Eva the Imp

 

cover artist unknown

I love stumbling across obscure and forgotten comic book characters. Little Eva ran for 31 issues during the early and mid-1950s. Two issues of reprints by another publisher appeared in 1957, titled Eva the Imp. I kind of like the latter title better. 

Little Eva #7 (April 1953) includes the story "Watch Dog"--writer and artist both unknown. Eva has done what she sees as a favor for the boys of the neighborhood, but they are busy playing war and won't listen to her.

Well, the boys soon find out what she's done. She's fixed up their playhouse with curtains and flowers! She's even cleaned the floor!  And, well... THIS ABOMINATION WILL NOT STAND! 

Boys will be boys and they've soon declared the curtains to be bandages for their "war wounds" and the flowers become medals. Then a really big stray dog wanders in and they make him a watch dog to keep Eva out while they go back on patrol.

Eva brings some more flowers into the clubhouse while they are gone. When she sees the curtains and flowers she brought earlier are gone, she assumes the big dog ate them and, therefore, must be hungry. So she gets some bones from the local butcher. When the boys come back, she sneaks out a window, but leaves the bones behind.

The boys think the bones belong to Eva. Obviously, the girl has been eaten by the dog!

They begin to cry, but Eva soon appears at the window. Their grief turns to anger and they chase the poor girl. But it turns out that the big dog LIKES girls:

The story is sincerely funny--especially the gag about the dog having supposedly eaten Little Eva. The art is clean, effective in both telling the story well and adding to the humor. Little Eva's superpower may have been nothing more than being adorable,but, by golly, that's not a bad superpower at all.

You can read this one online HERE.

Next week, we return to the Lonely War of Willy Schultz.

Cover Cavalcade

 

JULY IS GOLD KEY HORROR MONTH!

The artist for this 1971 cover is uncredited.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Let George Do It: "Dead of Night" 10/13/52

George receives a middle-of-the-night phone call from someone who needs immediate help with a life-and-death matter. Naturally, George answers the call and, naturally, he's soon involved in a murder investigation.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

Venusian Swamps, Secret Bases and Disintegrator Rays.

 

cover art by Hubert Rogers

If you read Armageddon 2419, by Phil Nowlan, you will find yourself liking Anthony Rogers, the time-displaced protagonist. Considering that "Buck" Rogers would move on to comic strips (which is where he gets his nickname), radio shows, movie serials and TV, he is certainly a hero with lasting appeal. 

But the really good part of Nowlan's story--and the reason I've re-read it with joy a number of times since I first encountered it in high school--is Nowlan's fascination with creating futuristic technology and then creating military tactics appropriate for that technology. Armageddon 2419 is stuffed with anti-gravity devises, disintegrator rays and small arms that fire explosive rockets. The good guys and bad guys both use their weapons in increasingly innovative ways, each developing new tactics in response to what their opponents are doing. Characterization is subordinate to cool tech, and the story works just fine that way.

"Space Guards," published posthumously in the May 1940 issue of Astounding, takes pretty much the same route. In fact, the simularity of the technology (including rocket pistols, anti-gravity and disintegrator rays) places it in my mind in the same universe as Buck Rogers.

The two protagonists are officers in the Space Guard, Linda Darlington and Bob Manley. They are likeable and believable heroes, but there's not a lot of dimension to their characters. That they inevitably fall in love is predictable, but Nowlan wisely just hints at their true feelings a few times and does not allow this to interfere with the appealing part of the story--which is, of course, cool technology and well-described action.

The story opens with the two heroes lost in a foggy, nigh-inpenatrable swamp on Venus. They had been sent on a scouting mission to locate the base of a master criminal. But the rocket glider they used to leave their mothership has disappeared, there's too much atmospheric interference to use their radios and... well, the two are in trouble. Their trouble seems to increase when they are captured by a native tribe.

This, though, proves to be beneficial. The master criminal is from Earth and is setting up his own empire on Venus, funding it with a fortune in the form of a rare mineral he stole from Mars. He's hired well-equipped mercenaries--taken from the dregs of Earth, Martian and Venusian societies--and made them a sort of aristocracy. The native tribes don't like them, but don't have modern weapons needed to fight back effectively.

But clever tactics can make up for a lot. Bob and Linda accompany the natives when they ambush a mercenary column. Surprise and an pre-planned avalanche take out a lot of the bad guys and force the rest to run for it.

The two Space Guards trail them. There's a nasty encounter with a dinosaur-like creature, but this in turn leads them to meet a Martian woman who is working undercover. She knows where the secret base is located and has an idea for how to get the others inside, kidnap the master criminal (and the criminal's girlfriend, who is also his co-leader) and make a getaway under the noises of the mercenaries. 

