Friday's Favorite OTR

 The Chase: "Penny-Pinching Boarding House Owners" 2/8/53

You might think that stealing money from a dead man would be a safe way of getting rich, but you'd be wrong.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

Short Story Genre Survey, Part 7

 

Cover artist uncredited

Today, we turn to a life of crime.

Sports

Adventure

Mystery

Crime

Horror

Science Fiction

Fantasy

Western

War

In the 1950s, there was a surfeit of writers who could turn out crackerjack hard-boiled crime stories on a regular basis. It was a Golden Age for the genre.

One of those writers is Gil Brewer. His story "With This Gun" is an example of how good he was. Published in the March 1951 issue of Detective Tales, the story is just eight pages long. Within that eight pages, Brewer introduces and defines the key characters, sets up the situation and brings it all to a satisfying conclusion.

Danny is a man who had done some petty thefts when he was young. His older brother Tad was already a crook, but didn't want Danny going down the same road. So he beat the crap out of Danny.

After a stint in the army, Danny opens a bar and does okay for himself. But then he meets the sexy bombshell Joan. Soon, Danny is in love with her, but she wants more out of life than what Danny can give her. The small bar isn't enough. But what if Danny robs the weekly receipts of a swanky beach club that's near his bar? THEN Joan will be happy and they can get married.

That Joan is a double-crossin' femme fatale is obvious to any reader. So you read along expecting her to either run out on Danny with the money or kill him. But her plan is actually more complex. And perhaps Danny's brother Tad might have a role to play in all this.

It's a great story, siccinct without being rushed with an unexpected twist at the end. It's a prime example of exactly why the 1950s was indeed a Golden Age for hard-boiled fiction.

I'm afraid I don't have a link to find this one online. It is included in the superb anthology of Brewer's fiction Redheads Die Quickly.

Basil The Royal Cat

 

cover art by Tom DeAngelo

Like Travelin' Toughy; like Beanbags; like Sir Spot the Lion-Hearted Leopard; like Tommy the Time-Travelin' Cat; like Super Rabbit. Basil the Royal Cat had a tragically short career (4 issues) before disappearing into Comic Book Limbo.

Basil's first issue (January 1953) starts off with a fun story that effectively introduces us to the protagonist. Basil is king of a nation of cats. He wants to impress the Princess, because he likes her.

He shares his concern with Fagin, his prime minister. Fagin, though, sees this as an opportunity to do away with Basil and take over the kingdom. He proposes that the king fight Leo the Unbeaten Lion in the Arena. But he won't really fight Leo. Instead, Fagin will put on a lion costume and throw the fight.

Of course, Fagin is planning on allowing the real Leo to fight the unsuspecting Basil.

Basil, who doesn't come across as the brightest bulb in the lamp, falls for this. He enters the Arena during the Games, announcing that he will fight Leo armed with only a chair. Fagin doesn't even wait for the seemingly inevitable conclusion. 

Basil wins via pure dumb luck. He does indeed impress the Princess, then (still having no idea Fagin set him up) goes back to the palace to see Fagin. Fagin's parrot rats out the rotten prime minister. Fagin runs for it. Basil finds out he fought a real lion and faints.

The unidentified writer and artist Tony DeAngelo gave us a charming, funny tale with a protagonist who might be less than competent but is certainly likeable. Basil's career, as I said, will be short. But like so many other short-lived comic book characters, the world is better because of his existence. 

Next week--oh, what the heck. I like Basil. We'll take a look at another of his adventures next week. 

Cover Cavalcade

  JUNE IS AVENGERS vs JLA MONTH!!!

February 1976: The Avengers cover is by Gil Kane and the JLA cover by Dick Giordano.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Black Museum: "The Canvas Bag" 1952

A woman makes an unwise decision regarding what man she runs off with.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

Short Story Genre Survey, Part 6

 

cover artist unidentified

Today, we ride out to the Wild West.

Sports

Adventure

Mystery

Crime

Horror

Science Fiction

Fantasy

Western

War

Elmore Leonard's sparse, powerful prose made just about every short story he wrote a fascinating and engrossing read. He dived right into a story, pulling the reader in with him and not letting that reader go until the story ended,

For example, there's "Apache Medicine" (originally titled "Medicine"). Published in the May 1952 issue of Dime Western Magazine, it starts with an army scout named Kleecan meeting a drunken Indian while out on the trail.

The Indian is Juan Pony, the beloved son of Pondichay. Pondichay is a skilled warrior and leader who has only recently been brought back to the reservation at the cost of 41 dead soldiers and civilians, so getting him mad again would not be a good idea.

But Juan is drunk and feeling bloodthirsty. Kleecan, defending himself, has no choice but to kill him.

He buries the body, but knows it's likely that Pondichay will eventually find the grave and want vengeance. Kleecan, though, doesn't have that much time to worry about it before he's taken hostage by four outlaws who force him to be their guide.

This, though, might be a good thing. Kleecan has two problems--Pondichay and the outlaws. But, if can work things correctly, he might be able to use the latter problem to solve the former.

It's a short story--only 10 pages as reprinted in The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard. But it doesn't feel rushed or abrupt. Leonard was a master of picking the exact right words to tell a story without picking too many words. In these ten pages, he tells a story that properly introduces the characters and gives us a proper beginning, middle, and very satisfying ending.

You can read the story yourself HERE.

Blowing up Yet Another Super Weapon!

 

cover art by Walt Simonson

Writer David Michelinie and artist Walt Simonson bring this fun and exciting two-parter to a close with Star Wars #52 (October 1981).

Remember where we were? Luke, Leia, the droids and Chewie are aboard the Tarkin, the Empire's new superweapon. They want to destroy it. Darth Vader is also aboard and, sensing Luke's presence, is setting a trap. A cadre of Imperial officers, tired of their comrades regularly getting force-choked by Vader, are planning to assassinate him.

In this issue, we learn that Lando, who had not been assigned to the mission, stowed away on the Millennium Faclon to prove he is indeed now a loyal member of the Rebellion.

This latter plot twist is a happy one, as Lando manages to run a con on some stormtroopers to keep them from confiscating the ship.

Aboard the Tarkin, the Rebel party splits up. Chewie and the droids are to take out the power source for the tractor beam, which Chewie does in a magnificent manner--he throws a stormtrooper into the generator. 

Leia is to secure an escape pod for leaving the ship. She doesn't have as much luck. Though she kills a number of stormtroopers, she has to run for it.

Luke is taking an explosive to the reactor room that powers the superweapon. Vader is waiting for him, but one of those dissatisfied officers opens an airlock in an attempt to blow Vader into space. Both he and Luke manage to claw their way to safety, but Luke has lost his chance to sabotage the weapon.

With some help from R2, who plugs into the ship's computer and uses a deluge of fire-fighting foam to help Luke escape from stormtroopers, everyone rejoins near the hangar deck. 

They steal a transport and escape the Tarkin. Lando, in the Falcon, saves them from some TIE fighters and takes them aboard. Vader comes after them with his personal fighter, but Luke improvises a tactic that leaves Vader's ship damaged. 

The Tarkin attempts to destroy the Falcon with the superweapon, but it turns out that Leia, while running from the escape pods, had taken an opportunity to rewire the weapon. It essentially backfires and blows up the Tarkin.

As I mentioned last week, Star Wars Expanded Universe stories revisited the "Empire has a new superweapon" idea too often, but individual examples of this were often great stories in and of themselves. THIS is a great story. The action aboard the Tarkin is fast-paced, exciting and allows eash of the protagonists to show off his or her skills. Lando's surprise inclusion fits into the tale perfectly. The idea of Imperial officers wanting to kill Vader because he's always killing them is an excellent idea. Simonson's art continues to bring this version of the Star Wars universe to vivid life. 

And Chewie destroying the tractor beam by throwing a stormtrooper into it is the best thing ever.

Next week, we'll return to Earth and visit Basil the Royal Cat.

Cover Cavalcade

  JUNE IS AVENGERS vs JLA MONTH!!!

From February 1975. Nick Cardy drew the JLA cover and Ron Wilson drew the Avengers.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Dragnet: "The Big Press" 6/15/50

Women are getting mugged and beaten by the same two guys. Friday is tasked with catching them.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

Short Story Genre Survey, Part 5

 

Sports

Adventure

Mystery

Crime

Horror

Science Fiction

Fantasy

Western

War

I've added a category. Today, we'll be looking at a mystery that is a traditional whodunit. I realized that we also need a category for hard-boiled crime stories. Some of them do have a whodunit element, but its not a necessary component and I think you can consider traditional mysteries and noirish crime tales to be separate genres.

Anyway, as I said, we'll be looking at a traditional whodunit--this one by the Queen of Whodunits, Agatha Christie. Gee whiz, the woman was brilliant. Her mysteries are fair-play. The clues are always there for us to see. But they are so casually dropped into the story that we easily miss them.

"A Christmas Tragedy" (originally titled "The Hat and the Alibi") was published in the January 1930 issue of The Story-Teller. It's part of a series of stories in which the clever Miss Marple is at a gathering with friends. In each story, a friend tells of an experience that includes a mystery. Miss Marple, of course, inevitably figures out the mystery part of it.

This time, it's Miss Marple's turn to tell a tale. And it's a good one. She tells about a time that she realized a husband was planning to murder his wife and make it look like an accident. But she has no proof and knows the wife won't believe her.

Then the wife was murdered. But it's not an accident. It's obviously a murder. She was bashed over the head in her hotel room.

But the husband has a solid alibi. He couldn't have done it. It was, the police conclude, a burglar she caught in the room.

This doesn't sit well with Miss Marple. But she concedes that the husband does indeed have an alibi for the time his wife was murdered.

Or so it seems...

It's a story I can't summarzie any further without spoilers. The clues are there and the solution is clever and satsifying. This is the sort of puzzle that Christie did better than anyone else. I'm afraid I don't have a link to take you directly to the story this time, but its worth searching out. It's available in the anthologies The Thirteen Problems and The Complete Short Stories of Agatha Christie.

Yet Another Imperial Super Weapon!

 

cover art by Walt Simonson

After the release of The Empire Strikes Back, Marvel's Star Wars comic was in an interesting place. The writers would have no idea how the cliffhanger of Han being captured and frozen would play out. They had no idea what position either the Rebels or the Empire would be in when the next movie eventually came out. So the comic had to come up with good stories that didn't upset the overall continuity too much. Sadly, they had to also avoid using Han Solo. 

It's notable that they still succeeded in telling some good Star Wars stories. In Star Wars #51 (September 1981), writer David Michelinie and artist Walt Simonson give us the first half of a pretty nifty two-parter.

An X-Wing with a dead pilot reaches its base ship. The pilot had been on a spy mission and set the X-Wing's course before he died, knowing the information canister he had was vitally needed by the Rebellion.

What's in that canister? It's a minor irony of the comic that we find out the Empire isn't building a second Death Star (though we learn in the next movie that they were), but are taking the Death Star's planet-destroying laser and strapping engines and defensive systems to it. Same idea, but more compact and defensible. The new weapon is called the Tarkin. Though why you would name it after the ol' Grand Moff after the Death Star was destroyed on his watch is an open question.

If I might digress for a moment, the expanded Star Wars universe really did overdo the notion of the Empire continually building superweapons. The idea is revisited in a number of novels. If the sequel trilogy produced in the 2010s really existed (and we all know now that these films were a collective nightmare that DON'T REALLY EXIST), then we'd have to add the sun-destroying whatever-it-was from The Force Awakens to the list. But many of these stories were individually good, such as the one we are reviewing here.

It also gives Simonson a chance to draw a fantastic full-page panel image of the Tarkin. Simonson was the perfect artist for Star Wars. Or, for that matter, just about any science fiction comic. His imagination and artistry brings SF worlds to vivid life. 

It's decided that the rebels who escaped the Death Star were the perfect commandos to sneak about the Tarkin and somehow destroy it from within. Leia and Luke (each with one of the droids) are on separate missions to find a location for a new Rebel base after the evacuation of Hoth. Chewbacca is with Lando on the Millennium Falcon, searching for Boba Fett and Han. Each group has a mini-adventure of their own before being recalled for their new mission.

Lando is left behind, with a scene that tells us not everyone trusts him after his betrayal of Han on Bespin. The others travel to a spaceport from which workers are being transported to the Tarkin. They mug a couple of workers for uniforms and Luke uses the Force to convince a Stormtrooper they are all on the passenger manifest so they can board the next shuttle to the Tarkin.

But Vader is aboard the Tarkin as well and he senses Luke's presence. And, to add to the complexity of the situation, the issue ends with a panel that tells us a bunch of Imperial officers, sick of Vader's habit of killing anyone who makes a mistake, plan to assassinate the Sith Lord. 

It's a good story with a great setup for the next issue. Simonson's art is perfect. The mini-adventures might have existed because the page count would have been short otherwise, but they are fun in and of themselves. They also give each of the protagonists a chance to shine. Besides, in Star Wars, a hero really can't go anywhere without getting into some sort of adventure. It's that sort of galaxy.

It's a story set when the original SW heroes were still heroes, not grumpy, cynical old men. It's a story written during a time when Star Wars was still fun.

We'll look at Part 2 next week. 

Cover Cavalcade

  JUNE IS AVENGERS vs JLA MONTH!!!

From February 1974. The JLA cover is by Nick Cardy; the Avengers by Jim Starlin.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Suspense: "A Week Ago Wednesday" 11/29/45

A woman comes home to discover she's lost a week of her life--and according to the newspaper, she's been murdered by her husband.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

Short Story Genre Survey, Part 4

 

This week, we look at a war story.

Sports

Adventure

Mystery

Horror

Science Fiction

Fantasy

Western

War

It is shameful that William Chamberlain's fiction (war-themed and Westerns) are out of print. The guy was good. A career military officer who retired as a general in 1946, he often wrote what he knew. Much of his military fiction is told from the point-of-view of an officer--usually a commanding officer--and dealt with matters of leadership and responsibility. At the same time, he didn't forget about the grunts, making sure he humanized the noncoms and privates as well.

