Window War

cover art by Joe Kubert

In many of the approximately 800 billion war stories Bob Kanigher wrote for DC Comics, he was not above using a gimmick upon which to build a particular story. Sometimes, those gimmicks were a bit odd. For instance, the cover story from G.I. Combat #73 (June 1959) was keyed off two friends who used to do a lot of window shopping in civilian life, with one of them always complaining that he could never afford to buy all the wonderful stuff kept behind the glass.

So naturally, when the two men are fighting in France, they keep running into less-than-wonderful things behind windows. While on patrol through a bombed-out town, they run into a sniper and a German who likes to drop hand grenades down on the enemy.

So the two friends are happy when their unit moves into a forest. No windows here!

Well, that's not quite right, is it? The gun slit on a pillbox is a sort of window. As are the view slits on a tank they run into not long after.




So the story is definitely gimmicky. But that's actually okay, because Kanigher's plot construction and Ross Andru's excellent art help make "Window War" a good story with several very tense and exciting moments. Several pages in which the two soldiers are pinned down by a tank and then realize they are out of bazooka ammunition is particularly good.

When the fighting moves back into a town, the soldiers get a chance to be inside a window looking out, but even this proves to be dangerous.





The lesson we learn? Windows are booby traps no matter what, but there's no way to avoid them and soldiers just have to play the hand they are dealt. Remember that the next time you are looking at that cool thing behind the window and can't afford to buy it. At least the Wehrmacht isn't dropping hand grenades on your head.

Next week, we'll visit with a forgotten Western hero from Charlton comics.

Cover Cavlacade

If fiction has taught us nothing else, it's that you never get a hand transplant and use the hand of a murderer. That never ends well.

Friday's Favorite OTR

Casey, Crime Photographer: “Bad Little Babe” 3/2/50

Casey was usually a fairly traditional mystery, but this episode has a more hard-boiled feel to it than usual. Casey’s trying to get the goods on a gangster who murdered a judge. At the same time, he’s hoping to talk some sense into the late judge’s daughter, who is dating her father’s alleged killer and seems to be enjoying her walk on the wild side of life.



The episode centers around the question of whether the judge’s daughter has really gone bad. It’s a question to which the answer might end up getting Casey killed at the episode’s climax, which manages to pile several plot twists atop one another to create an effective sense of real danger. It all makes for a very enjoyable tale.

Click HERE to listen or download

Plez Spurlock vs. Fat Sam Trigg

"It was hotter than the hubs of fury that late-August afternoon when Young Dave Mohawk pulled rein on the south lip of Hell Dive Pass."

Read that sentence at the beginning of a story and you just GOTTA keep reading, don't you? It's not in the same class as the first sentence from, say, Chandler's "Red Wind," but it does its job. It sets up the atmosphere of the story you are about to read and makes you want to keep going.

"Yellow Devil Starves Tonight" is a short story by Tom Roan that appeared in 10 Story Western Magazine (December 1949). The main character is Dave Mohawk, who is attempting to freight several wagon loads of supplies to the remote mining town of Yellow Devil. The guys who supposedly represent law in order in town, though, would rather not have those supplies arrive. They prefer to maintain a monopoly on food and other necessities, so they can keep charging "two dollars a pound for cheap brown sugar as hard as a rock an' filled with sand an' aswarmin' with ants!"

So the "lawmen," led by Fat Sam Trigg, set up a sort of toll booth in Hell Dive Pass. But with the help of a grizzled mountain man named Plez Spurlock, Dave gets the wagons through. That leads to a fist fight between another thug named Bull Smith against Dave's right-hand man-Whistling Pete Ford. The bad guys then begin to make plans to ensure Dave doesn't make any future supply runs to Yellow Devil.

Gee whiz, I love the names. The story is a good, well-written one--with very fast-paced prose jamming in a lot of action in just 15 pages. But I think it really is the names that make the story work. Everyone has a name that fits perfectly within the framework of the Old West of popular mythology and every name has just the right rhythm to give personality to the person to which it belongs. Aside from Dave Mohawk, Plez Spurlock, Fat Sam and Whistling Pete, we also have Race Rubaney, Fan Cantello, Fetzer Talbutt, Kent Mall, Punch Ritter and Buckshot Bill Driver. Some of these guys aren't in the story for more than a sentence or two, but all add a little bit more to the story's atmosphere just by being named.

It seems a silly thing--a generic Western depending on standing out from the crowd just by coming up with a lot of cool names for its characters. But it works. Though this story is good, it will never rank up there with my favorites and I may never bother re-reading it. But, by golly, I'll remember that time Plez Spurlock faced down Fat Sam Trigg! Because I'm never going to forget those names.

This issue of 10 Story Western can be read online HERE.

