Friday, February 21, 2025

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Philip Marlowe: "The Deep Shadow" 3/21/50



"This time, a bride-to-be, a corpse in a plush bungalow and a Southern drawl behind a gun all had one thing in common--they moved through the same deep shadow!"


Click HERE to listen or download.


Thursday, February 20, 2025

Seeing it Through

 

cover art by A.L. Ripley

Read/Watch 'em In Order #177


The second work of prose fiction (I'll be skipping a few poems in the issue) in the January 10, 1926 issue of Adventure is the short story "Seeing it Through," by Jack Rendal. Rendel was a fairly regular contributer to Adventure from 1926-1928 (7 articles and 4 short stories), but I can't find any credits for him after that. That's too bad, because this story, at least, is excellent.


A tuberculosis-ridden man named Markham has raised his two sons atop a mesa in the Colorado desert, raising date trees he imported from Africa. Between this and selling an occasional painting done by Markham, they manage to eek out a living. Water for the date trees is brought in from a nearby spring a pipe.


There was once a mother in the picture, but she gave up on their desolute and hard life years ago. The boys (Hugh, age 19 and Hale, age 16) still have hopes of one day having enough money to find her.



This is a short story, so its remarkable how quickly and without effort Rendel establishes the near-barren desert setting and the strong personality of Hale, the younger brother through whose eyes we experience the tale. With very few words, Rendel tells us all we need to know and established the story's desolute atmosphere. It's good writing that draws you into the tale.


Anyway, an obviously corrupt lawman steps into the picture and soon the water supply to the mesa is cut off. After that, Hugh gives the lawman reason to want revenge and Hale finds himself in a position to either betray his brother to save himself or save Hugh and possibly get himself killed.


It's a good story, which you can read HERE. The next story we come to will be one of Harold Lamb's "Khlit the Cossack" tales. And when you start to read a Khlit story, the only appropriate thought going through your head should be: "This is going to be awesome!"

Wednesday, February 19, 2025

Every Respectable Lost World Includes Man-Eating Plants!

cover artist uncredited


Gee whiz, you would think that hungry dinosaurs and violent cavemen would be trouble enough for Turok and Andar! Now, they gotta deal with carnivorous plants?


Well, to be fair, carnivorous plants are a standard part of most prehistoric-themed Lost Worlds. So it would be expected the two Indians would run into some eventually.


This all takes place in Turok Son of Stone #26 (December 1961-January 1962), in a story written by the prolific Paul S. Newman and drawn by Giovanni Ticci. (Ticci worked in Alberto Giolitti's studio and Giolitti did the inks. Ticci always does an excellent job of emulating Giolitti's style--I can rarely tell them apart.)



Turok and Andar encounter the plants while dodging an angry styracosaurus. The dinosaur gets caught in the plant's tentacles. It seems that nothing can escape the tentacles.


Except the next day, they notice that the dinosaur is gone--no remains, no bones, no nothin'. They soon discover a nearby tribe that has a secret powder able to open up the plants. The cavemen used this to get the styracosaurus's meat. 



Though Turok considers the meat his, its not worth going to war over. Andar, though, thinks the secret powder would be useful. So that night, he sneaks back to the tribe to steal some. 


Andar, here, acts foolishly. But he's young and an occasional foolish decision is a legitmate part of his character. And when he's discovered, it's just bad luck and not another stupid mistake.




Andar makes a break for it, but gets caught by a plant. Okay, maybe he is a little too stupid in this story.


Turok finds him and realizes they now really need the secret powder. He negotiates the the cavemen and, after saving them from a charging herd of iganodons, they tell him where to find the powder. They don't, though, tell him about the safe path. 




The unsafe way involves scaling a cliff and dealing with a flock of hungry pterodactyls. Fortunately, poison arrows continue to be the rock that smashes dinosaur scissors.




Turok frees Andar and, for bonus points, lures a hungry carnosaur into the plants unaffected by the powder. 

It is a fun story. As was true of nearly all of Newman's best Turok stories, it involves Turok using his head as well as his bow to triumph. Perhaps Andar does act a little too dumb this time around. But he is indeed young. I, of course, was a perfect little angel growing up, but who among the rest of you didn't occasionally act foolishly when you were a kid?


Next week, we'll visit again with the Fantastic Four for the beginning of a 4-part story arc.
 

Monday, February 17, 2025

Cover Cavalcade

 FEBRUARY IS THE ORIGINAL HAUNTED TANK MONTH!





From 1970: A Joe Kubert cover

Friday, February 14, 2025

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Sherlock Holmes: "Tell-Tale Pigeon Feathers" 1/21/46




The story starts in an unusual way, with Mrs. Hudson going to Mycroft rather than Sherlock with a problem. But Sherlock is soon involved in a case in which pigeon feathers may be the clue that keeps Dr. Watson out of jail.


Click HERE to listen or download. 

Wednesday, February 12, 2025

Valentine's Day Break

 

1953: Art by Pete Morisi

Sorry, no Wednesday or Thursday post this week. Tradition demands I pay attention to my wife.

Monday, February 10, 2025

Cover Cavalcade

 FEBRUARY IS THE ORIGINAL HAUNTED TANK MONTH!



A Joe Kubert cover from 1970. 

Friday, February 7, 2025

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Fort Laramie: "The Buffalo Hunters" 9/9/56



A pair of buffalo hunters are illegally hunting on reservation land. This is the sort of thing that can spark off a war.


Click HERE to listen or download.

Thursday, February 6, 2025

What the heck does "THRUSH" stand for?

