A Dalmatian firing squad operating a crew-served weapon is nearly as brilliant a comic book concept as Nazi Gorillas or an elephant-mounted machine gun except the scene gets minus points for not actually appearing in the story.
Comic book cover disconnects and mis-leading teasers was going strong in the 1940s and is a vile marketing tactic that lasts to this day even if somewhat diminished due to the buying habits of the modern, savvy reader. The trick pulled here on the consumer is that the buyer, browsing the stands in the interval before the proprietor yelled that it wasn't a library, would purchase the book after quickly flipping through the pages and observing a similar scene in the interior. The original buyers of the Golden Age comic would have been satisfied that such a cool scene does indeed take place in the story and purchase it, only to be inevitably disappointed later when the magazine was read in full.
It would have been awesome if some dogs actually lined up some trouble-makers up against a wall and executed them but the villain only actually controlled the dogs enough to make them all bitey. What a waste of potential for awesomeness. Still, this panel and the cover featuring a dog army and Rover firing a machine gun at Captain Marvel Jr. are pretty nifty.
From Captain Marvel Jr. #95 (March 1951).
Sunday, December 09, 2007
Nearly as brilliant as Nazi Gorillas
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I d/led the issue from Golden Age Downloads, and it's an interesting issue artistically. Looks like George Tuska did the 1st story, Kurt Schaffenberger the 2nd and Jim Mooney the last story. From some of the faces, it appears that Tuska might have done the Dogs story, too. All the CM Jr faces appear to have been re-inked to match the house look for CM Jr. Yeah, I know I'm an art geek.
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