Friday's Favorite OTR

 Nick Carter: "Murder in a Decanter"  12/31/44

Nick is attending a boring dinner party. The boredom is lifted, though, when someone is murdered and the murder weapon is mysteriously missing.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

In the Mexican Quarter

 

"In the Mexican Quarter," by Tom Gill, was published in the June 1930 issue of Cosmopolitan. Normally, I don't jump from the pulp magazines to the more elite "slicks" for my 1930s fiction fix, but there was a time when the slicks occasionally published some worthwhile  fiction.

How did I end up searching out this particular story? I started watching a 1937 film called Border Cafe on the TCM app. The opening credits said it was based on this story, which I was able to locate online. Immediately, my innate genius grasped the possibilities. I could review the original prose story this week, then take a look at the movie next week. That is, if the story is worth reviewing.

Well, it is. It's narrated by an unnamed rancher who lives in Verde, TX, near the Mexican border. He meets a young man named Billy Whitney. Billy is from back East, the son of a senator and the scion of an influencial family that has churned out soldiers and statesmen for generations.

Well, Billy didn't want to be an important person. "I object to being forced into molds that don't fit," he explains. So he's come to Verde to essentially waste his life away.

But, though Billy may be a little resentful of his family, he still loves them. He writes back home, telling his parents that he's gone partners on a big ranch and that things are going well. He doesn't want them to worry. 

This comes back to bite him, though, when his parents write that they are coming for a visit. The narrator agrees to help Billy pretend that they are partners. But this plan goes partially awry when Billy's former girlfriend Claire arrives with Billy's parents. She's not fooled for a minute, though she goes along with it for the parents' sake. 

To a large extent, the story is predictable, up to the ending where Billy single-handedly chases after rustlers, proving his manhood and winning Claire's love. Pretty much as soon as Billy goes to work at the ranch as part of the con his running on his parents, we can predict that the hard work involved will be good for him and that redemption is right around the corner. 

But the prose reads very smoothly and the author presents the emotions involved effectively. Billy is shown to us in a way that causes us to empathize with him, even as we also realize he needs to buckle down and man up. Though his character arc is predictable, it is also engaging.

Next week, we'll see if the movie version manages to capture the same emotions. In the meantime, you can read the story online HERE. 

Willy Schultz, Part 1

 

cover art by Rocke Mastroserio

Recently, Dark Horse Books published the entire run of the "Lonely War of Capt. Willy Schultz" saga, which began in Charlton's Fightin' Army #76 (October 1967). Written by Will Franz and illustrated by Sam Glanzman, it's a brilliant war story about a man who ends up fighting for both the Americans and the Germans. 

(By the way, Schultz's name is misspelled on the cover.)

I've never had the opportunity to read the entire story before and I wasn't disappointed by the great plot construction, characterizations and anti-war themes. 

We pick up in that first story with Willy, a captain in the U.S. army, commanding a company of tanks. But his new C.O.--a general's son and obviously unqualified to command anything--rides along one day on patrol. When they encounter Germans, the C.O. refuses advice, gives the wrong order and gets everyone but himself and Willy killed.

What follows is a perfect storm of misunderstandings. Willy, understandably angry, threatens to kill the C.O. with a lugar he just picked up from a dead German. Another German actually shoots the C.O., then gets away. All of this is heard, but not seen, by two Americans in an approaching jeep. The jeep's driver is a man who hates Willy. The other is the general, who goes into a rage when he sees his son's body.

Willy is court-martialed for murder and sentenced to die. When the jeep carrying him to prison hits a mine, he gets a chance to make a run for it. He finds a dead German and switches uniforms. Willy speaks perfect German, so he comes up with a vague plan to hide out with the enemy.

When he joins a German column after its been strafed, he's struck with an empathy for the injured Germans, seeing them as fellow human beings rather than faceless enemies. The story does not yet delve into the issue of what these soldiers are fighting for, but it is obvious that these are not hard-core Nazis. They are just guys trying to survive.

Willy even begins to make friends with one of them. But later, an opportunity to blow up a fuel and ammunition dump presents itself. Willy does so, but is caught near the explosion and injured. The Germans don't realize he is the saboteur, though, and assume commandoes were responsible. Willy ends this segment in a German hospital, realizing he'll be shot as a spy if his real identity is uncovered, but shot as a murderer if he makes it back to American lines. He's truly alone.