 



It's my understanding that The Dagger Affair, by David McDaniel (1965) is the first of the Man from U.N.C.L.E. novels written after the series began to air--the first three (all very good) had only the series bible to work off of.


So this is the first one that has a chance to catch the full flavor of the TV series. I think it largely succeeds. 


The agents of U.N.C.L.E. normally battle the evil organization THRUSH. But now a mad scientist has created a competing evil organization called DAGGER. He's invented an energy dampener--a devise that does exactly what it says. It cancels out all energy--electrical, chemical, nuclear, etc--in its range. It can also be set to cancel biological energy--killing any living thing within its range. The scientist really is mad and plans to build a device big enough to wipe out life on Earth.


The first part of the book has Napoloen and Illya investigating; getting captured by THRUSH; getting captured by DAGGER; capturing a small version of the energy dampener; having this stolen by THRUSH; then getting it back.


Eventually, U.N.C.L.E. and THRUSH realize they have to team-up to stop DAGGER. THRUSH, after all, can't rule the world if the world is dead.


It's a fun premise and its very well-executed. The THRUSH agents with whom our heroes must work are great characters. There are several truly exciting action scenes. The plot unfolds in a logical manner. And the climatic battle against DAGGER (in which Napoleon's boss Mr. Waverly joins in) is excellent.


We also learn about the history of THRUSH--information that was never used in the series, but that I think is so cool that it should be considered canon (an opinion which I understand many fans of the show agree with). THRUSH stands for  "The Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity".  And the organization was formed in the late 19th Century from the remnants of Professor Moriarty's criminal organization after the Professor's death.


That's just cool.


You can read the Man from U.N.C.L.E. novels as ebooks HERE. McDaniel, by the way, wrote six of the 23 published U.N.C.L.E. novels and another unpublished one that is also available through this link. I am informed by fans of the novels that his novels are among the best of the series. Author John Peel wrote that McDaniel "was a fan of the show, and he knew exactly what made it work. Plus, he had a shameless sense of humor."

Wednesday, February 5, 2025

The Four Horsemen

 

cover art by Rich Buckler

Giant-Size Fantastic Four #3 (1974) is far from the best FF story of that era, but I like it anyways. The story (co-plotted by Gerry Conway and Marv Wolfman, with script by Wolfman) has a few problems, but Rich Buckler's art is imaginative and fun, making this a worthwhile read. (The Grand Comics Database states that Buckler got an uncredited assist from George Perez.)




The Four Horseman, riding their horses through space, are returning to Earth after being kicked off millennia ago by a more powerful race. (That other race is never identified--the Eternals, perhaps?) They need Earth because our "pointless planet" is a nexus from which they can then conquer other worlds. We get no further details on how this works exactly, but we don't really need one. It's a sound example of Comic Book Science.


The Horsemen have the traditional names: Pestilence, War, Famine and Death. Pestilence lands in New York and is soon spreading disease, rats and mutant humanoid minions around the city. The FF confront him, which leads to an epic Ben Grimm scene. It's Ben who finishes off Pestilence, refusing to give up even as he is quite literally disintegrating. 



By the way, there was a tendency in Marvel Comics at the time to reference current TV shows, movies and other bits of current pop culture. In the bottom left corner above, Ben makes one of the more obscure references I've ever run across. He mentions Ozzie's Girls, a revival of the old Ozzie and Harriet sitcom (1952-1966) in which the titular couple's sons had grown up and moved out, so they take in a couple of college girls as borders. It ran for one season in 1973/74.





Since it was still on the air when this issue was released in August 1974, perhaps its only obscure in retrospect. But I doubt many people would get the reference today. Anyway, if you are curious, you can watch the pilot episode HERE.

{One notable part is when the black girl calls about the room being rented, then the white girl shows up at the home first and Ozzie thinks she's the one who called and rents the room to her. When the black girl shows up (right after the 10 minute mark), her "I see" when told the room is rented is clearly because she assumes they don't want to rent to a black person. The confusion is soon worked out and the two girls become roommates, but for a relatively light-weight, escapist entertainment show, it's interesting to run across a subtle acknowledgement of real-world wrongs.}


But we haven't time for that now, since the FF is still working to save the world. The team splits up. Johnny and Medusa go after War, who has started an actual war between two nations in Africa.


There's a cool fight scene and some annoyingly heavy-handed narration about the evils of war (which is kind of hypocritical while the heroes are using violence as the only method available to save innocent lives) before War is taken out.



Reed and Ben go after Famine, who is causing a famine in Cambodia by preventing people from seeing the food all around them. This time, the cool fight scene doesn't have to work around awkward moralizing in the narrative and Famine is defeated.


The four rejoin to battle Death atop Mount Everest. The heroes have to fight death images of themselves, but win handily by switching opponents so no one has to face his or her own death.


This leads to an anti-climactic ending as Death vanishes. Apparently, the powerful aliens that originally chased the Horseman off Earth has set up protection devices to zap them away again if they returned.


So the story has a problem with its awkward moralizing and its ending, but I still like it. (Please note that I don't object to moral lessons in a story--its just that the section on War handles this badly.) The Horsemen are visually striking villains and Buckler's strong, imaginative art makes everything look cool. And Ben's scene in which he fights on even while disintegrating is both epic in of itself and a perfect representation of Ben's innate heroism. I know there are some fans of classic Marvel who consider this one of their favorite issues. Though I have some criticisms of it, I completely get that. The cool parts are definitely way cool.


Next week--well, I don't think we've visited Turok in awhile, so let's do that.
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