The Sunday Funnies - Captain Easy 1940-1943!

The fourth and final volume of Fantagraphic's Roy Crane's Captain Easy - Soldier of Fortune - The Complete Sunday Newspaper Strips 1940-1943 ain't about Captain Easy as much as it really ought to be. That's not to say that the strips aren't enjoyable, they are, but Easy slips into the background and this time it's not his old buddy Wash Tubbs who takes the spotlight but a character named Lulu Belle, an amazing woman who is no beauty but is strong and able to fight with anyone. She in fact was a strong woman in the circus for many years and though she's had her heart broken a few times by men still seeks love. 

What she seeks with Captain Easy though is adventure and she and Easy and Wash head to Guatemala where they encounter a sexy bandit named Teresa Grande. It's wild as the trio tires to find an ancient treasure while protecting it and themselves from the duplicitous Teresa. Then they find themselves on a boat with two tigers and captain who doesn't know really what the danger is until it's too late. Our trio end up on "Ghost Island" where they find a feral beauty dubbed "Wolf Girl". She doesn't speak, but she full of shapely action as our heroes attempt to tame her and bring her into civilization. They are rescued and Wash heads for home while Easy and Lulu Belle end up accidently working for foreign spies building a secret landing strip. In a battle with Bull Dawson they end that threat and get back to the good old U.S.A. They find quite a few light-hearted adventures at this point with Lulu Belle taking a leading role in the strip. 

As she looks for companionship and work she ends up with a crazy rich guy who thinks he can make rubber from frogs and later she and Easy help out the Wolf Girl as she tries to fit into society with some difficulty. Easy is employed to protect Horatio Boardman,  a rich idiot from gold diggers and soon enough one named "Baby Doll" shows up. There are more hijinks and even a trouble causing ostrich named Lucille. Augustus Mervin Gasby drops on their doorstep as Lulu Belle and Easy try to run a diner and eats them out of business almost until Easy finds he has some talent and attempts to get him into professional baseball. The duo run afoul of drug smugglers who prove quite dangerous. Then C. Wallis Hollis shows up and he's a swindler and Lulu Belle's ex-husband, who she still pines for. More trouble shows up when a criminal fresh from jail wears a zoot suit and leads a gang of murderers. later Lulu Belle is tricked into kidnapping a woman before Easy saves the day. Lulu Belle ends up in jail but Lonny Plunkett returns in time to use his magic skills to get her in and out of jail on a regular basis. With Plunkett's arrival Captain Easy fades out of his own comic strip not to be seen in it again. Later "Roy Boy" falls in love with Lulu Belle, but that's not good since Roy Boy is a gorilla. Then C. Wallis Hollis returns and Lulu Belle is able to turn the tables on him again to wrap the strip up. 

Roy Crane with assistance of Leslie Turner keeps the strip lively and fun despite the profound lack of high adventure in the latter days. It felt more like a screwball comedy than anything truly daring. With the arrival of Lulu Belle the focus shifts to the fairer sex for much of the strips final two years with the Wolf Girl storylines being my favorites. There are more chuckles than gasps, so it's probably good that Captain Easy finally came in for a landing for good, at least as far as Crane was concerned. The next stop for Roy Crane would be Buz Sawyer, but that's for another day. 

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The Sunday Funnies - Captain Easy 1938-1940!

With the third volume of Fantagraphic's Roy Crane's Captain Easy - Soldier of Fortune - The Complete Sunday Newspaper Strips the nature of that weekly outing by artist Roy Crane and his assistant Leslie Turner changes quite significantly. For one thing in the last volume Easy was reunited with his longtime friend and ally Washington Tubbs. Wash Tubbs was the daily strip which ran concurrently with Captain Easy. That reunion added a steady diet of humor to the proceedings. While humor had always been an ingredient, it's clear that it swells in importance as the derring-do begins to diminish. While the duo still globe trot, they are doing so with less of a sense of actual danger, merely complications. 

