
HIT COMICS, November, 1940, No. 5. Published monthly by Comic Magazines, Inc., 1213 W. 3rd St. Cleveland, Ohio. Executive and Editorial offices, Gurley Building 322 Main St., Stamford, Conn. E. M. Arnold, General Manager.
"But J", you may be saying at this point, "you told us in your commentary on the first page of this story that Hit Comics was put out by Quality Comics not Comic Magazines, Inc. What's up with that?"
Here's the skinny.
Quality Comics was never actually a company. Instead, the Quality Comics Group refers to a variety of comic book publishing ventures owned by Everett M. "Busy" Arnold. Those ventures included Comic Magazines, Inc., E.M Arnold Publications, Smash Comics, and others. Starting with Crack Comics #5, the comic books published by Arnold's various companies started carrying the Quality Comics Group logo on the cover, giving them a unifying brand for public consumption.
The Quality Comics Group had a strong stable of characters who remain famous, even today. They include the Blackhawks, Kid Eternity, Doll Man, the Human Bomb, Phantom Lady, Uncle Sam, and most notably, Jack Cole's Plastic Man.
The Quality Comics Group lasted until the winter of 1956 when declining sales and assaults by moralists spurred on by the book, "Seduction of the Innocent" convinced Mr. Arnold that comic books were no longer a profitable business. Arnold sold many, if not all, of his books and characters to National Periodical Publications aka DC Comics. National continued to publish four Quality books: Blackhawk, G.I. Combat, Hearth Throbs and Robin Hood Tales. All but Robin Hood Tales lasted another 100 issues before the plug was pulled. Robin Hood Tales ran for only 6 more issues.
DC pulled out several Quality Comics characters as part of their annual Justice League/Justice Society team-up tradition in Justice League of America #107 & #108 in 1973. In the story the Quality characters were now a team called the Freedom Fighters and lived on an alternate Earth (officially designated Earth-X) where the Axis powers had won World War II. With the help of the JLA and JSA, however, the Freedom Fighters were given a chance to fix that problem.
After the game-changing Crisis on Infinite Earths series of the mid-80s DC comics underwent a radical change where all their characters lived on a single Earth instead of on multiple Earths. The Quality Comics characters were considered residents of this new Earth and the most famous of them, Plastic Man, eventually became a core member of the Justice League.
All this history leads to the question: does DC Comics own Betty Bates, Lady-At-Law? The story I published on this site along with all of Ms. Bates' appearances in Hit Comics are in the public domain. Due to the way intellectual property law worked before 1969 copyright notices needed to be renewed regularly and neither Mr. Arnold nor DC Comics properly renewed the notices on the Hit Comics series. DC Comics can certainly reprint these Betty Bates stories but so can anyone else.
As to the question of if DC owns Betty Bates, the character? On that issue I'm unsure. It is possible DC Comics themselves do not know. Without seeing the original contract it is impossible to know for sure which characters were sold to DC Comics by Mr. Arnold. Was it a list of specific characters? Or was it every character in every comic ever published by the Quality Comics Group? The truth is, I don't know.
But I'll tell you what. I would love to see Betty Bates show up as a crusading District Attorney in Gotham or Metropolis, giving those heroes a run for their money when it came to busting crime.
-
Interestingly Jerry Iger, co-partner in the Eisner-Iger shop and makers of a lot of the content for Quality, claimed HE still owned the copyright on some of the Quality heroes like Phantom Lady in his 'Iger Comics Kingdom' book of 1988 (pg79). In fact he claimed the copyright for anything 'he' created for any of his clients during the golden-age. Not much stock was taken of this claim.
-
That is interesting. I'm sure his old contracts, though, were work for hire. Heck, even Eisner didn't own the Spirit outright, though I believe his contract was written so that it would revert to him.
From what I understand Iger and Victor Fox were both real winners when it came to personality.
-
Oh that's for sure though I keep hearing that they were far from unique in the way they ran their companies. Heck, from what I've read beside Donenfeld and Liebowitz they might have been almost civil in their dealings.
-
On the other hand, from what I heard "Busy" Arnold was a pretty nice and fair guy when it came to comics.
As for Golden Dames, we moved on from Betty Bates to Futura.
Commentary for Futura (from Planet Comics #43), page 1
From a Lady-at-Law we move onto a lady of the future. Our next spotlight falls squarely on a fantastic female character following squarely in the footsteps of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon.
