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.

Cover Cavalcade

 

February is KILLER ROBOT MONTH!

This 1976 cover is by Bob Oksner.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Inner Sanctum: "Boomerang" 11/25/45

A man suspects his wife and his business partner of plotting to murder him. He decides to act preemptively.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

The Vultures of Wahpeton

 

cover art by Howard Sherman

"The Vultures of Wahpeton," a Western by Robert E. Howard, was first published in the December 1936 issue of Smashing Novels. It's actually a novella, but it is pretty smashing.

Wahpeton is a gold rush town. Many people have been getting rich, but an outlaw gang known as the Vultures keeps the town on lock-down, robbing claims and holding up every single stagecoach that attempts to transport gold out. The town and the surrounding area is crowded with men hoping to strike it rich, so no-one knows who is a Vulture and who isn't.

The protagonist is a Texas gunslinger named Corcoran, whose lightning fast draw gets him a job as deputy. This initially puts him on the side of the good guys. But he soon finds out that the sheriff is the leader of the Vultures. Corcoran's sense of personal honor doesn't allow him to kill in cold blood or rob someone innocent, but he doesn't object to robbing thieves.

While the sheriff is conning the town leaders into thinking he's on the level, he and Corcoran plan to eventually run for it with a fortune in stolen gold. Both men plan to double-cross the other after they get clear.

In fact, Chronic Back-stabbing Syndrome is rife throughout the story, with Corcoran going up against several Vultures at different times even while theoretically a part of the gang.

Things begin to go awry for Corcoran when he tells the saloon girl he's fallen about his plans. The girl had built Corcoran up in her mind as a virtuous hero, so discovering he's planning on running off with stolen gold crushes her. This, in turn, leads to her spilling too much information to the Vultures. The violent story quickly becomes more violent.

There's a little too much sameness to the action scenes, which mostly involve Corcoran outdrawing his opponents, but Howard overlays the tale with a lot of tension. The pacing is appropriately fast. Corcoran is an interesting protagonist, with flaws as well as virtues that drive the story along. Also, a member of the "Men's Adventure Paperbacks of the 20th Century" Facebook group referred to the story as "The beginning of the hardboiled Western... The Western was changing from mythic to hardboiled." "The Vultures of Wahpeton" can be seen as a signpost pointing the genre in that direction.

Interestingly, the original printing in Smashing Novels provided two different endings to the tale, with an editor writing: "Of course, giving a story two endings is sort of unorthodox. But Smashing Novels, ever since its first issue, hasn't been a particularly orthodox magazine. We've tried, and we are trying, to give you different stories with different slants, and we've been doing our darndest to give you the best stories possible."

One ending pulls out a happy ending for Corcoran. The other, which was used when the story was reprinting in a Howard anthology a few years ago, is more tragic. I think the happy ending is a little contrived, while the tragic ending is a better emotional fit for the story. But if want to decide for yourself, you can find the story (with both endings) HERE. 

Bullets and Blinding Mists

 

cover by Ray Harford

"The Case of the Purple Blackout" (writer and artist unknown) appeared in America's Greatest Comics #4 (Aug-Nov. 1942). Though dealing with home-grown gangsters and not mentioning the war, I have a vague theory that the idea for the tale might have arisen from war-imposed blackouts.

Whether I'm right about that, it's a fun story. A scientist invents a purple mist that blinds anyone caught up in it unless you are wearing special goggles. Immediately, a gangster named Honest John Black (he conveniently introduces himself during the robbery) steals both the mist and the goggles.

Soon, Honest John and his gang use the mist to pull off large-scale robberies. They are wearing the goggles. The cops--and eventually Bulletman and Bulletgirl--try to stop them but are stymied by the mist-induced blindness. 

It seems like the thing to do would be to go to the scientist who invented the mist and ask him to make a few more goggles. But they don't and, during a second robbery, Bulletgirl is captured.

Bulletman then draws on his own scientific abilities and whips up an anti-mist mist. The next time the gang strikes, the purple mist is counter-acted. With the good guys able to see, Bulletgirl gets free and the bad guys are quickly rounded up.

It's a fun yarn, with effective art that moves the story along quickly. There's a nice parallel between the brutality of the crooks and the determination of both the Bullets and the cops to protect the innocent. 

You can read this one online HERE.

Next week, we'll visit with Dullwit, a fox who definitely ISN'T as clever as a fox.

Cover Cavalcade

 

February is KILLER ROBOT MONTH!

This 1928 cover is by Frank R. Paul.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 X Minus One: "The Scapegoat" 8/8/57

Taking in an old man who had been beaten up seems like a generous thing to do. But if that old man is in obnoxious and amoral alien shape-changer, it's not a wise thing to do.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

Apache Territory (1958)

 

Louis L'Amour's 1957 novel Last Stand at Papago Wells is a favorite of mine, since I'm a sucker for "last stand" stories. Wandering cowboy Logan Cates takes refuge at the titular water hole and soon finds himself in charge of several other groups of men and women trying to escape Apache warriors. The group finds themselves besieged.

Toss a shipment of gold into the midst of this and Logan finds that potential conflict among the whites can be as dangerous as the Apaches.

I didn't know until I recently ran across it on Crackle TV that this book had been made into a movie in 1958, with the title changed to Apache Territory. Rory Calhoun plays Logan Cates.

The movie is a reasonably faithful adaptation of the book, though the number of characters is reduced a little and some of their relationships are shifted about. But the main action beats are pretty much the same. The Apaches send fusilades of bullets and arrows into the defenders, but are never seen. Cates has to sneak out one night to hunt for food. Slowly, the defenders are picked off. There seems to be no escape.

It's a good Western that generates a tense atmosphere throughout. Calhoun is quite good as Cates and the supporting cast is fine. John Dehner (one of my favorite character actors) is especially good as a man you just KNOW will turn out to be rotten even before he does anything to show us he's rotten. When Dehner played bad guys, he had a subtle talent for making himself ooze just a touch of venom in everything he does or says.

As is usually the case, the movie isn't quite as good as the original book. But it's still good and worth watching.