The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: Kayo Ward

  • MEDIA IN COMICS 003

    We’ve hit a rich seam of comic book movies this time, by Jove.

    Movies:

    Eaglets of America is a film about flying cadets, filmed at the same field that aspiring pilot Lucky Byrd trains at. There is some unpleasantness with a lecherous leading man, alas, but it all gets sorted by the end. (Target Comics v1 002, 1940)

    The 1933 film the Prizefighter and the Lady, starring boxer Max Baer opposite Myrna Loy, was a real touchstone back during the heyday of boxing comics. Given enough appearances, and boxer would end up in Hollywood in a sports romance with a variably terrible name. Hot Fists and Hot Lips, starring Kayo Ward, might just have the worst title of them all. (Pep Comics 008, 1940)

    Much like all those times that two volcano movies or two asteroid movies come out in quick succession, Miracle Movies and Bee Pictures are each working on a “lion picture” at the same time, only while Leo, King of Beasts makes it to theatres o sink or swim on its own merit, Jungle King is never completed due to the fact that its producer resorts to murder to get his movie out first. (Fight Comics 007, 1940)

    There’s no romance plot (on-panel, at least), but Pardon My Glove starring Kayo Kirby is absolutely another riff on The Prizefighter and the Lady. (Fight Comics 004, 1940)

    The Mad Martian may not get anything approaching a plot synopsis, but it has the distinction of being the inspiration for villain Red Dugan to commission the creation of a monstrous minion. (Blue Ribbon Comics 003, 1940)

    Though it was announced as being the subject of the next instalment of actress Diana Deane’s comic, War Nurse never actually appeared due to the strip being cancelled. A shame as I was really curious about the amount of dripping blood and what that might presage. (Funny Pages v1 004, 1940) 

    Like long-running comic strip Minute Movies, the concept of ‘Fantastic Feature Films’ is that of a series of movies acted by a recurring stable of actors. It’s a very fun idea that only lasts a double handful of issues, alas.

    The plot of Dance of Death involves a plot to assassinate a Hitler analog using an exotic dancer’s prop bubble that has been filled with gas. Interestingly, the plot is less concerned with making sure that the plot succeeds than it is with trying to foil it so that the dancer doesn’t get into trouble. (Target Comics v1 003, 1940)

    Devil’s Dust concerns an outcast Frenchman whose harsh treatment has made him a misanthrope and who only turns his supply of metal-dissolving dust to the cause of world peace after a gregarious American calls him “pal.” (Target Comics v1 002, 1940)

    The Maskless Axeman is a very strange film about a tuxedo-clad executioner who works for a Hitler analog and who driven mad by a fake haunting in order to save the life of a dancer accused of spying. (Target Comics v1 001, 1940)

    Radio:

    I like a good DJ name, and I appreciate just how tired “Stay-Up Dan, the All-Night Music Man” looks. (The Face 001, 1941)

  • REAL PERSON ROUND-UP 008

    If they’re real then why are they in a comic book?

    Anastacio Somoza García:

    The Shield meets with the President of Nicaragua and as per usual the artist did not bother to check what the President of Nicaragua actually looked like. (Pep Comics 006, 1940)

    Clark Gable:

    Boxer Kayo Ward stars in a movie (“Hot Lips and Hot Fists,” a riff on 1933’s “The Prizefighter and the Lady” starring real-life boxers Primo Carnera, Max Baer and Jack Dempsey) and the opening night crowd includes not only Clark Gable but Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, all under their real names in a wild break from comics custom. (Pep Comics 008, 1940)

    FDR:

    Misc minor appearances: 

    Meets with the Shield (Pep Comics 006, 1940)

    Shown blowing off a cabinet meeting to watch a boxing match (Pep Comics 007, 1940)

    J Edgar Hoover:

    He’s never actually named but “the Chief of the FBI” and only person who knows the secret identity of Joe Higgins, aka the Shield, is clearly supposed to be J Edgar Hoover, and they do occasionally refer to him by his surname. (Pep Comics 001-004, 006-009, 1940)

    Joe DiMaggio:

    Famed baseball player Slugger Madaggio (or possibly MaDaggio) is murdered mid-game for failing to pay protection money. Two other players, Wheezy Seen and Cal Bubble, as well as a manager named Terrier are mentioned in the story but I simply do not know enough about baseball to know who they are references to, if anyone. Also, the lady in the above picture is Madaggio’s wife and thus an oblique reference to actress Dorothy Arnold. (Pep Comics 007, 1940)

    Joe Louis:

    Boxer Kayo Ward is signed to fight Joe Louis for the heavyweight boxing championship, only Kayo is then kidnapped and replaced with a double by gamblers looking to fix the match, and when he manages to get free and fight for real the kidnapping has had enough of a negative effect on him that Louis sportingly calls the fight off rather than beat Ward to a pulp. They’re supposed to reconvene in six months – will it happen in 1941? (Pep Comics 006-007, 1940)

    Mata Hari:

    Sent to Antwerp to extract a British general’s daughter before the Nazi invasion, army hero Sergeant Boyle engages in some classic comedy of errors shtick as he accidentally brings back the wrong woman, only to find out that he has inadvertently captured the famed spy “Hatter Mary.” (Pep Comics 008, 1940)

    PT Barnum:

    There are a lot of comic book circus mans who are some sort of version of PT Barnum but this guy, Barnham by name, really captures the spirit of the man with his exploitation of Paul Bunyan’s ape-man friend. (National Comics 006, 1940)

    the Seven Dwarfs:

    The “Prince Buttonhead” feature in Pep Comics is from the school of one-page comic book humour strips that are best described as incoherent, with only the feeblest attempt at jokes or even a structured plot. The Five Dopes here (Block-Head, Lunk-Head, Stupid, Useless and Lame-Brain) are interesting for being so very on-model as a Seven Dwarfs parody. (Pep Comics 005, 1940)

    Various Golden Age Comics Creators:

    During Kayo Ward’s rise to the top he fights a lot of also-rans, and compiling a splash panel of them dovetailed nicely with the grand comic book tradition of using your coworkers’ names for mildly embarrassing purposes. In order (and focusing on MLJ credits because it’s an illustrious group), we have: 

    Butch Blezard – Okay I have no idea who this guy is. Bad start.

    “Canvas-Back” Shorten – Harry Shorten, co-creator of the Shield

    “Chick” Biro – Charles Biro, creator of Steel Sterling

    “Biff” Zoffer – Another mystery character

    “Mush” Meskin – Mort Meskin, prolific MLJ illustrator

    “Flash” Ashe – Edd Ashe, illustrator of the Wizard

    “Nosedive” Novick – Irv Novick, co-creator of the Shield

    “50 Second” Streeter – Lin Streeter, MLJ illustrator

    “Slam” Sundell – Abner Sundell, MLJ editor

    “Socker” Benson – probably not a reference, as he was a boxer faced by Ward in a prior issue. (Pep Comics 005, 1940)

    Pep Comics was a real hotbed of this kind of thing in 1940, as seen in this ad for “Meskin’s Matzhos”  (Pep Comics 007, 1940)

    Here’s Charles Biro ditching work to catch a boxing match. (Pep Comics 007, 1940)

    Handprints outside Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, featuring “Biro W. Mouskin,” “Sundell something (possibly M. Wood? as in Bob Wood, co-creator of Kayo Ward?) as well as “Mickey Looney” and “Joe E. Frown” (Mickey Rooney and Joe E. Brown, natch) (Pep Comics 008, 1940)

    And finally, the movie that Kayo Ward stars in is a Sundell Production. (Pep Comics 008, 1940)

    Unknown:

    The specifics of Jimmie Fiddle here, with his entertainment column in the NY Reflection, and especially the detail of him rating things with orchids, ping my “this is a version of a real guy” sense quite hard, but I can’t find a good thread to grab onto for a search. (Pep Comics 008, 1940)

    EDIT: a list of New York periodicals of the 1930s turned up the NY Review as a possible original of the NY Reflection, but any further investigation is hampered by the popularity of the New York Review of Books. It’s a dead end!

    ACTUAL UPDATE: We found him!

  • REAL PERSON ROUND-UP 008

    If they’re real then why are they in a comic book?

    Anastacio Somoza García:

    The Shield meets with the President of Nicaragua and as per usual the artist did not bother to check what the President of Nicaragua actually looked like. (Pep Comics 006, 1940)

    Clark Gable:

    Boxer Kayo Ward stars in a movie (“Hot Lips and Hot Fists,” a riff on 1933’s “The Prizefighter and the Lady” starring real-life boxers Primo Carnera, Max Baer and Jack Dempsey) and the opening night crowd includes not only Clark Gable but Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, all under their real names in a wild break from comics custom. (Pep Comics 008, 1940)

    FDR:

    Misc minor appearances: 

    Meets with the Shield (Pep Comics 006, 1940)

    Shown blowing off a cabinet meeting to watch a boxing match (Pep Comics 007, 1940)