The long adventures give way to shorter yarns that wrap up in two or three maybe four weeks. Some stories begin and end in a single strip. There are a few longer narratives tucked in and Easy does break away from Wash for an adventure or two, but mostly they are a doughty team that must confront dangerous folks like the addled gun-toting Papa Shalayli, the happy-go-lucky pirates of Paradise Island, the knife-throwing Little Bessie, the femme fatale spy Z-1, the deadly pair of Rufe and Pap Skint, the gangster Boss Ladronn, and the gun-running Mexican bandit Don Bovino. They make quite a few new friends, such as escape artist and safe cracker Lonnie Plunkett. There are lots of dames too, most all in danger and seeking rescue by Wash and Easy, such as Mona Milson, Imogene Twitchet, and the silver-haird Honey Darling. Easy and Wash spend their time doing good deeds, running from the law and heavies, and seeking sundry treasures. They take to hunting down villains for the bounties at one point even. Whenever they have cash they buy a plane, a plane which usually ends up crashed before very long in some foreign territory in the South Pacific or South America. The boys even take time help Santa run his rounds, at least that's what they claim. 

The one thing which ties many of the stories together though is the "Swinks". Captain Easy and Wash Tubbs end up on an island on which they looks for the treasure of the Swinks. The Swinks turn out to be ant-eating aardvark-like critters that prove quite helpful in many instances. Wash is so smitten with the Swinks that he takes one as a pet and names him "Bennie". Bennie tags along with our heroes for most of the two years this volume covers. He has an uncanny sense of smell and at different times is sent looking for gold and for oil with marginal success. When the story doesn't need him, he conveniently disappears for some weeks then turns up again as if he'd been there all along. The Swink disappears for good at the end 1939 with no mention of his having gone. 

The strip has lost the vigor which informed hits earliest years, the artwork being quite good, but not anything approaching spectacular. Mostly the stories don't demand the lush exotic images, but are somewhat staid light-hearted adventures. More's the pity. We wrap things up next time. 

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The Sunday Funnies - Captain Easy 1936-1937!

Roy Crane's Captain Easy Soldier of Fortune - The Complete Sunday Newspaper Strips Volume 2 1935-1937 from Fantagrahics contains a somewhat less colorful and vibrant reding experience. The visual exuberance which had marked the earliest outings of the daring "Soldier of Fortune" in foreign lands among exotic flora and fauna and peoples gives way to a more familiar visual scheme. The stories are filled with plenty of derring-do and lots of danger, but somehow they come across as more humdrum, though still diverting and often funny. 

Cold of the Frozen North

From December 8, 1935 until April 19, 1935 we follow Captain Easy as he makes his way North into snowy regions where he has to fend off the henchmen of the villain Nikky Eskota. There are a number of hair-raising events as Easy and a lovely young woman use all types of transportation to get important items from the North into the South and then back again. 

The Hook-Nosed Bandit 

April 26, 1936 through August 8, 1936 brings us the story of the bandit who it turns out is Easy himself. He is confused for a villain and taken into custody by the local authorities but an old ally named Clipper Watson discovers his plight and takes steps to help him escape from custody. The duo are in and out of prison but eventually save a damsel and return her to her father, a wealthy man named Belfry. 

The Diamond Formula 

August 16, 1936 until December 13, 1836 brings us the story of Belfry himself who is an inventor and who has come up with a way to manufacture diamonds. This of course makes him a target of all manner of thieves as well as diamond merchants eager to protect their market. Easy follows Belfry back to America where they come up against some tough gangsters. 

Dinwiddy's Adventure

From December 20, 1936 through March 14, 1937 we follow the misadventures of a rich but timid man named Dinwiddy who is hungry for adventures and looks to Captain Easy to show him how one can be found. Easy helps him out and before long the complications and seeming dangers multiply quickly. 

Lost at Sea

March 21, 1937 through May, 9 1937 gives us tales of Benjamin Barton, another utterly rich man who seeks to get away from his domineering wife and the strife of modern living. He contracts with Easy and the two fly away and are reported missing. But they are on a secluded island Barton has prepared for just such a getaway. 

The King of Kleptomania 

From May 16, 1937 to November 14, 1937 we meet a hobo with the impressive name of Kron Prinz Hugo Maximillian Von Hooten-Tooten, Defender Extraordinary, Light of Heaven and Heir-Apparent to the throne of Kelptomania. It turns out he really is despite early well-justified suspicion he's bogus, but Easy follows this chap all the way to Kleptomania where he attempts to help regain his throne, one he is poorly qualified for. 

