Number 2321: “Rio! The American spy!”

Señorita Rio is one of my favorites from Fiction House. She lasted from 1942 until 1950 in Fight Comics, illustrated by several of the top artists associated with that line, including Nick Cardy (who drew her first story) and Lily Renée Wilhelm, who is the artist most identified with the character.

Rio (real name, Rita Farrar) was a spy. As I read in this story, she was even known as a spy to the villain when he spotted her on a train. Pardon me for stating the obvious, but the usefulness of a spy is nil once identified by the other side. Maybe they let her go because they wanted to see her eye-popping whip dance (page 6).

In looking at Lily Renée’s Wikipedia page I read that she was born in 1921, which makes her about 98 right now. If Wikipedia is correct, then she would be one of the few remaining artists from the golden age of comic books. She and her parents escaped the Nazis and eventually ended up together as war refugees in New York. Lily began drawing comics because her mother saw an ad from Fiction House. In those days the male artists were being taken by the armed forces to fight the war. Lily was a fast learner, and according to Wikipedia, “at some point, she studied at the Art Students League of New York and the School of Visual Arts.” She dropped out of comics in the fifties, but continued working, writing some plays and children’s books.

From Fight Comics #50 (1947):

Number 2238: “We will blast you loose from your brains!”

“Big Red McLane” was another comics creation of the oddball comic book writer/artist, Fletcher Hanks. Big Red is not as powerful as another of Hanks’s heroes, Stardust, but has that eccentric charm that is a hallmark of Hanks’s comic book career.

Big Red is a lumberjack boss, and he goes up against “Sledge,” an evil lumberjack boss who wants Big Red’s neck of the woods. And who wouldn’t? It looks terrific! Consider the splash panel, where Red struts blithely down a groomed path, where nary a fallen leaf or dead tree impedes him. He looks so happy that he is unaware of Sledge’s gang lurking behind those perfect trees.

Red can fight.* The sound effects of his blows to the villainous crew remind me of the Batman television show of the 1960s. On one page we “hear” SOCK! BIFF! BANG! On another SLUG! BONG! and the incongruous ZOWIE! Fletcher Hanks had a fascinating and quirky way about his stories, and it is why over the years his reputation has grown.

From Fight Comics #7 (1940):

*In Fight Comics #9 Red went to San Francisco to look for a former fiancée, and wound up in a boxing match. The teaser at the end said we will see more of his boxing career beginning in the next issue, but the bell rang and the fight was over for Red. He was never seen again.

Number 2202: America’s future patriotic hero

Like Robert Webb, who drew Sheena, featured a couple of days ago, Dan Zolnerowich was a journeyman comic book artist who began his career with the Eisner and Iger studio. He sometimes signed his name Zolne. Also like Webb, I can’t find much information on him. Fiction House Comics stood out on the racks because of the covers Zolnerowich drew for them during the war years and beyond.

I have noticed online some paintings he did, reproducing some of his early covers, done as late as 1977. If anyone has information on him I would appreciate you sharing it.

Heritage Auctions showed all but the last page of Zolnerowich’s artwork for Super-American, which originally appeared in Fight Comics #17 (1942). My thanks to Heritage for posting these pages. My appropriation of them is shameless, but that’s just the kind of stuff I do and who I am. The last page I took from scans of the printed comic available at the Digital Comics Database.

Super-American appeared in only four issues of Fight Comics, numbers 15 through 18, then disappeared. Fiction House had never been totally comfortable with superheroes, not like their competition. They had many characters who appeared year-after-year, but most of them were like comic book versions of characters out of pulp magazines, which Fiction House also published. Super-American was brought from the future to help America fight their enemies. I have shown a couple more of his stories; check the links below.

As promised, two earlier Super-American stories, including his origin. Just click on the thumbnails.

Number 2027: The fighting Captain Fight

Fiction House, like most comic book publishers of the early forties, had some superheroes. Fight Comics, one of their main titles, featured Super-American, whom we have shown in this blog, and for a short time a second patriotic hero, Captain Fight. The patriotic Captain Fight lasted just four issues (Fight Comics #16-#19). I don’t see a lot of originality in the first story, but the art, credited to Rudy Palais, is action-packed. The artist poured a lot into his work.

Captain Fight was a high school athletic coach, Jeff Crockett, and what’s this? He was recognized by one of his students, Yank Adams, who became his sidekick. We have spoken before of comic book characters who don’t recognize their friends or relations in a flimsy mask (even no mask), and I have questioned if they have face blindness. Yank sees right through Jeff’s mask! Yank is a smart guy. Along with great powers of observation, he even has a ham radio license.

We learn in the story that "Murder is fashionable in Freeville," and not only murder, but torture. The Nazis string both Captain Fight and Yank up by their thumbs. Based on the benign expressions on their faces they must have really strong thumbs. I would be shrieking with pain before passing out, mostly from the knowledge I'd never be able to again hold a soup spoon. Jeff and Yank, though, are heroes, and apparently impervious to torture.

Despite this Captain Fight being short-lived, Fiction House introduced another Captain Fight in issue #44. He was a buccaneer who lasted though issue #69.

From Fight Comics #16 (1941).

Number 2017: Hitler with a handlebar

Before America formally declared war against the Axis powers, some comic publishers seemed wary of involving their heroes in direct action against the Nazis. The German-American Bund in the U.S. was pro-Nazi, and obviously didn’t care for their countrymen being caricatured in the comics. In this Super-American tale from Fight Comics #16, the Nazis are so thinly disguised they do not fool anyone, but at least the Bund* couldn’t say they went after Hitler directly. In this story, “Hitler” is a leader called Vultro who combs his hair to the other side, and a handlebar mustache instead of the familiar Charlie Chaplin nose-brush of the real-life Führer.

This episode, the second Super-American story,** is a sock-bam-pow fest from first panel to last. The action is drawn very well by Dan Zolnerowich, with an assist on the inks by Lee J. Ames, according to the Grand Comics Database.

From Fight Comics #16 (1941):

*One of the faux-Hitler henchmen in the story is inexplicably named Bund, a word meaning “alliance.”

**The origin story was shown last October in Pappy’s #1954.