It's a strong start to the saga, full of tension and a healthy cynicism about authority figures while effectively setting up the overall plot. Getting Willy convicted of murder in just a few panels is a little bit rushed, but (granting the storm of coincidences that occur at the "crime scene") everything still makes good story sense. 

The first two issues containing the Willy Schultz story are in the public domain, so you can read this one HERE.

We'll return to Willy in two weeks. Next week, Hawkman and Hawkgirl take on a ghost. 

Cover Cavalcade

 

March is TRIAL BY JURY month!

Superman? How could you? This is a 1968 cover by Neal Adams. 

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Lux Radio Theater: "Air Force" 7/12/43

The story of a B-17 bomber ordered to the Phillippines right after Pearl Harbor.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

And Be A Villain

 

A few weeks ago, my "Friday's Favorite OTR" post was an episode of Murder is My Hobby, in which a guest on a live radio broadcast is poisoned while the show is on the air.

Someone on Facebook posted a comment saying that he thought a Nero Wolf novel used the same premise. I've read all the Wolfe novels, but I've never re-read the series methodically. So it's been many years since I've read some of them and simply didn't remember this particular plot.

Well, by brilliant and beautiful wife Angela saw the comment and remembered the novel right away: And Be a Villain. Rex Stout wrote this one in 1948, during the run of Murder is My Hobby. Since the episode I highlighted is undated, it's impossible to know if it was broadcast before or after the Nero Wolfe tale. It's not impossible that the show's writers lifted the idea from the novel, though to be fair, they did wrap an original story around the concept. It could be just a coincidence. I suppose it's not impossible that Stout heard the episode and decided to improve on the premise with a better and more intricate plot. In any case, Murder is My Hobby was an entertaining but still second-tier OTR show. Rex Stout's novel are classics of the mystery genre. 

The novel is unique among most of the other entries in the series for several reasons. First, it's one of the few times that Wolfe goes out looking for a job because he needs the money. He's been hit with a big income tax bill and the fee he asks for in exchance for solving a recent murder will cover that bill.

Second, it's the only time I can think of when Wolfe, after uncovering a key fact, gives this information to Inspector Cramer and then sits back expecting the cops to finish the job. He assumes that the case can be wound up through regular police routine. When he's proven wrong, he gets involved again.

The case involves a guest on a radio show who is murdered on the air, during a bit when the host and her guests drink the product of one of their sponsers. The guest's bottle is poisoned.

It's Wolfe who eventually figures out that the poison was probably intended for the host, which naturally changes the direction of the police investigation. But when Cramer still hits a dead end, Archie uses a clever trick to play on Wolfe's ego and get the corpulent detective working again. Or rather, to get the corpulent detective to think about the case and get Archie to do the legwork.

Another murder, at first apparently unconnected, is carried out, leading to the possibility that the motive is linked to a cleverly run blackmail ring. At this point, Wolfe receives a vaguely threatening phone call from Arnold Zeck, a master criminal that Stout was gradually building up to be Wolfe's Professor Moriarty. 

It's only when a third person is abruptly murdered that Wolfe is able to link everything together and identify the killer. Arnold Zeck calls Wolfe one more time, foreshadowing the day when Wolfe will actually have to leave his brownstone and go into hiding while he deals with the master crook. 

All the usual strengths of Rex Stout's brilliant novels are here--Archie's humorous and mildly cynical narration, his interactions with Wolfe, and a well-constructed murder mystery with a satisfying denoument. And the unusual aspects--primarily Wolfe and Cramer playing nice together rather than clashing--adds additional spice to the tale. 

Reading a classic mystery always makes me want to solve a murder. But I never get to do so.

Night of the Stalker!

 

cover art by Neal Adams

 Detective Comics #439 (February-March 1974) was one of those awesome 100-pagers that DC used to do, often (as in this case) containing one original story and a bunch of reprints. Growing up, it was the reprints in these and in Marvel's Giant-Size books that first taught me so much about the history of the comic book universes I loved. 

Today, though, we're going to look at this issue's original story. "Night of the Stalker!" was written by Stevel Englehart, from a plot by Vin and Sal Amendola. Sal Amendola did the pencils. 

It's a pretty simple story. A bank robbery goes wrong and the robbers gun down a young, married couple, leaving a child weeping over the corpses of his parents.

Sound familar? Batman is close enough to witness this, but not close enough to stop it. He immediately takes a VERY personal interest, taking out one of the robbers at the scene while the other three speed off in the getaway car.

What follows is Batman stalking the remaining bad guys as they speed out of the city, nearly crash the car when a shadow seems to indicate Batman is on the roof, then jump out of the car to find him. He takes their car keys and manages to scare the snot out of them by just standing there. 

He dodges bullets, but apparently falls to his death when one of the robbers tackles him. The remaining two crooks recover the car keys and speed off, thinking they're safe. Silly crooks.

Batman chases one of the two remaining crooks into a shallow river, where he lets the guy briefly think that he (the crook) has just killed the superhero. His glee does not last long.

Batman confronts the last crook, who falls to his knees, sobbing that he never wanted to be involved in murder. Batman shows a modicum of mercy here, choosing not to terrorize him any longer. Back in Wayne Manor, Batman thinks about the crying child outside the bank and the crying young crook while looking at a portrait of his parents. He begins to cry himself.

That's the perfect ending to this story. Batman SHOULD be scary and relentless from the crooks' point-of-view, but 1970s Batman is my favorite iteration of the character in part because the writers understood he needed this human moments. The darkness inherent in the character had to be balanced by Bruce Wayne's humanity and his ability to still shed tears.

The cover is a fantastic example of Neal Adams' skill as a Batman artist. Sal Amendola does a bang-up job drawing this story, but that cover makes me wish we'd seen an Adams-illustrated version of it. I do realize, though, that this is an unfair, knee-jerk reaction. Amendola does make scary Batman look scary and crying Bruce Wayne look tragic. The artist does his job well.

Next week, we're going to begin a look at a superb WWII story arc published by Charlton beginning in 1967, but I think we'll intersperse that with looks at the various reprint stories from this issue. So get ready to be shoved from week to week from World War II to DC superheroes and back again. 

Cover Cavalcade

 

March is TRIAL BY JURY month!

This 1962 cover is by Jack Kirby.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Jeff Regan, Investigator: "The Lawyer and the Lady" 12/4/48

Someone is apparently trying to kill the International Detective Bureau's latest client. Regan, as usual, is caught in the crossfire.

Click HERE to listen or download.

Beachcomber in Space, Part 2

 

cover art by H.W. McCauley

Read/Watch 'em In Order #160

The second adventure of Ebbtide Jones ( "The Girl in the Whirlpool," written by Miles Shelton) appeared in the August 1940 issue of Fantastic Adventures. It picks up pretty much where the first adventure ended--with Ebbtide staying on the small "planet" of JONES, formed by detritus that floated in to an out-of-the-way area of space that has become a temporary gravitational eddy.

Ebb's friend, Stan Kendrick, will be coming back for Ebb soon. In the meantime, the beachcomber has been gathering a small fortune in equipment that floats in from around the solar system. This includes the chest of jewels recovered at the end of the first story. All together, Ebb has a small fortune in salvage. After Stan shuttles him back to Earth, he'll turn quite a profit.

But then a live girl floats in. Trixie Green is drop-dead gorgeous, but Ebb is uninterested in her. He notes the value of the spacesuit she's wearing, but estimates her value at $3.50. This goes up quite a bit when it turns out she can cook, but she's still not necessarily valuable enough to take up space in Stan's ship.

But trouble is afoot. Trixie ended up floating in space when a guy picked her up in a club back on Earth, took her for what she thought was an airplane ride, then got too forward with her when they reached space. She jumped out of the ship, but the guy might still be looking for her.

Ebb, of course, eventually falls for the girl, several times increasing the amount on the price tag he's hung on her. His gradual realization that he actual likes her and comes to see her as something more than a commodity is what drives the humor inherent in the story.