Snowy with a Chance of Dinosaurs

Cover art by George Wilson

The logic of the lost valley in which Turok and Andar were trapped was that warm, moist air was trapped inside it, keeping the tropical conditions necessary for prehistoric life to survive. I'm pretty sure that doesn't make real-life sense in several ways, but real life suffers from an acute shortage of lost valleys filled with dinosaurs. So the heck with real life, I say!

Still, there are places in the American Southwest that have some pretty harsh winters, so it makes sense that snow might occasionally find its way into the lost valley. That's what happens in Turok #38 (March 1964), in an uncredited script (though it feels like a Paul S Newman story to me) and art by Giovanni Ticci. Ticci worked at Alberto Giolittti's studio and often filled in for Giolitti on Turok or other titles. I, quite frankly, usually can't tell their work apart. Giolitti, by the way, inked this issue.

Anyway, Lost Valley gets hit by a blizzard. Turok and Andar hole up in a cave, but a tribe of cavemen surprise them and throw hem out without their bows. 

For a few pages, the two friends are trying desperately to stay warm and running from various dangers. Eventually, they end up on a cliff, with several elasmosaurs frozen in a lake just below them. The long-necked honkers can't quite stretch their necks up far enough to make a meal out of Turok and Andar.

This situation is a pretty unique one, but all the same it shows one of the usual strengths of the series. Without their bows and poison arrows, the Indians can't simply slaughter their way out of trouble. Instead, they are going to have to use their brains and think their way out.

That's one of the reasons I think this is a Paul S. Newman story--Newman was enormously skilled at story construction and his ability to place the protagonists in situations that required them to be clever is unparalleled. Like Giolitti and Ticci, the reason he's not hailed as one of the greats in the comic book field among many comic fans is that he worked for a company that has largely disappeared from pop culture consciousness. In terms of talent, he was one of the best,

Well, Turok and Andar can't just wait it out on the ledge. The sun is shining again and the snow & ice is melting. It won't be long before the elasmosaurs will be able to reach them. But that really doesn't matter--the T-Rex who is now stalking them along the ledge will probably eat them first anyways.

Unless, of course, Turok comes up with a clever plan--such as luring the T-Rex out to the edge of the ledge and causing it to stumble down to the frozen surface of the lake. There, it makes quick work of the elasmosaurs.

A bit more cleverness is needed in smoking the cavemen out of the cave and retrieving their bows, but that's quickly accomplished as well. It was a short blizzard, but an eventful one.

That's it for now. Next week, we'll learn what its like to go window shopping during a World War.

Cover Cavalcade

Awesome Ernest Nordli cover from 1951.

Friday's Favorite OTR

Granby's Green Acres: “Granby Quits his Job” 3/30/50

Green Acres was briefly a radio show—fifteen years or so before it came to television. I didn’t know this until recently. Which is embarrassing because I write books about old-time radio and I’m supposed to know stuff like this.


Anyways, on radio, Green Acres had a very short run as a summer replacement series—but it was a really, really funny run while it lasted. Gale Gordon plays the long-suffering John Granby, a discontented banker who impulsively buys a farm and moves out of the city. Bea Benaderet is his wife and Louise Erickson is his teenage daughter.


“Granby Quits his Job” is the pilot episode. (I’m not actually sure it ever aired, as it runs a time-slot-awkward 36 minutes and may have been made purely to sell the idea to sponsors.)


Gordon and Benaderet were both brilliant comedic actors and the pilot is often hilarious. Parley Baer is Eb, the farm hand, whose ability to deliver a funny line with perfect timing proves to match that of his co-stars.


Gee whiz, this show is funny. Every scene is dripping with clever dialogue--from Granby discovering the farm has no electricity (after he’s bought the place, of course) to his side-splitting attempt to figure out how to milk a cow. Nobody this side of Edgar Kennedy could make perpetual aggravation as funny as could Gale Gordon.


But the show also has an unexpected level of sweetness to it, especially towards end of this initial episode. Mrs. Granby and her daughter have, by this time, put up with quite a lot. But when the chips are down and it looks like Granby’s crops will fail to grow (thus ending his dream of being a farmer), they pitch in to come up with a plan to help him succeed. Or at least make it appear he’s succeeded.


Why? Because despite his faults, they love him and want him to be happy. After producing a number of laughs, Granby’s Green Acres abruptly proves to have heart as well. Which, of course, just makes the funny parts that much more satisfying.

Click HERE to listen or download.

The Edward G. Robinson Film Festival, Part 4

It is impossible--IMPOSSIBLE, I say--to watch 1942's Larceny, Inc without smiling non-stop in those rare moments you're not laughing.

Like The Little Giant (made 9 years earlier), Edward G. is playing a parody of his gangster image. But this time, his character (Pressure Maxwell) isn't a bootlegger or bank-robber. He's a smooth-talking con artist. We discover that right off the bat as we watch him play catcher on a prison baseball team, talking his friend and partner (Broderick Crawford) into taking a hit-by-pitch for the team. A few minutes later, he's talking the warden out of a nice pinstriped suit before he's released.