"Hard-Luck Regiment" is a solid example of how good he is. Originally published in the September 22, 1951 issue of The Saturday Evening Post, it was later reprinted in the 1964's More Combat Stories of World War II and Korea, the second of two anthologies collecting Chamberlain's short fiction. This book was reprinted as a paperback in 1969 under the title The Zone of Sudden Death.

It's January 1945 and American troops are advancing into the Huertgen Forest, a real-life campaign that turned into a bloodbath. Maj. Clay Daggett--new to combat--has just become the executive officer of a battalion in the 26th Regiment, which has a reputation for hard luck.

The reputation seems to be well-earned. The regiment captures a couple of towns, but takes heavy losses and one of the towns is retaken. The regiment's commander, Dan Sharkey, wants to counterattack, figuring that this unexpected move and the morning fog will mean the Germans will be caught with their pants down.

Daggett, who now commands a battalion because the original C.O. was killed, thinks this plan is nuts. When orders arrive ordering the regiment to retreat and promoting Sharkey to general, Daggett is relieved. No suicide attack now.

But Sharkey has been with the regiment since the Great War. He knows what they can do. He knows the hard-luck reputation comes from the regiment getting hard missions--but also accomplishing those missions. Daggett thinks he's making a horrible decision, but he doesn't know the regiment like Sharkey.

It's a strong story, setting up the premise effectively, giving us supporting characters among the enlisted men so we never forget what's at stake, and introducing themes about inspirational leadership into the tale. The combat sequence is short, but effective. Not everyone we've met will be alive at the end and the success of the mission is very uncertain for a time, but we learn a thing or two about leading men from the front.

"Hard-Luck Regiment" is typical of the quality of Chamberlain's work. He really does need to be brought back into print.

Man-Wolf Goes to Space, Part 4

 

cover art by George Perez

Marvel Premiere #46 (February 1979) brings Man-Wolf's epic Space Opera adventure to a close. The script is still by David Kraft. For this final issue, George Perez does the breakdowns and Ricardo Villamonte does the finished art.

We left off last time with Man-Wolf and one companion (Gorjoon) seeking to rescue their companions from the palace of Tyrk, the ruthless dictator. 

The trouble is that Tyrk's palace floats in the air well above them.

But the moonstone is still increasing Man-Wolf's strength. Using this strength means that a rope tied to a spear will give them a way to climb up. 

There's some great dialogue between Man-Wolf and the scared but still determined Gorjoon during the sequence, adding a little bit of humor to the otherwise tense situation. But when they reach the palace, things get tense once again. His companions who were captured in the previous issue are chained and about to be tortured. Man-Wolf violently objects to this and soon, after freeing some other prisoners as well, he's leading the good guys in a charge towards Tyrk's throne room.

But the charge is stopped dead when they reach the throne room. Over the last few issues of this story, there's been a sub-plot set back on Earth in which someone has kidnapped John's girlfriend Kristine Saunders. Now we find out that it was Tyrk who did that kidnapping.

Man-Wolf has a choice. Surrender or watch the woman he loves die. (Tyrk, of course, is planning on killing her no matter what.)

Man-Wolf opts to take a third option--allowing himself to access the full god-powers of the stone. Soon, stuff starts exploding.

It turns out, though, that only the bad guys blew up. Kristine is safe and the dimension is free from its evil ruler. 

There's one more scare before the story ends. Kristine goes through a portal back to Earth. But before Man-Wolf can follow, a not-quite-dead Tyrk destroys the portal. At first, it seems John Jameson is getting the tragic ending that all werewolf characters seemed destined to get. But John is able to use the last of his god powers to force himself through the dimensional barrier to Earth.

Hey, a werewolf gets a happy ending! 

Kraft and the artists bring this epic to a satisfying conclusion. Villamonte does justice to Perez's breakdowns, bringing the well-written story to vivid life. And the happy ending fits. Not every werewolf story has to end tragically. This time, the happy ending is earned.

What'll we look at next week? Well, with Disney doing such a good job of destroying Star Wars in modern day, it might be nice to look back at a time when Star Wars was still fun. 

Cover Cavalcade

 JUNE IS AVENGERS vs JLA MONTH!!!

From February 1973: The JLA cover is by Nick Cardy and the Avengers by Rich Buckler. 

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Escape: "Seven Hours to Freedom" 11/3/50

A commercial fishing boat is hijacked by escaping convicts. The two-man crew is given a choice: Die now, or take the convicts to Mexico and die later.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

Cover Cavalcade

 JUNE IS AVENGERS vs. JLA MONTH!!!

Two Neal Adams covers, both in issues cover dated February 1972.