When the bad guy shows up, Ebb turns down a $2000 offer and fights for her. It's not a proprietous moment to start a fight, though. The gravitational eddy that held the small planet together is reversing itself sooner than Ebb thought it would. The planet begins to fly about, sending valuable salvage sailing away into space. Can Ebb save the girl AND save his chest of jewels? And why has he suddenly decided the bad guy is valuable salvage as well? And, finally, will Ebb's skill with a fishing pole prove useful at just the right moment?

The story never quite gets to laugh-out-loud level with the humor, but it's still fun. And that final fight scene, set on a tiny planet as that planet breaks up around them, is a unique action set-piece.

Click HERE to read this story online.

A Time Traveling Cat, Part 2

 

cover artist unknown

Artist Thurston Harper and an unknown writer brought Tommy the Time Traveller back for another (and final) adventure in America's Funniest Comics #2 (December 1944)

Judging from his two appearances, Tommy doesn't put a lot of thought into where he travels. He's struck by a thought--in this case, a thought about Ancient Egypt--and decides to go there. Dr. Goatee, who would be in prison on multiple charges of child endangerment if he didn't live in a Comic Book Universe--then lets Tommy borrow his time machine.

In the previous story, Tommy visited King Arthur, where all the knights were anthropomorphised dogs. In Ancient Egypt, though, the inhabitants are human. Comic book readers were still mostly kids in 1944, but it would have been known by then that a lot of guys in the military were reading comics. I wonder this was an attempt to toss our boys overseas a little eye candy.

Anyway, Tommy meets Cleopatra, who mistakes the cat for Julius Ceasar. Tommy doesn't know this and is just confused that a girl is hitting him with "mush" when he just wants to have adventures.

Cleo takes him to the arena, where some captured Phoenicians are about to get fed to the lions. Tommy jumps into the arena to help and gets a lucky break when the lions try to attack his shadow and knock themselves out against the arena wall. He then convinces Cleo to give football a try. It's violent, but nobody is likely to get killed.

The football game, complete with cheerleaders and modern equipment, continues apeace until the real Julius Caesar arrives. Condemned as an imposter (though Tommy didn't know Cleo thought he was Caesar), Tommy runs for it. Caesar follows, but gets knocked out in another slapstick accident.

By now, Ancient Egypt is definitely unsafe for Tommy. The time machine roars by to save him just befor Caesar's soldiers get him.

Once home, Tommy wants to see what cavemen were like. Sadly, Tommy and Dr. Goatee move into comic book limbo at this point, so the prehistoric adventure is one we'll never see.

Like the first Tommy adventure, this one is funny, drawn with charm, and contains a dollop of real adventure. It really is too bad Tommy didn't stick around. He was fun.

You can read this story online HERE. 

Next week, we'll visit with Batman.

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Episode #31: Victory Harben: Fires of Halos Part 2

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Episode #31: Victory Harben: Fires of Halos Part 2:   Here's Part 2 of our discussion of "Victory Harben: Fires of Halos," by Christopher Paul Carey. Click HERE for the audio ve...

Cover Cavalcade

 

March is TRIAL BY JURY month!

Here's a 1964 cover by Sheldon Moldoff

Friday's Favorite OTR

 The Whistler: "The Black Box" 4/28/47

The choreographer of a ballet company has reason to destroy the career of the star male dancer. But she can't destroy a career if she's dead, can she?

Click HERE to listen or download. 

We Were There, Part 1

 

The We Were There books was series a of 36 novels for kids written between 1955 and 1963. There was one (We Were There at the Battle of Lexington and Concord) in my school library when I was in elementary school. I loved it and, when I rediscovered it as an adult, I was impressed with how good it was. As we have discussed before, I had remarkably good taste in books as a child. 

Aside from Lexington and Concord, I have run across The Battle of the Bulge and The Oregon Trail in used book stores over the last few years. I continued to be impressed with the good prose, solid historical accuracy (each book had an historian working with the writer) and the willingness to occasionally present difficult and morally uncertain situations. So, when I saw nine of them on the shelf in a Goodwill bookstore, I snatched them all up.