The opening scene also establishes the relationship between Pressure and Crawford's dimwitted character Jug. According to the film historians doing the DVD commentary, studio executives asked that it be modeled after George and Lennie from Of Mice and Men. Remember that the Studio Era, for all its flaws, was a time when producers and studio execs were often men who had a good sense of storytelling, so executive meddling wasn't always a bad thing. This dynamic between Pressure and Jug is perfect, setting up a lot of the comedy later in the film.

Anyway, Pressure has promised his sort-of adopted daughter to go straight and he really, really does plan to do so. He's going to buy a dog track in Florida. All he needs is 20 grand to finance this. But when the bank won't give him a loan--well, if he has to do one more job before going straight, that's not so bad, is it?

He and Jug run a quick "hit-and-run" scam with a passing car to get a thousand bucks, then use this to buy a down-and-out luggage store that happens to be next to a bank. The idea is to tunnel into the bank vault.

But Pressure's daughter wants him to go straight right away and a salesman (Jack Carson) wants the store to do well for reasons of his own. So they conspire to bring in customers, which interferes with digging the tunnel. Also, the other store owners on the street rope Pressure into helping them deal with a contractor who is prolonging street repairs and hurting business. Soon, at first much to his aggravation and later to his slowly realized delight, Pressure becomes a successful businessman.

But then another old "friend" who's a lot more prone to violence forces himself into the bank job and won't let Pressure give it up.

The movie is simultaneously a screwball comedy and a tribute to small business capitalism. The script is clever and ingenious, calling on Pressure and his friends to constantly improvise as they desperately try to carry out their schemes. The wonderful cast helps bring that script to joyous life.

Try watching this movie without smiling non-stop. Try it. I dare you.

Stolen Trains, Burning Bridges and Hijacked Armored Cars

In a career that spanned a half-century, Roy Crane introduced the concept of a daily adventure strip with Wash Tubbs, then moved on to do the equally brilliant Buz Sawyer. Perhaps because I read Wash Tubbs reprints as a kid and didn't encounter Buz until I was older, I've always considered Wash to be my favorite of the two. But the recent reprints of Buz Sawyer are reminding me of just how wonderful that strip is. I'm getting to where I'm not sure I can choose a favorite.

A story arc from late 1949 and early 1950 is fine example of how great a strip Buz Sawyer could be. 

Buz, who is working as a trouble-shooter for an oil company, is sent to a Central American country to  investigate a long delay in getting the oil concessions there. He brings his wife Christy along, figuring the job is an easy one and he can enjoy a working vacation with her.  That is actually a silly thing for him to do--Buz ought to know by know that any job he takes will result in danger and the constant threat of sudden death. It happens to him pretty much every time.

Upon arrival, he begins to get an obvious runaround from the oil company's local agent. Looking deeper into the situation, he befriends a local pilot named Pancho Del Rio and finds out that the company agent is helping to fun an impending revolution against the government.

Pancho is an inspired character, giving the story arc emotional depth that adds to the excitement of a great adventure story. Pancho had opposed the current president during the last election and still thinks a poor leader. In fact, that opposition has kept Pancho from getting the permission he needed to start his own airline.

But, by golly, the election was a fair one and Pancho will not support a revolution and will, in fact, fight as hard as he can to keep the legitimate government in power. 

Buz and Pancho have several chances to trade off performing heroic deeds as the action leads up to them stealing a train containing the ammunition the rebel army needs. In what I think is one of the most well-paced and exciting sequences in the history of the newspaper comic strips, the next four weeks of strips follow Buz, Christy and Pancho has they try to escape the rebels with the train.

When the train is eventually wrecked, the chase continues afoot. Eventually, our heroes manage to steal a rebel jeep and arrive safely at the presidential palace--though not after there's a close call resulting in their failure to take the rebel flags off the jeep.

But there is no such thing as break time for heroes. There's still the necessity of destroying a bridge to cut off the rebels from reinforcements. Buz and Pancho end up with this job, blowing the bridge but getting captured soon afterwards.

This is yet another exciting sequence. Roy Crane really is at the top of his game here. The story moves along at lightning speed; the art is great; and Crane portrays the Buz/Pancho team-up as a perfect synergy of characters. Neither of the heroes is overshadowed by the other as they continue to work together in tandem. Having effective co-protagonists in an adventure story is not an easy balance for a writer to maintain, but Crane pulls it off. 

Anyway, Buz and Pancho rather quickly hijack the armored car in which they had been imprisoned and make their escape. The rebellion collapses, Buz has made his company look good when future oil concessions are considered by the government and Pancho gets permission to start his airline. And we--the readers--come away with the intense pleasure of having experienced a master storyteller regale us with one of his best-ever yarns.

Next week, Turok and Andar have a Snow Day.

Cover Cavalcade

Always keep a weed-wacker handy.