Futura first appeared in Planet Comics #43 (cover date July 1946), published by Fiction House. Like Betty Bates, Futura's story was one part of a larger anthology book. Unlike Ms. Bates, however, Futura's story was serialized instead of a series of individual adventures. In each issue of Planet Comics, five to seven pages of Futura's story would unfold and, usually, end on a cliffhanger that promised the reader a continuation of the tale in the next issue.
A secretary in the far future (well, it was far in 1946) of the 21st century, Marcia Reynolds found herself transported to a strange planet by large headed, telepathic aliens for strange experiments. Dubbed "Futura" by her captors, Marcia escaped and led the primitive natives of the alien world in a revolt against the evil big heads.
Futura tapped heavily into the "good girl" art trend - depicting beautiful, scantily clad women in provocative poses (and often in bondage). Despite this, Futura was very much a hero and a leader. She was a capable warrior and brilliant tactician who led an army against in a guerilla war against an oppressive, technologically superior force.
-
I will give Busy credit - he demanded quality work on his books. There were some exchanges mentioned in the last Eisner bio I read, Will Eisner: A Dreamer's Life in Comics by Michael Schumacher, and it sounds like Arnold could be prickly but then it sounded like Eisner could give as good as he got. He certainly handled Iger and his inflated ego. To read the Iger bio I mentioned earlier he was calling Eisner nothing more than another hired hand at the 'Iger' studio. HIs book also skipped the entire Fox vs DC Wonderman case (the #1 reason I read it) but did talk about a later case where Iger had to sue Fox for owed fees and won but still took more Fox business four years later when Fox returned from bankruptcy.
-
I think it is safe to say there were a lot of egos involved in the early days of comics. :)
Commentary from Futura (from Planet Comics #43), page 2
Strange in a Strange Land
In 1912 the pulp magazine All-Story serialized a novel called Under the Moons of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. In the story, former Confederate captain and seeming immortal John Carter is transported via astral projection to Barsoom (aka Mars) where his intelligence, wit and skill eventually win him the position of Warlord of Mars.
John Carter of Mars probably wasn't the first "stranger in a strange land". History is populated with stories of characters from the mundane world being transported to exotic and fantastic lands where they become heroes or rules. John Carter of Mars, however, set the tone for how the "stranger in a strange land" premise would be used in science fiction.
Fast forward to 1928. Armageddon 2419 A.D. by Phillip Frances Nowlan is published in the famous pulp science fiction magazine Amazing Stories. Readers thrill as Anthony Rogers, a World War I veteran, falls victim to radioactive gas and falls into suspended animation. Rogers wakes 492 years later in a world where the United States has been toppled by the Hans of Mongolia. The descendants of Americans now live in gangs spread throughout the wilds of North America. They're ready to take back their land - all they need is someone to lead them. Rogers turns out to be that someone, of course. His experience as a soldier in World War I combined with the advanced technology of the 25th century are just what is needed to defeat the enemy.
The story of Anthony Rogers might have been a footnote in science fiction history - a few stories published in the pulps - if not for John F. Dille, the president of the National Newspaper Service syndicate. Dille hired Mr. Nowlan to turn his pulp stories into a comic strip with one change: the name of the lead character needed to be punchier. Stronger.
And thus, Buck Rogers was born. The comic strip was a huge success.
To compete with Buck Rogers, the King Features syndicate hired artist Alex Raymond to create another science fiction epic. Raymond took inspiration from both John Carter and Buck Rogers to create polo player and Yale University graduate, Flash Gordon, in 1934. Readers thrilled week after week as Flash Gordon traveled to the planet Mongo and had any number of thrilling adventures as he sought to save both Earth and Mongo from the ruthless dictator, Ming the Merciless. Along the way Flash made friends, defeated monsters and attracted the attention of countless beautiful princesses and queens (but always stayed true to his Earth love interest, Dale Arden).
Where John Carter was a pulp invention and Buck Rogers was a pulp invention adapted for comics, Flash Gordon was invented specifically for the newspaper funny pages and in the long run, his popularity surpassed the others. Flash Gordon proved that a science fiction character created for comics could succeed.
Which brings us to Futura. Fiction House realized two fundamental truths when putting together their science fiction anthology comic Planet Comics:
1. Their readers liked John Carter/Buck Rogers/Flash Gordon style adventures.
2. Their readers like looking at pictures of scantily clad, attractive women.
And thus, Futura was born. Like Carter, Rogers, and Gordon, Futura is a stranger in a strange land - transported from Earth to a new world where she becomes both hero and general, conquering evil. There are important differences, however. Futura represents a change in the "stranger" formula. First, she's nothing special. While Carter and Rogers are war veterans and Gordon is a rugged polo player, Futura is a low level secretary. As Futura herself says she has "no money, no family... only a norm-plus rating intelligence quota, energo-efficiency, and mating potential". However, once removed from the repressive atmosphere of a world where every aspect of life is analyzed and categorized Futura flourishes as an action hero and rebel leader. In fact, that's another difference. Carter, Rogers, and Gordon all come from the present day (from the point of view of their publication date) but Futura lived on Earth in the 21st century. This gives her familiarity with advanced technology such as that used by her enemies, allowing the comic to skip tedious scenes in which Futura learns how to fly a rocket ship or use a jet pack.
Most importantly, Futura is a woman. It is true she's drawn to please the male eye but her gender is never truly a factor. The natives of her new world distrust her at first because she's an outsider, not a woman. More importantly, Futura makes allies as well as Carter, strategizes as well as Rogers, and does daring do as well as Gordon.
There's a line from John Carter to Buck Rogers to Flash Gordon to Futura in the science fiction "stranger in a strange land" family. Sadly, though, she remains one of the few leading women in a field crowded by leading men.
-
That's a wonderful entry there J. I quite enjoy the history lesson mixed with opinions.
One of your best yet! :)
-
Thanks, Yoc! Probably nothing you didn't already know of course. :)
Commentary from Futura (from Planet Comics #43), page 3
Chester Martin
Every installment of Futura was credited to John Douglas. The catch is, of course, that he didn't exist. John Douglas was a house name attached to the Futura brand so that readers thought there was consistency from one comic to the next.
Sadly, there's no evidence to lead us to the writer of Futura's terse, technobabble filled prose. However, by comparing art styles and following the clues we can say with some certainty that the artist of this Futura installment is Chester Martin.
Unfortunately, there's very little I can tell you about Chester Martin. I can only find his name attributed to a handful of covers, mostly for Planet Comics or the book's sister, pulp publication Planet Stories. More likely than not, Mr. Martin was an in-house artist for Fiction House, the publisher of Planet Comics and Planet Stories in 1946 at the very least. His work on Futura seemed to be the pen and ink style pulp and adventure comic artists were so fond of. Lots of shading. Lots of cross-hatching.
Outside of work for Fiction House I can only find one other piece of art by Chester Martin: the cover of Science Fiction Digest #1 published in 1954 by the Specific Fiction Corp.
It is possible Chester Martin isn't the artist's real name but the pen name he used while working at Fiction House. It is also possible Chester Martin was only in the pulp and comic field for a short time. For whatever reason, though, there's precious little information available and that's a shame. He's a pretty spectacular artist.
-
Hi J,
No, there were some dots you connected that I hadn't considered but made sense once you showed them. I must admit I'm not a strip reader but might someday down the road.
-
Commentary on Future (from Planet Comics #43), page 4
Planet Comics
Debuting in January of 1940, Planet Comics was a comic book spin-off of Planet Stories, a pulp science fiction magazine. The focus of both Planet Comics and Planet Stories was space opera: powerful young men, beautiful and scantily clad young women, ray guns, space ships, and plenty of technobabble.
Planet Comics started off as a monthly book then, perhaps because of paper rationing during World War 2 dropped down to a bimonthly title. Towards the end of the 1940s, Planet Comics was reduced again, this time to a quarterly title. Unfortunately, things didn't improve from there. For three years, 1950, 1951, and 1952, Planet Comics was released annually. After 1952, the title returned to a quarterly release schedule but the last nail was already in the coffin. The final issue of Planet Comics was number 72, released in the fall of 1952.
It is notable how many female led features appeared in the pages of Planet Comics. In addition to Futura, female leads included Gale Allen and her Girl Squadron, Mysta of the Moon and Amazona the Mighty Woman. Female characters were also prominently featured in male lead features such as the Lost World, Flint Baker, and the Space Rangers. Cynically, the reason for so any female characters is that many of Planet Comics' readers were men and liked looking at beautiful women in tight and revealing clothing. Despite this, the female characters in Planet Comics spent as much time being capable adventurers as damsels in distress.
-
Another nice write up there J.
Could I add some of it to the title description on the download site?
-
Yoc: By all means. Feel free to use anything I post here to help out on DCM.
Commentary on Futura (from Planet Comics #43), page 5
Good Girl Art
We've all heard it: there's too much sex. Too much sex on television, in advertisements and in comics. Pundits and parents alike bemoan this as if twenty years ago or fifty years ago or seventy years ago everything was chaste and moral.
That's far from the truth. Because the truth is sex sells and sex has always sold. From pretty much the beginning pulp magazines were famous for their lurid covers as they were for their stories. As comics started showing up on newsstands pulp publishers took notice. Those publishers began putting out comics as well and they took the lessons they learned from their pulp magazines and applied them to their new ventures.
Like many artistic movements, Good Girl Art wasn't recognized until well after the fact. In the 1970s a man named David T. Alexander, a veteran comic book dealer, began highlighting certain comics in his catalog by making special note of covers which depicted women in especially sexual ways with the term: good girl art. The term was embraced by the comic book community of the time and has survived to this day.
Good Girl Art is defined as art which depicts attractive women in provocative poses and skimpy attire. Often situations of peril and/or bondage was often involved. Most often, good girl art is associated with covers but as Futura has shown, the term can also be applied to interior art as well.
Good girl art was something of a code word: a way for collectors to talk about erotically charged art without using words like sex or erotica. Often these female characters were anything but good. In fact, they were quite often the villain of the piece: the gun moll, temptress, mata hari or dragon lady. Of course, the most famous example of good girl art from the golden age is Phantom Lady, especially as published by Fox Feature Syndicate and drawn by artist Matt Baker. The cover of Phantom Lady #17 was reproduced in Frederic Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent as a prime example of over-sexualization found in comics.
The irony, of course, is that most of the good girl art covers produced in the golden age of comics are relatively tame compared to modern comic covers. At the very least, most golden age cover artists understood the proportions and motion range of anatomy. I can't say that for a lot of modern artists.
-
Thanks for the permission J.
I wasn't aware of the origins of the term 'good girl art' so thanks for that as well.
:)
-
I never knew before, if it was art showing:
good ("moral") girls (Good-Girl Art);
good (well drawn) art of girls, moral or otherwise (Good Girl-Art);
or art showing "Good" (snicker, snicker) girls ("Good"-Girl Art).
From your article, it appears to be the latter.
Thanks for clearing that up.
-
Thanks, Yoc! Probably nothing you didn't already know of course. :)
Commentary from Futura (from Planet Comics #43), page 3
Chester Martin
Every installment of Futura was credited to John Douglas. The catch is, of course, that he didn't exist. John Douglas was a house name attached to the Futura brand so that readers thought there was consistency from one comic to the next.
Sadly, there's no evidence to lead us to the writer of Futura's terse, technobabble filled prose. However, by comparing art styles and following the clues we can say with some certainty that the artist of this Futura installment is Chester Martin.
Unfortunately, there's very little I can tell you about Chester Martin. I can only find his name attributed to a handful of covers, mostly for Planet Comics or the book's sister, pulp publication Planet Stories. More likely than not, Mr. Martin was an in-house artist for Fiction House, the publisher of Planet Comics and Planet Stories in 1946 at the very least. His work on Futura seemed to be the pen and ink style pulp and adventure comic artists were so fond of. Lots of shading. Lots of cross-hatching.
Outside of work for Fiction House I can only find one other piece of art by Chester Martin: the cover of Science Fiction Digest #1 published in 1954 by the Specific Fiction Corp.
It is possible Chester Martin isn't the artist's real name but the pen name he used while working at Fiction House. It is also possible Chester Martin was only in the pulp and comic field for a short time. For whatever reason, though, there's precious little information available and that's a shame. He's a pretty spectacular artist.
There were (apparently) THREE "Martin"s in comics in the late '40s/early '50s, and the original Futura artist is the Planet cover artist, I believe. But he's most likely not Chet.
1. Yes, there was a cover artist for Planet circa 1946, first name, as far as I know, unknown, but he's the TOP contender for the Futura job and he's NOT the 'Chet Martin' who is credited at Iger in 1952. This Martin does issues 43 through 49. I know Bob Barrett and I'll check with him as to the source of the FIRST name for those credits. His cover style makes him the top contender for the Futura origins.
2. Chester or "Chet" was active at Iger only in the early 1950s and 'Chet Martin' was the pen-name of CHESTER BLASKI. He wasn't an especially profound artist and certainly not capable, nor working around the time, of Futura.
3. In the early 1950s, Enrico Bagnoli used the pen-name on jobs he did for St. John. Perhaps editors couldn't remember or pronounce "Bagnoli". What's MOST confusing about Futura/Martin is that Bagnoli is the artist who eventually replaced the first artists (perhaps another "Martin" and then Walter Palais) and brought the strip to its greatest heights, artistically. So there an artist who would eventually sign "Martin" doing Futura from #53 on.
So not much is known about "Chet Martin" because, like "John Douglas", he didn't exist either. So much more to learn. I hope Bob can dig up the real first name of the "Martin" who did the pulp covers. My last exposure to that thread of research was that there was no first name attached to the signature anywhere. Perhaps more has been discovered. However, I HAVE seen some signed "Chet Martin" work from 1952, and working for the theory that an artist will retain some basic skills over his career, I can't imagine how he might have disintegrated to such a level of INability in five short years.
Thanks for listening. Peace, Jim (|:{>
-
Yoc: You're welcome.
Larry: You're also welcome!
JVJ: Let us know what you find out. The lack of credits on these books is maddening at times.
Commentary on Futura (from Planet Comics #43), page 6
Fiction House
In the 1920s pulps were hot sellers at the newsstands. Printed on cheap, wood pulp paper with ragged, untrimmed edges pulps sold for ten cents an issue. By contrast, glossy magazines with better production values sold for twenty-five cents an issue.
Fiction House was founded in 1927 by J.W. Glenister and John B. "Jack" Kelly to take advantage of the strong pulp magazine market. Their first title was Action Stories but their line quickly expanded to include Detective Classics, Football Stories, Fight Stories, and Air Stories, the first aviation themed pulp magazine.
In 1938, Jerry Iger and Will Eisner approached Fiction House hoping to find a new client for their comic book packaging firm. Fiction House agreed to a test run and Iger and Eisner delivered the material needed to put out Jumbo Comics #1.
At first, Jumbo Comics didn't sell well and had Fiction House been any other publisher the title would have folded. However, with the might of their pulp empire to back them, Fiction House was determined to become a leader in the comic book field. Jumbo Comics was originally printed as an oversized book with a black and white interior but by issue nine they switched to full color illustrations in order to compete with other companies. With issue ten, Jumbo Comics became a standard sized comic books. More importantly, Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, became the obvious star character of the book. The original white jungle goddess, Sheena would become Fiction House's biggest star.
In the 1940s Fiction House marketed their big six comics aggressively: Jungle Comics, Wings Comics, Ranger Comics, Fight Comics, and Planet Comics (the home of Futura). In addition, Fiction House was putting out character led comics like Sheena, Firehair, and Wambi, one of the few jungle heroes who wasn't a displaced white person.
Over the years, Fiction House had a very diverse group of freelancers working for them including Matt Baker, the first prominent African-American artist in comics, Nick Cardy, Bob Powell and female artists such as Ruth Atkinson and Marcia Snyder.
Fiction House relied heavily on good girl art to sell their pulps and their comics. However, they also created a number of strong female protagonists such as Sheena, Firehair, Mysta of the Moon and Futura. The skimpy outfits and sexualized poses of the characters attracted the attention of Fredric Wertham and Fiction House was specifically targeted in his book, Seduction of the Innocent.
By the mid-1950s pulp sales were all but non-existent and the public outcry over "indecency" in comic books was hurting the comic market as well. A company that relied on sex to sell books, such as Fiction House, could not survive. Their last title was Jungle Comics #163, sold in the summer of 1954.
-
Thanks for your reply as well Jim.
-
Commentary on Torchy Brown, From Dixie to Harlem. Strips from Nov 13 and 20, 1937
The next Golden Dame to be spotlighted is Torchy Brown and she represents many important firsts. Torchy Brown is the first comic strip character spotlighted here on the Golden Dames Project. She's also the first character a reader specifically requested.
More importantly, Torchy Brown is the first known African-American woman to headline her own comic strip and her adventures were written and illustrated by Jackie Ormes (credited in these comic strips as Zelda Jackson Ormes), the first publicly known female, African-American cartoonist.
Torchy Brown in From Dixie to Harlem ran in the Pittsburgh Courier, a weekly African-American newspaper from May 8, 1937 to April 30, 1938. The Courier published a total of 53 Torchy Brown strips during that time. The strip chronicled the adventures of Torchy Brown as she moved from the deep south to Harlem in New York City. In Harlem she gained employment as a performer at the legendary Cotton Club, a whites only nightclub that featured primarily African-American entertainers.
In 1937 Torchy Brown was something of a revolution, both as a woman and a person of color. Torchy was clever, outspoken and wouldn't take no for an answer. In a time when women and people of color were generally only in comic strips as stereotypes Torchy was a career woman out to conquer the world with intelligence, charm and one hell of a fashion sense.