The plan goes less than smoothly, but the heroes think fast on their feet, improvise variations to their plans and eventually make their attempt to capture the crooks. 

The bad guys' secret base is pretty cool, foreshadowing the sort of base that Doctor No or SPECTRE would be building back on Earth for James Bond to find and destroy. Nowlan has his heroes using the technology available to them in effective and clever ways. The pacing of the novella is fast and the action is all fun. "Space Guards" isn't quite the classic that his Buck Rogers tales would become, but Nowlan still knows how to spin a fun science fiction yarn.

You can read this one online HERE.

Sandwiches are indeed the Food of the Gods!

 

cover art by Al Bryant

We've been looking at the stories reprinted in 1974's Detective Comics #439. We finish that up today. There is actually one other original story other than the Batman tale that started this issue off. But it's part of a multi-issue story arc by Archie Goodwin featuring Manhunter. It's definitely worth reviewing, but I'll hold off on that until I can manage to get hold of the entire run.

So we'll finish off for now with a story from Kid Eternity #3 (Autumn 1946), written by Joe Millard. The art is not definitively credited, though both Pete Riss and Sam Citron are listed as possible artists in the Grand Comics Database.

Kid Eternity and Mr. Keeper run across the century-old ruins of a mansion. The story behind it is that it belong to Jason Mulgrew, a criminal who died before the detective chasing him was able to catch him. Both Mulgrew and (for reasons never explained) the detective are both buried near the mansion. 

Ancestors of Mulgrew are arriving at the mansion. Kid Eternity is curious about what's going on, so he summons up the detective from the past, learning that Mulgrew hated his relatives, so waiting a hundred years to reveal the location of his money to a new generation. 

Kid E. returns the detective to the afterlife, then summons up Mulgrew for more information. Mulgrew won't talk, though. Kid hurries after the relative, but (in what will be an important plot point) fails to return Mulgrew to eternity.

Soon, booby-traps--set a hundred years ago--are threatening the relatives. Kid calls upon Thomas Edison and then Achilles to deal with this.

Why Achilles? Because Kid figures the final booby-trap leading to the treasure chamber will have a particularly deadly trap. It does--a cannon rigged to fire at the first person who enters. But Achilles is tough enough to shrug this off.

Achilles, by the way, also chows down on sandwiches. The rules for the summoned dead in a Golden Age Kid Eternity story are never made clear, but apparently they can still eat and enjoy food. Achilles declares sandwiches to be a food of the gods. And he's right, isn't he? Stop at a good deli and order your favorite sandwich. Is there anything better than this? I THINK NOT!

But I digress. The treasure vault is empty. Jason Mulgrew, who was summoned early by the kid, enters the mansion and announces that even though his booby-traps failed to kill anyone, he can still take joy in denying his relatives treasure. Keep in mind that these aren't the same relatives that Mulgrew hated a century ago. This is a whole new set, who he hates because he's just a big poopy-head.

Kid summons up Cagliostro, an 18th-Century Italian occult expert, who claims he can figure out where the treasure is really hidden, but disapproves of wealth and won't tell. So Kid banishes him and once again summons up the detective who had been pursuing Mulgrew during their lifetimes.

Apparently, the rules for summoned dead include that they feel pain. The detective merely twists Mulgrew's arm until he reveals where the treasure is hidden. The relatives are now rich and the adventure comes to an end.

What I love about this story is how everyone, both the living who see what the Kid does and the summoned dead, are so darn casual about it, as if this sort of thing happens to them every day. It gives a wonderful ambiance to the story, which is completely straightforward with the silly premise, telling a fun story that is wrapped in a thin but servicable layer of Comic Book Logic. Most of the Golden Age Kid Eternity stories (published by Quality Comics before Quality's characters were acquired by DC) are in the public domain and available online. I need to visit with Kid Eternity more often. 

You can read this one online HERE.

Next week, we'll visit with another Golden Age character--a little girl named Eva the Imp--whose superpower is... well, being cute and friendly.

Cover Cavalcade

 

JULY IS GOLD KEY HORROR MONTH!

This 1971 cover is tentatively credited to George Wilson.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Weird Circle: "The Great Plague" (1945)

Three men plan to rob a house and murder the occupants. But they make an unwise choice in deciding on which house to rob.

Click HERE to download or listen. 