    J Edgar Hoover:

    He’s never actually named but “the Chief of the FBI” and only person who knows the secret identity of Joe Higgins, aka the Shield, is clearly supposed to be J Edgar Hoover, and they do occasionally refer to him by his surname. (Pep Comics 001-004, 006-009, 1940)

    Joe DiMaggio:

    Famed baseball player Slugger Madaggio (or possibly MaDaggio) is murdered mid-game for failing to pay protection money. Two other players, Wheezy Seen and Cal Bubble, as well as a manager named Terrier are mentioned in the story but I simply do not know enough about baseball to know who they are references to, if anyone. Also, the lady in the above picture is Madaggio’s wife and thus an oblique reference to actress Dorothy Arnold. (Pep Comics 007, 1940)

    Joe Louis:

    Boxer Kayo Ward is signed to fight Joe Louis for the heavyweight boxing championship, only Kayo is then kidnapped and replaced with a double by gamblers looking to fix the match, and when he manages to get free and fight for real the kidnapping has had enough of a negative effect on him that Louis sportingly calls the fight off rather than beat Ward to a pulp. They’re supposed to reconvene in six months – will it happen in 1941? (Pep Comics 006-007, 1940)

    Mata Hari:

    Sent to Antwerp to extract a British general’s daughter before the Nazi invasion, army hero Sergeant Boyle engages in some classic comedy of errors shtick as he accidentally brings back the wrong woman, only to find out that he has inadvertently captured the famed spy “Hatter Mary.” (Pep Comics 008, 1940)

    PT Barnum:

    There are a lot of comic book circus mans who are some sort of version of PT Barnum but this guy, Barnham by name, really captures the spirit of the man with his exploitation of Paul Bunyan’s ape-man friend. (National Comics 006, 1940)

    the Seven Dwarfs:

    The “Prince Buttonhead” feature in Pep Comics is from the school of one-page comic book humour strips that are best described as incoherent, with only the feeblest attempt at jokes or even a structured plot. The Five Dopes here (Block-Head, Lunk-Head, Stupid, Useless and Lame-Brain) are interesting for being so very on-model as a Seven Dwarfs parody. (Pep Comics 005, 1940)

    Various Golden Age Comics Creators:

    During Kayo Ward’s rise to the top he fights a lot of also-rans, and compiling a splash panel of them dovetailed nicely with the grand comic book tradition of using your coworkers’ names for mildly embarrassing purposes. In order (and focusing on MLJ credits because it’s an illustrious group), we have: 

    Butch Blezard – Okay I have no idea who this guy is. Bad start.

    “Canvas-Back” Shorten – Harry Shorten, co-creator of the Shield

    “Chick” Biro – Charles Biro, creator of Steel Sterling

    “Biff” Zoffer – Another mystery character

    “Mush” Meskin – Mort Meskin, prolific MLJ illustrator

    “Flash” Ashe – Edd Ashe, illustrator of the Wizard

    “Nosedive” Novick – Irv Novick, co-creator of the Shield

    “50 Second” Streeter – Lin Streeter, MLJ illustrator

    “Slam” Sundell – Abner Sundell, MLJ editor

    “Socker” Benson – probably not a reference, as he was a boxer faced by Ward in a prior issue. (Pep Comics 005, 1940)

    Pep Comics was a real hotbed of this kind of thing in 1940, as seen in this ad for “Meskin’s Matzhos”  (Pep Comics 007, 1940)

    Here’s Charles Biro ditching work to catch a boxing match. (Pep Comics 007, 1940)

    Handprints outside Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, featuring “Biro W. Mouskin,” “Sundell something (possibly M. Wood? as in Bob Wood, co-creator of Kayo Ward?) as well as “Mickey Looney” and “Joe E. Frown” (Mickey Rooney and Joe E. Brown, natch) (Pep Comics 008, 1940)

    And finally, the movie that Kayo Ward stars in is a Sundell Production. (Pep Comics 008, 1940)

    Unknown:

    The specifics of Jimmie Fiddle here, with his entertainment column in the NY Reflection, and especially the detail of him rating things with orchids, ping my “this is a version of a real guy” sense quite hard, but I can’t find a good thread to grab onto for a search. (Pep Comics 008, 1940)

    EDIT: a list of New York periodicals of the 1930s turned up the NY Review as a possible original of the NY Reflection, but any further investigation is hampered by the popularity of the New York Review of Books. It’s a dead end!

    ACTUAL UPDATE: We found him!