It gave me an idea. I have been a guest speaker at both Daughters of the American Revolution and Sons of the American Revolution meetings. My wife Angela is a leader in the local DAR chapter (which was my connection for becoming a speaker). I told her that if they ever had an open slot, I could do a talk on children's and young adult novels dealing with the American Revolution. This would include Esther Forbes' Johnny Tremain, Howard Fast's April Morning and the four We Were There novels dealing with the Revolution or the events leading up to it.

Angela thinks its a good idea, but there's no certainty that I'll eventually give this talk. So, as I read each of these novels, I'm going to write about them here. That way, if the talk does come up in the future, I'll have these posts as notes to use. 

Normally, I'd write about them in chronological order according to when the historical events being depicted happened. But I had to get two of the We Were There books via inter-library loan. I'll need to return these soon, so I'll be reviewing them first, beginning with We Were There with Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys, by Robert N. Webb (1956).

Each of the WWT books feature a boy and a girl, usually in their early teens, as the protagonists, giving the young reader point-of-view characters they could identify with. In this case, the story is told through the eyes of 15-year-old Tom Botsford and his 13-year-old sister Lucy. They live with their parents on a farm across a lake from Fort Ticondaroga.

Tom meets Ethan Allen when the big, bosterious leader of the Green Mountain Boys saves him from a mountain lion. The year is 1774, so the Revolution is still a year away. But Allen and his Boys have work to do. 

There was a land dispute between New Hampshire and New York, caused by contradictory land grants issued by various English kings over the years. The Botsfords and other settlers are in conflict with "Yorkers," militia and surveyors from New York who are trying to run them off their land. Tom ends up working with Allen's men, at one point helping to save his own farm from being burned.

All of this helps establish the personalities of the Botsfords and of Allen, but I'm also impressed that the author succinctly explains a complicated political situation (which was eventually resolved years later by the formation of Vermont) and use that to drive the plot. The story even briefly delves into the moral complexities of the situation, as Allen and his men eventually ride off to burn down a few Yorker farms and drive those families off the land. 

The book also does a great job of capturing Ethan Allen's larger-than-life personality. Though it does clean up his language. In fact, when Angela and I were discussing the book just before I read it, we were wondering if the plot would be driven by Tom being taught by Allen to cuss and drink. 

Eventually, the war begins and the focus of the Green Mountain Boys turns to capturing Fort Ticanderoga. Young Lucy Botsford has been to the fort to sell them cakes and bread made by her mom. So now she goes back one more time (the British troops haven't yet heard about Lexington and Concord) to sell some more cakes, but also to count how many troops are stationed there. Tom in the meantime, is on guard duty when he encounters an arrogant colonel named Benedict Arnold, who has been sent to take command. 

Arnold clashes with Allen over who is in command (an event that did happen in real life), with Allen eventually threatening to hog tie Arnold unless he leaves the issue alone until after the fort is taken.

Arnold's betrayal of his country is still a couple of years in the future. Here, we get a realistic snapshot of who he was at the time--an arrogant but incredibly brave and capable soldier. The book doesn't cover his later activities, but Arnold will be responsible for saving the Revolution at least twice before his ego led him down a treacherous path.

The Green Mountain Boys cross the lake at night in rough weather, attacking the fort and taking it without the loss of a single man. 

Later events are summarized at the end of the novel--Allen gets captured by the British while leading an attack into Canada, spending three years as a prisoner before being exchanged. Henry Knox, one of Washington's aides, arrives and hauls the cannon to the Continental Army besieging Boston (an incredible feat that could have been the plot of a We Were There book in of itself). And Tom Botsford rides off to join the army and fight for his country. That final scene is genuinely touching. Tom's mom is worried sick about him. His father is worried also, but proud of his son as well. It's a legitimately touching ending. Tom is doing the right thing, but he's riding into an incredibly dangerous situation and there's no guarentee he'll survive.

So We Were There with Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys is a kids' book written with intelligence, telling an exciting story in clear prose without dumbing down either the characterizations or the events. 

In a few weeks, we'll examing the WWT book dealing with Yorktown. Darn Inter-library loans!--forcing me to read these books out of proper historical order! Civilization may collapse, but there's nothing to be done about it.

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Episode #31: Victory Harben: Fires of Halos Part 2

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Episode #31: Victory Harben: Fires of Halos Part 2:   Here's Part 2 of our discussion of "Victory Harben: Fires of Halos," by Christopher Paul Carey. Click HERE for the audio ve...

A Time Traveling Cat, part 1

 

cover art by Victor Pazmino

SPECIAL NOTE: Last week, I said I would talk about a story in which a squirrel attempts to skip school. It's a story I found online in a comic book that has fallen into the public domain. But, after reading it, I failed to make a note of the comic book's title. Now I can't find the darn story! Too many funny animal comics were being published at the time and that naughty squirrel is thus able to hide from me. So I'm moving on to a time-traveling cat. 

America's Funniest Comics #1 (Sept. 1944) was the first in that title's two issue run. Both issues include a story about Tommy the Time Traveler, a young cat who has access to a time machine. Well, it's not every day you stumble across a time traveling cat. So we'll cover his premiere adventure this week and his final adventure next week. The artist who chronicled Tommy's adventures is Thurston Harper. The writer is unknown.

Tommy has an interest in history. At the museum one day, he sees a suit of armor that had belonged to a knight named Watts Cookin. This night is said to have one day disappeared from King Arthur's court and was never seen again. Anxious to find out what happened to the knight, Tommy asks to borrow Dr. Goatee's time machine. 

What's interesting is that Dr. Goatee implies that Tommy has borrowed the time machine in the past and already had some adventures. This comic was put out by one of the many small publishers who came and went during the 1940s. It's possible that Tommy had showed up in another, largely forgotten book before this. But if so, I can find no record of it.

Of course, if this is Tommy's first recorded adventure, then the "he's done this before" vibe allows the writer to get the backstory out of the way in just one panel, leaving plenty of room for the actual adventure. If I had to guess, I'd go with this being Tommy's first appearance.

Anyways, Tommy is soon dressed in Watts Cookin's armor and winging his way into the past on the uniquely designed time machine. He reaches Camelot in 592 AD and greets the knights of the Round Table (who were busy playing jacks) with the phrase "What's cookin'?"

Tommy's odd speech patterns confince the knights he's a witch and they drag him outside to burn him. We learn here that the time machine is sentient, has it clobbers the knights and saves Tommy.

Tommy manages to convince the knights that he's friendly. He rides out with them on a quest to defeat a giant and the giant's pet dragon.

When they see the dragon, Tommy assumes it's a fake, because dragons exist only in fairy tales. Well, it turns out they also exist in stories starring anthropomorphic animals. The dragon is real, but Tommy's sword blows tickle it enough to make it run off.

Tommy gets rid of the giant by hanging a large mirror in front of its cave, frightening the big guy into running off. I have no idea where Tommy got the mirror.

The two monsters soon return, though, convincing Tommy its time to jump into his time machine and fly home. It's only when he gets back that he realizes that the knights of the Round Table thought Tommy's name was "Watts Cookin" based on how he initially greeted them. The knight was Tommy all along.

The story is fast-paced and fun, effectively blending silly humor with adventure. Tommy, in his eagerness to time travel and learn more about history, is an appealing protagonist. We'll join him next week for his second (and sadly last) adventure.

Click HERE to read the story online.

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Episode #30: Victory Harben Fires of Halos Part 1

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Episode #30: Victory Harben Fires of Halos Part 1:   The first of two episodes in which Tim, Scott and Jess will be discussing the New ERB Universe book "Victory Harben: Fires of Halos,&...

Cover Cavalcade

 

March is TRIAL BY JURY month!

Here's a Curt Swan cover from 1962.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Duffy's Tavern: "Duffy's Draft Board" 2/2/51

Archie lies about his age when he attempts to hit on a woman. The domino effect of this leads to Archie getting drafted.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

Beachcomber in Space, Part 1

 

cover art by H.W. McCauley

Read/Watch 'em In Order #159

I had mentioned in the last "In Order" entry that there was one more Hok story to go, published after the author's death. But when I found a copy online, I saw that it was the story of how Hok met his wife. Unsold in Wellman's lifetime, he later incorporated the events of this story into the first published Hok tale.

So we are done with Hok. We therefore jump from the distant past to the far-flung future to hang out with Ebbtide Jones--a beachcomber who ends up working in space.