The Long Winter

 

cover art by Hubert Rogers

I pulled up a PDF copy of Astounding Stories (May 1940) on my tablet because I wanted to read and review a novella titled "Space Guards," the last tale written by Phil Nowlan, the creator of Buck Rogers. I clicked on something by accident and the PDF jumps ahead to the short story "The Long Winter," by Raymond Z. Gallun, a prolific writer of science fiction in the 1930s. It looked like a cool story, so I figured "What the hey." I'll review Gallun's story this week and jump back to "Space Guards" next week.

"The Long Winter" is about Earth's first expedition to the planet Uranus. A six-man team has landed, built a shelter against the incredible cold of the planet's 40-year-long winter and began doing their work of collected data.

One of the team is Jan Viborg, but Jan is not a team player. He's the meteorologist--an obviously important job when studying a planet where the methane winds blow constantly and the cold will kill a even a man wearing an armored space suit within a half hour.

But Jan wants glory. He wants to make sure he goes down in the history books as THE man who first walked on Uranus... THE man who did the job and came home. And, of course, he can't be THE man if the rest of the team is still alive.

So he comes up with a plan. He has to go outside to check some of the sensors studying wind velocity, temperature and so on. It's an unpleasant job, but if he goes directly to the instruments, gets the readings and comes directly back (using a beacon light as a guide), then its not really dangerous.

Jan intends to make a brief detour on his next trip, though. He's thought it all out. If he removes a certain bolt the exeterior of the shelter, that will allow inflammable methane snow to flow into gap between the interior and exterior walls of the shelter. IF he opens this hole in the exact right spot, a cable will eventualy spark with electricity and cause an explosion. The shelter will be torn open and the other team members, without spacesuits, will die within seconds. Jan will carry on bravely after this tragic "accident" and, by golly, he'll be famous.

Of course, anyone reading the story knows something will go wrong. But Gallun was a clever science fiction writer. The reason Jan's plan goes wrong makes perfect sense when explained--involving one small science detail that the murderous weatherman didn't think of. And Gallun hits the right notes in generating a creepy atmosphere and giving Jan a loathsome but believable personality. "The Long Winter" is a good story, well worth taking the time to read.

You can read it online HERE. 

Willy Schultz, Part 6

 

cover art by Sam Glanzman with alterations tentatively credited to Charles Nicolas

When we looked at Part 5 of "The Lonely War of Capt. Willy Schultz" a few weeks ago, I complained about what I felt was a contrived plot element. But with Part 6 (published in Fightin' Army #82 (November 1968), writer Will Franz and artist Sam Glanzman are back on track. This chapter is superb.

Schultz has been switching back and forth between American and German uniforms quite often. For the last couple of issues, he's been back in U.S. duds. So when he's picked up by the crew of a German halftrack (after a month of wandering around the Sahara), they take him prisoner. There's another American prisoner--General Stenik, the father of the man Willy was falsely accused of murdering.

At this point, the story becomes very dialogue-heavy. Often, that's a problem in a storytelling medium that is largely visual. But here, Will Franz writes absolutely fantastic dialogue, giving us insight into both Schultz and Stenik. 

Schultz tells a story of having recently killed a German to get some food and was sickened by the experience. Between that and the fact that his experiences have forced him to see both Americans and Germans as human beings--well, he's convinced he's no longer able to kill.

Stenik, we learn, no longer believes Schultz killed his son. But he had a problem of his own. He knows about future American troop movements and doesn't feel strong enough to stand up against torture should it come to that. Torture is very possible, as the troops holding the two of them are S.S.

Schultz is adamant in refusing to help, even when Stenik reminds him that Americans could be killed uselessly if he (Stenik) is forced to talk. But when an opportunity comes to slug a German officer and grab his pistol, Schultz does so without thinking. There's "no middle ground," he has realized. Duty, morality, self-defense--all of this is muddled together in his head and boils down to "kill or be killed."

There's a shootout, with Schulz bagging a couple of the Germans before they start to toss hand grenades. Stenik takes the brunt of a grenade blast to save Schultz's life.

Schultz is able to finish off the Germans and is once again wandering the desert alone. The general might have been able to clear him of the murder charge, but that chance is now lost. He once again has no place to go.

As I said, this issue is very dialogue-heavy, but this is made to work. Schultz's account of his moral journey in the desert is heart-rending--all the more so because his final conclusion is he can't escape the necessity of killing others. General Stenik's short but powerful character arc complements this and is in of itself heart-rending. "The Lonely War of Capt. Willy Schulz" continues to one of the finest examples of graphic storytelling I've ever read. 

Cover Cavalcade

 

JULY IS GOLD KEY HORROR MONTH!

This 1966 cover is by George Wilson.