Sandra of the Secret Service: The conclusion of a story in which a woman's jewels are stolen on voyage and Sandra solves the crime. This has been a very common plot. Between this and Detective #15, I think I've read 4 stories about a jewelry theft at sea. Sandra is unique in that it features a capable female protagonist, but if no one knew what the Secret Service really is, which is a bodyguard corps for the government, from this strip you would think they were an all-purpose spy/private eye.
Doctor Occult--"Doctor Occult vs. Master of the Corpses": Doctor Occult and Sgt. Ellsworth investigate a disturbance at a mine and discover a witch doctor building an army of zombies to attack the city. The synopsis makes this sound awesome, but the shortness of the strip forces too quick of a resolution. One unintentionally humorous bit: Doctor Occult uses a special almost never used power to stop the plot. With a wave of his hand, the mine caves in. One would presume the power is telekinesis, but the writing makes it sound like the little-used power is to cause mine cave-ins. Of course it's little used. How often does one need to cause a mine cave-in??
Buzz Brown--An adventure strip about a boy stowaway on a sailboat. Buzz Brown is the boy. They capsized and were saved by a boat on the way to Angorra and made servants. In this installment, the crew plans mutiny and Buzz and Sandy (the owner of the sailboat get caught in the middle). The strip is by Craig Fessel, who also does Speed Saunders, and the art looks much crisper here. I don't know if its the addition of color, or the difference between paper and microfiche (my copy is a PDF that was built from microfiche and paper originals), but I'll be curious to see if the art stays the same high-caliber.
Wing Brady -- An ongoing adventure strip about a soldier in the foreign legion. In this second installment, after saving a woman from an Arab laver, they find her uncle dead. She relates how her uncle had given her to the slaver to prevent her from getting her inheritance. This, and the rest of the strips suffer from brevity. The stories aren't necessarily bad, but they're moving at snail's pace.
Salphappy and his Pappy -- A humor strip focusing on a dim-witted prize-fighter and his father.
The Magic Crystal of History -- I admit I don't read this strip, because I don't really consider it a comic. It's all text boxes and no dialogue. Two children have a magic crystal which relates tales from history.
Mark Marson of the Interplanetary Police -- One of two strips in the Buck Rogers/Flash Gordon vein. Mark is investigating a series of murders conducted with "forked cobra venom". One suspect throws suspicion on another. Its literally 2 pages so it doesn't go any further then "Did you do it?, No, he did. No I didn't" The End.
Johnnie Law - Johnnie Law is a story about beat cop solving crimes and moving up through the detective ranks. Johnnie bring in a suspect in an extortion case who is alibied free by his confederates. The art on this is poorer than in previous installments, and I refer black and white to the red, black, and white color palette used here. The first part in a multi-part story.
Radio Squad -- Sandy Keen and his partner stop a warehouse owner from committing arson. Another 2-pager. The strips hook is that Sandy drives a radio car. I need to do more research, but a radio car is a police car that can receive radio directives from headquarters. Common place now, but the strip treats it like cutting edge technology, so I'm wondering when they first put them into service.
Three Musketeers--Another strip I don't read. An illustrated adaptation of the novel, also with no dialogue.
Ginger Snap-- A humor strip about a little girl. It's kind of like an ancestor of what Little Dot would become for Harvey comics
Brad Hardy-- The second science fiction strip also handicapped by only being two pages. Brady and his sidekick, an alien prince whose name I can't remember and isn't mentioned in the strip in this issue, have trekked through many adventures to get back to a castle to confront the villain, Porgo. Literally all that happens is that Brad tries to get Porgo's sword without waking him and fails. Most of the other strips you can kind of pick up what is going on or the main plot if you've missed an issue or its been awhile since you read the last one. Not, Brad Hardy. As you can tell, it badly needs a recap panel.
Jack Woods -- A Western. Jack helps his fellow ranchers prevent a mining company from diverting a river off of their property. This one is also in red, black, and white, but here it works.
Biff Brody and Pop Beaner -- A new strip. Kind of a detective strip. Biff and Pop have a near miss with a milk truck, then some crooks plow into the milk truck demolishing it while leaving the scene of a crime. Biff and Pop track down the rest of the gang and capture them, using the reward to buy a new milk truck for the farmer. This seems like an attempt to mimic the success of Slam Bradley with a vague detective sort with a comedy sidekick. This also treated something like a lead feature getting 8 pages. The tory could have been done in 6 giving some needed breathing room to others.
Red Logan -- A crusading crime reporter gets an anonymous tip of a crime at the museum where a murder happens. Red chases the thugs and is caught and thrown in the river. Another, new adventure/crime strip. This one looks promising. The art is clean and distinctive from a golden age standard, and so far, the plot has avoided some of the standard tropes.
This issue is rounded out by some Algier strips, but none that feature ongoing characters.
Hey, there, Trey. It's your old friendly neighborhood pal checking in.
ReplyDeleteGlad to see you're still a comic book fan. Feels good to know some things don't change.
Hope to chat with you sometime soon.
Paul