The Firing Squad

November 21, 1937 to May 15, 1938 brings us the last story in this collection and reunites Captain Easy with his longtime ally Washington Tubbs. The two of them are arrested a few times and end up facing a firing squad, but I can say they both pull through. Most of this adventure has the duo dodging bullets, spies, and even some tough looking gangsters. 

After the blazing beginning the Captain Easy Sunday page has a steady rhythm filled with lots of adventure and increasingly a lot of humor. This collection also includes an introductory essay by artist Paul Pope as well as other nifty material from editor Rick Norwood. 

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The Sunday Funnies - Captain Easy 1933-1935!

Fantagraphics Roy Crane's Captain Easy Soldier of Fortune Volume One 1933-1935 gives a delightful and sometimes hair-raising glimpse at the original adventure comic strip. This brilliantly colored comic strip began with  Roy Crane's Washington Tubbs II which became Wash Tubbs a very successful daily in which its titular hero went from an Archie-prototype to something of a strip filled with globe-trotting high romance. Eventually Wash meets Captain Easy, a man's man who sought adventure first and asked questions later. When it came time to make a Sunday page, Crane eventually turned his attention full time to Captain Easy and it is that strip which fills up this debut tome. There are five distinct stories in this volume, each titled and that's how I'll deal with them. 

Gunghsi

From July 7, 1933 until January 14 1934 we follow Captain Easy, then a pilot for the Chinese government, into the lost province of Gungshi. Easy volunteers with gusto and soon flies his little biplane aross the Himalayas where he finds an exotic land filled with warring bandits, self-absorbed rulers and more than a few very delectable dames. He fights against the Mogul of the land and later for him when both are captured by despicable bandits. 

The Slave Girl 

This story runs from January 21 1934 until August 19 1934. Having become rich Easy buys a beautiful slave girl to keep her from the clutches of a contemptable lout and the pair of them head to her homeland which itself has become under attack. Easy is quick of temper, quick of wit and more than willing to unleash a submachine gun on his enemies. This is a not comic strip that blinks at dealing death, though it does it with a brightly colored zest. Easy meets a fellow Ameican named "Ramblin' Jack" who proves an uncertain ally. 

The Sunken City 

From August 26 1934 to April 4 1935 Captain Easy becomes something of an aquatic hero. Leaving behind the primitives for a time he relaxes in throes of modern society but tingling at the back of his mind is a city partly beneath the sea he'd glimpsed as his plane had crossed the mountains. Eager to seek wealth he hires an English named Pippy and the two fly into adventure. They find not only treasures but more danger above and below the waves than they can handle, and Easy almost becomes the groom at a most gruesome wedding. 

Pirates

April 14 1935 to July 7 1935 offers up a tale of how Easy and Pippy try to survive encounters with a mob of pirates who have joined forces to raid a wealthy island nation. Among the survivors they find is a beautiful princess. To save Pippy Easy is forced to surrender his golden treasure and we learn yet again that this man who seeks danger at every turn is still and all a loyal ally. 

The Princess

This volume closes out with this story which ran from July 14 1935 until December 1 1935. It's much different from the ones before in that the exotic settings around the Himalayas and thereabouts have been abandoned as Easy and Pippy head back to London. But Easy sees a beautiful woman he falls madly in love with and before you know it he's fighting duels and heading to the land of Nikkateena. His enemy in this one is one Count Heyloff who is a bully and scoundrel of the first order. Easy and Pippy get involved in actual warfare this time as hostilities break out between Nikkateena and Woopsydasia. It's war manufactured to sell weapons. By the end Easy is a hero but finds the attention too much to handle and hits the rails. 

It's all mighty splendid stuff, and reads swiftly. Crane's style is spare and filled with bright colors that explode from the page. It's a wonderful blend of serious and funny which is at once attractive and compelling. Easy inspired Joe Shuster no doubt and that's why Slam Bradley and Superman both resemble Crane's solider of fortune. I'm looking forward to more. 

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