Number 2596: The life (and death) of Riley

Does anyone still use the phrase “the life of Riley”? It indicates someone enjoying a great life. The story here is called “The Life of Riley,” to indicate a criminal named Riley who has his own life of Riley after a successful robbery.

It is a horror comic, so a good life can turn bad before the end of the story. At least for Riley.

The artwork is signed by Myron Fass, who drew comic books for a few years. Fass began living the life of Riley when he started his own magazine publishing business after his career in comics. Fass’s magazines were lowbrow, but successful. I don’t believe any comics fan who collects 1970s materials was not aware of Fass’s Eerie Publications, which covered the sleasy magazine market well during those times. Fass died in 2006.

From Beware #7 (1954):

Number 2501: Stolen tombstones

The unlucky “Guest of the Ghouls” is a man (a bad man, because this is a horror comic) who steals tombstones. Tombstones! What would someone do with a tombstone? I know about collectors, especially comic book collectors, but I’ll be in the ground with dirt being shoveled over me and still not understand what one would do with another person's tombstone. They get very bulky, and heavy.

Oh, yeah...I did say it is a horror comic, and logic flies — in bat shapes perhaps? — out the window  in a horror comic. The walking dead also have evil deeds of their own, but they get after Javitt Rodman, because as one of the ghouls says, “You have robbed the dead of their only identity after death, their tombstones!”

Saying something positive about the story, artist Sid Check, using his best Wallace Wood imitation, does a good, creepy job with the corpses. It is from Beware #7 (1954). (Mr Karswell showed the story in 2009, so it is time to show it again. I swear I did not steal his scans.)

 A couple of my favorite Sid Check stories here. Just click on the thumbnail.

 

 

Number 2034: Sal was quite a gal

Sally the Sleuth was created for the sexy pulp, Spicy Detective magazine, in 1934 by Adolphe Barreaux. Barreaux was in business with Harry Donenfield, who later became the publisher of DC Comics. Barreaux and Donenfield were partners in an art service, and later partners in Trojan Magazines, which published much cleaned up versions of what the Spicy pulps had published in the thirties. When Sally was a pulp magazine comic feature she usually lost her clothes. In Crime Smashers, where she later appeared, she kept her clothes on, but still got in fights. Her boss, the Chief, sent Sally where she was usually in deadly peril, but with some good moves (like the skirt-pulling in this episode), she came out on top. They weren’t having the conversation in 1951 about equal pay for equal work when Crime Smashers #3 appeared with the story, “Dirty Politics,” a subject still on the public mind all these decades later. Considering what Sally went through for her paycheck, she probably did not get what she was worth.

The Grand Comics Database gives Adolphe Barreaux credit for writing and drawing the story using the name Charles Barr.

Number 1262: Wally Wood's wild west

Any Wallace Wood fans in 1951 who just so happened to open Western Crime Busters #7 would be treated to a great splash panel with lots of Wood-style sex appeal. The trick would be in getting them to open the book and see the page. Trojan Magazines, which published Western Crime Busters wasn't known as an artists comic book company. The artwork in their titles is serviceable, without the flash and panache that Wood provided to even a tepid script like this episode of “Six-Gun Smith.”

The Grand Comics Database lists Wood as doing both pencils and inks. I see another hand in this strip. It could be the inking is by Wood collaborator Harry Harrison.

Number 1178: A roscoe sneezed

Adolphe Barreaux is a pioneer in the history of comic books. He started out drawing comic book-like stories for Harry Donenfield (who later went on to take over DC Comics from its founder, Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson). Barreaux drew the sexy Sally the Sleuth stories for Spicy Mystery Stories, an under-the-counter pulp Donenfield published before he took over DC Comics. Donenfield set Barreaux up with an art shop, with himself as co-owner, to provide artwork for his line of pulps. Here's an example of Sally the Sleuth, from its days as a two-page strip (and I mean that literally...Sally could not keep her clothes on), from Spicy Detective (March, 1935). The scans are from the 1988 Malibu Comics reprint.

Later Barreaux became editor of Trojan Magazines, Crime Smashers, and other titles, a small publisher also bankrolled from the DC empire. The story of DC's secondary business interests is a complicated one of silent partners, publishing names and different addresses, but it all goes back to Harry Donenfield. He was a sharp businessman who had his hand in the comics business, publishing and distributing, in a big way.

Barreaux is credited with drawing these Dan Turner, Hollywood Detective stories. The color story is from Crime Smashers #7 (1951), and the second is originally from the pulp Spicy Detective (January, 1943), by way of the Malibu Comics reprint, Spicy Tales #1 (1988). Robert Leslie Bellem is credited as the writer. He created Dan Turner for the pulps, and was known for his overcooked dialogue like "a roscoe sneezed," and "Jeepers! Baldy's been skewered through the ticker! He's defunct!" Bellem went into writing for television after the pulps were skewered through the ticker. He did scripts for The Lone Ranger, Adventures of Superman, 77 Sunset Strip, and many more. He died in 1968.

In looking at the artwork for these Dan Turner stories I'm venturing the opinion that despite Barreaux's credit they are shop jobs. Maybe he had something to do with them, and maybe not. In "Off-stage Kill" Dan Turner is shown mostly from the back in a very static layout. The only time the story comes alive is when the girls are fighting. "The Murdered Mummy" has some of the same faults, but is much livelier in its layouts.