From Harlem to Dixie ended in 1938 on something of a cliffhanger that was never resolved. Ms. Ormes wasn't done with Torchy Brown, however. The character would be revived for a new, full color comic strip in 1950 entitled Torchy in Heartbeats.
The two Torchy Brown strips presented today originally ran on the 13th and 20th of November, 1937. They chronicle Torchy's adventure as she gets her first job at the Cotton Club.
-
A good start on Torchy J.
Thanks for the transcript - it saved my eyes some work.
Omes has a nice GGA style to her. It would be fun to see a picture of her someday.
Looking forward to seeing more.
-Yoc
-
Yoc - Thanks! And thanks for commenting over on the site, too. Every webcomicker lives for comments on their work.
Commentary on Torchy Brown, From Dixie to Harlem. Strips from Nov 27 and Dec 4, 1937
Jackie Ormes
Zelda Mavin Jackson, the woman who would eventually be known as Jackie Ormes, was born in 1911. She began her career at the Pittsburgh Courier, a prominent African-American newspaper and, in 1937 convinced the paper's editor to take a chance on her idea for a comic strip, the first the paper would run. From Dixie to Harlem was a success and by the end of 1937 the Courier carried several comic strips.
From Dixie to Harlem ran for roughly a year and represented Ms. Ormes first foray into cartooning but not her last. In 1942 she worked for the Chicago Defender as a writer and a cartoonist, creating a single panel comic called Candy about a beautiful and sarcastic housemaid.
In 1945, Ms. Ormes went back to work for the Courier. Her new comic was called Patty-Jo 'n' Ginger. It was a single panel comic about a fashionable young woman and her insightful and precocious little sister. Patty-Jo 'n' Ginger served as offered sly, biting commentary on the politics of the day, racial and otherwise. Patty-Jo 'n' Ginger ran for eleven years.
In 1947, Ms. Ormes contracted the Terri Lee doll company to create the Patty-Jo doll. Tired of black dolls that were nothing more than offensive racial stereotypes, Ms. Ormes created the Patty-Jo doll with an extensive fashion line. The doll was something young, African-American girls could play with that looked like them. The doll was on the market until 1949 and today is considered a highly valuable collector's item. An original Patty-Jo doll can sell for around a thousand dollars at auction.
In 1950 the Pittsburgh Courier added a full-color comic page insert. Once again, Torchy Brown became a leading character for the paper. The new comic, Torchy in Heartbeats, reimagined Torchy as an independent career woman in the mold of Dixie Dugan and Brenda Starr. Torchy's last adventure saw her fighting against racism and pollution with the help of her boyfriend.
Ms. Ormes retired from cartooning due to arthritis but stayed active in her community. She was a founding member of the board of the DuSable Museum of African American History and produced fundraising fashion shows to benefit local charities in Chicago. She died in 1985.
-
What a wonderful write up on Ormes J!
No luck with pictures?
-
I heard from Robert Barrett a couple of weeks ago, and I'm sorry it's taken me so long to report back. I've been busy launching my Kickstarter Campaign for the thirteenth issue of my art magazine, ImageS (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1694106638/images-magazine-13-the-golden-glory-of-the-art-i-l (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1694106638/images-magazine-13-the-golden-glory-of-the-art-i-l).
The GCD credits are definitely CORRECT. Chester Martin IS the artist on the first installments of Futura. He is introduced by name as a cover artist in Planet Stories Pulp and signs some interior illustrations as well. There is NO DOUBT. What IS in doubt is whether the "Chet Martin" at Iger in 1952 is the same person.
I haven't looked at the ONE credit I have for Chet Martin in 1952 in decades, but I will do so when I return to Palo Alto next week. It may take another two weeks to get back to you, but I'll do my best to help sort this out once and for all. I apologize for the confusion, especially since Bob reminds me that he and I had this same conversation once before. My memory certainly isn't what it used to be. I hate to be the one who sows confusion in my wake. I'd much rather restore order and bestow knowledge as I go - especially when I have had that knowledge in the past.
More when I acquire it.
Peace, Jim (|:{>
-
Thanks Jim and good luck with the Kickstarter!
-
Anybody know what happened to the Golden Dames Project? I haven't seen an update in over a year.
Thanks!
-
Nope,
J made a great start on his blog. I loved the last entry on Torchy Brown! I hope he is well.
-Yoc