Schlomo Raven - Public Detective!

Way back in 1976 comics came in relatively few formats. At the time prices for the regular comic book pamphlet was rising ever few months, since cutting pages had finally reached a nadir. The publishers played around with some different things, but by and large the basic comic held sway over the market. Then one day Fiction Illustrated appeared. It was a digest-sized comic, square-bound. It wasn't exactly like other comics in that it cost a cool dollar and seemed to be targeted to an older crowd. It had my attention. It was produced by Byron Preiss who had already launched Weird Heroes, a paperback series which attempted to revive the action and adventure of the classic pulps, but with a modern twist. Much of that same vibe is here in the first installment of Fiction Illustrated, a slap-happy collection called Schlomo Raven. 

Preiss himself is the writer of this tome, but it is the artistry of Tom Sutton which sets it apart for me. Sutton was a comic artist who worked a great deal for Marvel when I was just starting to collect, but he  had also worked for DC and Warren and at this time focused much of his attention on weird stories for Charlton Comics. In Schlomo Raven Sutton is channeling his love of classic MAD comics from the days of Kurtzman and Elder. 

The two stories here are wild farces featuring the diminutive "Public Detective" Schlomo Raven. The first is the most successful and is titled "The Farx Job". This story revolves around the supposed kidnapping of the famous "Farx Brothers" ("Grippo, Heepo,Choocho, and Zeepo"), who were film comedians. Schlomo is brought into the case and the trail takes him to the home of various versions of famous Hollywood celebs such as "Bela Bugosi", "Martin Barloff", "Maria Astoria", and "Bumphrey Hogart". It's a hectic race to the conclusion and a fun read. 

Less entertaining is "Rosebug" which puts Schlomo squarely in the center of a national chase for spies in the theater and brings him cheek to cheek with the equally tiny Orsini Wells. Wells is producing a play titled "The American" which is a theatrical variation of Citizen Kane from our universe. There are plots within plots and mountains of exposition. This makes reading "Rosebug" more of a task than a joy unfortunately. 

Fiction Illustrated was a worthy experiment. It would last for four issues. The second one was a science fiction yarn called Starfawn showcasing the art of Stephen Fabian. The third was Chandler in a noir adventure titled "Red Tide" by Jim Steranko. The fourth had art by Ralph Reese and featured The Son of Sherlock Holmes. Look for a review of Chandler later this month. 

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