Blue Bolt Day!

Joe Simon was born on tomorrow's date in 1913. Simon was among the earliest talents in comics eventually teaming with Jack Kirby to become one of the most successful and creative teams in the history of the medium. Together they created Captain America, The Newsboy Legion, The Boy Commandos and Boys Ranch as well creating a new genre of sorts with Young Romance. Following the break-up of the duo, Simon went on to edit Sick magazine among many other projects over the years. 

In the hectic early days of the Golden Age of comics the demand for new material seemed to far outstrip the ability of the talent to produce it. It was a mismatch in the marketplace of cheap offerings keeping the really fine talent out. That left youth. It was they up and coming youngsters from the close confines of New York City who fill the gap. They worked for small money in an industry which barely seemed to know it existed, but was beginning to capture the public imagination.

Into this atmosphere stepped Joe Simon, a savvy and talented artist who had honed his skills, such as they were, in local newspapers and as part of studios which supplied talent to the shark-like publishers who were entering the new field. