Manic Monday--In 3-D!!

You know who went really big for the 3-D craze of the early 1950s?

Harvey Comics!

Yeah, the cover wasn't in 3-D...you had to have it decipherable to those who hadn't taken the glasses out of the comic yet, plus you needed color on the newsstand.

But the interiors? 3-D!!

OK, it probably looks better with the glasses.

But look--3-D!!

A guy fighting an octopus--in 3-D!!

Dinosaurs--in 3-D!!

And Harvey did all kinds of books in 3-D. Look--Kiddie books!

Funny animal books!!

Because nothing says "this story needs 3 dimensions" than funny animals!!

Westerns!

Super-heroes!!

Captain 3-D was a Simon/Kirby joint...

You wouldn't think you'd need to make a Kirby story 3-D, because his stuff already leapt off the page...but here you go:

Now, you've no doubt noted that each cover had this:

Allow me to call bullshit. Since these were 36 page comics in 1953, and Harvey was charging 25¢, there certainly was "extra cost" compared to "regular" comics.

Still, Harvey got some eye doctors to sign off on a statement  claiming that reading 3-D comics was good for children's eyes!

And 3-D, in all media, was the vanguard of the future!!

Well, not so much. Whether because of poor sales or high costs, none of the Harvey 3-D titles lasted more than 2 issues.

Now when do we get 4-D comics?

Tales From The Quarter Bin--The Sincerest Form Of Flattery?!?

I know what you're thinking: is this Richie Rich...

...or just an incredible simulation?

A simulation. A very precise, legally actionable simulation!

When Marvel started their imprint for younger readers, Star Comics, they brought in Richie Rich co-creator Warren Kremer as artist and longtime Richie writer Lennie Herman to create the incredibly original and completely not derivative Royal Roy.

See, he's not just another "poor little rich boy"--he's a prince!! Of the nation of Cashelot!! Son of King Regal and Queen Regalia!! With one rich girlfriend and one non-wealthy girlfriend. And...

The best part about Royal Roy was that the entire strip wasn't about the flaunting of excessive wealth. It was also about...

...flaunting monarchy and inherited autocratic power!!

Sadly, in some eyes, that may not having been enough to differentiate Royal Roy from Richie Rich. Indeed, spoilsport Harvey Comics sued Marvel for copyright infringement. Marvel cancelled poor Roy after 6 months, Harvey dropped the lawsuit and starting publishing Richie Rich again after a four year hiatus.

Did you know that over the years, Harvey published over fifty different Richie Rich series? That could have been you, Roy...you oculd have been a contender...

From Royal Roy #3 (1985) & #5 (1986)

Manic Monday Bonus--Wither The Witches Of The Wild West?!?

We have discussed before how, in ye olden days, publishers really hated to launch new titles with new #1 issues.

Postal regulations at the time required them to pay a registration fee for every new magazine, and who wants to cut their margins when they don't have to.

Comic companies were also afraid that new #1s wouldn't make it onto crowded newsstands, believing that retailers preferred to give space to established titles (as proven by higher issue #s). This is the reason that Justice League Of America #1 and Jimmy Olsen #1, among others, didn't have an issue number on the first covers!! (See, you've already learned something new today!!)

So, between fooling postal inspectors and retailers, comic publishers played fast and loose with their numbering. Harvey Comics was a master of this, as we have seen previously.

Here's another example:

In 1951, they launched Witches Tales, a fairly standard horror comic of the day...

It ran through #28, in late 1954:

Then, suddenly, the very next issue...

Hey, wait a minute!! That's clearly a brand new comic!!

Oh, but read the cover logo more carefully:

See, it's Witches' Western Tales, so really, it's just a continuation of the same title!!

Of course, it really wasn't. There wasn't a single witch to be found, and the 2 issues of Witches Western Tales were entirely reprints of earlier Western comics from 1950 & 1951.

On the cover of the second issue (#30...ha!), you can see the real reason for the change:

Ah, the hastily thrown on Comics Code stamp!!No wonder Harvey dumped the witches in all but tiny title font!!

Well, as far as I can tell, postal inspectors of the era weren't too bright (or didn't really care), so Harvey got away with it. So the next three issues were merely Western Tales, with the "Witches" no longer required to "beard" the numbering:

These were all new stories, mostly from Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. And if you don't want to read Jack Kirby-drawn Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie stories, well, I guess you're like everyone else in 1955...because those three issues were it.

So that was a lot of sturm und drang to preserve numbering on a title they just ended up cancelling 5 issues later anyway...

Anyway, this is why I don't get to upset at renumbering/relaunching, or changing The Incredible Hulk into The Incredible Hercules mid-run. None of it is really "All-New" or "All-Different." Comics have been screwing with titles/numbering for decades. We just grew up during an era of unusual stability in that regard. But I'm pretty sure we can deal with the "chaos."

CLAWFANG, The Flintstones Barbarian!!

Look, you can have all of your barbarian sagas set in the misty dawns or pre-history. SNORE!!

No, I'll take...

Clawfang?!?! Who dat?

Buckle in, kids...

We're millions of years in the future!!

This just goes to prove the long-standing theory that the Flintstones is set millennia after the Jetsons, as the Spacely Sprockets/Cogswell Cogs wars led to an apocalypse that gave birth to primitive humans sharing the Earth with tame dinosaurs aping modern technology that true stone-agers could have had no knowledge of.

Anyway, this little 2 page preview appeared in Harvey's Thrill-O-Rama #2 (1966), and it was followed by a five-pager (which you can read here) in Unearthly Spectaculars #2. And that was it. There was no follow-up strip, and in a couple of months Harvey abandoned it's attempt to stray away from kiddie books. And Clawfang, barbarian of the future, was never heard from again.

It's too bad, because aside from the too on-the-nose name (Claw and Fang? You're overdoing it, creator Wally Wood!), a future barbarian is much more interesting than one set in the past. Newly evolved species, remnants of atomic technology making trouble, the possibility of those space colonists coming back...much more interesting than Crom and wizards and every other done-to-death barbarian cliche.

Come back Clawfang....

Manic Monday Triple Overtime--Jack Kirby's Rocky Moment!

I know I've written about this cover before...

...but I finally found the actual issue!! Thank you, Quarter Bin!!

Anyway, nothing remotely resembling that occurs anywhere in the issue. Poop!

But it does star The 3 Rocketeers!

"Beefy"?? His nickname is Beefy?

And what are our heroes up to?

Holy crap.

GCD lists the writing credit on these stories as "Jack Kirby ?," which is good enough for me to declare:

JACK KIRBY INVENTED BATTLEBOTS!!

Yes, I know, there were almost certainly robot boxer comic books stories before this. Don't rain on my parade. And if know of any such comics, please send them to me. Not links--the actual comics. I need more comics.

This would also explain why Ronda Rousey is so unbeatable...

From Blast-Off #1 (1965)...Harvey was using some old Kirby stuff he did for them in 50s but they never published...this was probably written in 1958, as it was intended for the never-published Race For The Moon #4

Manic Monday Triple Overtime--Roses Are Read, Bunny Is Blonde...

From Bunny #20 (1971):

Sadly, Bunny lasted only one more issue, so the "best" poems were never printed in a future issue of Bunny. Which means that, somewhere in their vast archives, Harvey must be sitting on reams of really exciting Bunny poems!

Still, there's no reason why, 43 years later, we can't write our own poems about Bunny and her cast!! Go ahead--take a shot!!

The Rosetta Stone Of The Comics Industry

If you follow the history of some titles, you get a mini history lesson of the comics industry, a cover image guided tour of some of the hot trends.

Because of postal regulations, launching a brand new title cost money, a fee that comic companies of the day were reluctant to pay. Yes, it was an alternate universe where #1 issues were a bad thing. So publishers would often keep the numbering of the older books, while surreptitiously completely changing them: different characters. titles, even genres.

So let's follow the progress of one of those changeable titles, Harvey's Black Cat!

Black Cat started as a hero in the 1940s. Linda Turner was the daughter of a silent film star and a stuntwoman. She became Hollywood's top stuntwoman, and eventually, because of her "natural beauty" and acting skills, she became a leading lady, and one of the movies' top stars.

Then she found out that one of her directors was a Nazi spy, transmitting secret information within his movies! She put on a costume, stopped his plots, and kept on as the Black Cat--movie star by day, crime fighter by night.

You've got to admit--that's a pretty great premise (and what female movie star would you like to have dressing up in a bathing suit and fighting crime today? Discuss). Plus, Bob Haney wrote many of the early stories!!

She was pretty popular, and after a long run in Speed Comics, she graduated to her own book. And for a couple of years it was all Tinseltown adventures, always emblazoned with "Hollywood's Glamorous Crime Fighter" and "The Darling Of Comics."

But in 1948, she began to ride horses an awful lot...

Uh-oh...smell the winds of change, as super-heroes wane in popularity, and Westerns soar, as the book transforms in 1949 to...

See, now she's "Hollywood's Glamorous Western Star," and our stories are set in the Wild West (don't ask how) set exclusively on the sets of Western movies (h/t to "Britt Reid" for correcting me), and the book's title is now Black Cat Western!

Well, that went on for about a year, when suddenly in 1950...

It's back to just Black Cat!! It's back in present day!! It's all Hollywood!! Most issues even featured an "illustrated interview" with real live movie starts!! Glamor!!

But time, and comic industry trends, would stand still for no one, not even the Black Cat. By 1951, she's facing distinctly more supernatural menaces:

The book was suddenly slugged "Strangest Tales Of Fear And Terror": No more glamor or Hollywood here! Witches and ghosts and devils!

Yes, they gave her a sidekick. SPOILER ALERT: his origin is the exact same as Robin's.

For issue #30, they just plain changed the name of the book:

And with the next issue? Linda Turner is dumped!

The book kept the Black Cat Mystery title, but no Black Cat character. It was just a title now. The book became your typical 1950s horror anthology for the next few years, albeit by some standards a little more gruesome than many:

Ewww.

But then, Wertham happened, horror comics were on the bad list, and miracle of miracles, 1955's issue #54 was suddenly:

Ah, it's Black Cat Western Mystery now!! For 3 issues Linda Turner was back, albeit merely in reprints from her earlier western phase.

But 3 issues later, we were back to...

Note the Comics Code seal--Black Cat Mystery was back, but this post-Seduction version was far tamer then the prior version, much more along the lines of what Marvel/Timely was doing.

But the very next issue...

I guess Black Cat Mystic was safer than Black Cat Mystery. Who knows?

The book's "mystic" reincarnation lasted only 6 issues, and then the title was cancelled.

But wait...super-heroes were coming back!! So in 1962, Harvey revived the title (and continued the numbering!):

These were pretty much just reprints, albeit with colorful new covers to emphasize the super-heroey aspects of the stories. Sadly, this lasted just 3 issues.

There have been some reprint series, with covers playing up the "look, she's a hot girl in a bathing suit who is in danger, so buy this, men!" angle:

And that's it.

So, next time somebody whines about how confusing modern comics companies can be with their constant re-numbering/re-titling, just laugh, and point them to the Black Cat. We've been here before.