His first adventure appears in the November 1939 issue of Amazing Stories. "Whirlpool in Space," written by Miles Shelton, explains that Ebb never does anything other than sit on the beach and wait for wreckage to drift in. Salvaging such wreckage is how he eeks out a living.

But Ebb's friend Stan Kendrick is a scientist who has figured out that there is a sort-of gravity whirlpool out in space. Space wreckage would drift to this spot--tons of stuff just waiting to be salvaged. Stan's girl has taken a job as a flight attendant on a space ship, so Stan has nothing holding him on Earth. He and Ebb are soon zipping through space in a small ship. 

They find the whirlpool and are soon at work, collecting valuable salvage.

But trouble is afoot. A ship (with Stan's ex-gal aboard) is transporting an exiled king--and the king's priceless jewels--to Venus. The crew of that ship is not above acts of murder to get their hands on those jewels.

So murder, plots and counter-plots soon lead to the jewels "washing up" in the whirlpool, but the bad guys also showing up to get the loot themselves. Stan tries to do some swashbuckling to save the girl and stop the villains, but it's Ebbtide's quick thinking (and a salvaged Space Cannon) that saves the day.

The story is fun and Ebb, who stays at the salvage point at the story's conclusion, is an unusual hero. Uneducated and single-minded, he is able to carry this short, light-hearted tale along in an enjoyable manner.

By the way, the author has the characters lifting/moving large objects easily because of zero gravity. He was either deliberately cheating for the sake of the story or he didn't realize that "weight" and "mass" are different and moving big, heavy stuff isn't that easy in space. But what the hey--the story is fun enough to get away with a little physics silliness. And, as I said, it's possible the author did this deliberately just to keep the story fun.

You can read the story online HERE. 

There were four Epptide stories all-together, so we'll be visiting with him again soon.

There's No Nice Way to Say It--Dullwit the Fox IS Dumb!

 

cover art by Bill Walton

Adventures in Wonderland #1 (April 1955) includes the story "Dullwit, the Dumb Fox," with art by Dick Rockwell. And, by golly, there really ISN'T a nice way to say it. Dullwit is an idiot.

We meet him on the way to school, dressed in a new coat and carrying his lunch. But a crow tricks Dullwit, stealing the lunch. Then a couple of hedgehogs trick him, stealing his coat. When he comes home from school that night, he has a note from the teacher saying he's too dumb for school. Mom briefly tries to console and encourage him, but then resignedly tells him "I guess you are dumb!"

Not exactly in the running for "Mom of the Year," is she?

Actually, the standard of intelligence among the foxes isn't that high. A fox named Dapper Dan is luring foxes into traps, so that their pelts can later be sold. We see him trick one fox into a trap by promising him he'll find a money tree in that spot.

Dapper Dan lures Dullwit into a trap by promising him some "smart juice." But Dullwit is too small for the trap, gets loose and stumbles across the cage holding the captured foxes. He's too dumb to figure out how to unlatch the cage. Because he's cold without his coat, he starts a fire. In a panic that the surrounding woods will catch fire, Dapper Dan and his bear partner run into the trap that had been meant for Dullwit. 

Later, fox police officers, searching for the kidnap victims, find everyone. The foxes are freed, while the bad guys are taken off to jail. Dullwit, however unintentionally, is responsible for capturing Dan and the bear, so all the kids who had been picking on him now try to make him smarter.  They start with trying to teach him 2 + 2, which he'd been struggling with earlier. And maybe--just maybe--he starts to learn.

It's a silly story, but silly in a good way. Rockwell's art is charming--the story does succeed in getting us to sympathize with Dullwit when everyone (even his Mom) is picking on him. And it's nice to see all the other fox children joining together to help him learn in the end. This is a story that could only have been told years ago, since nowadays we automatically wonder if Dullwit has a learning disability. But such things weren't understood in 1955. And besides, the other foxes don't come out looking that bright either. Falling for the old "You'll find a money tree" trick? Come on! I myself haven't fallen for that one in months!

Click HERE to read this story online. 

Next week, we go from a dumb fox to a smart squirrel--who is trying to come up with a plan to skip school.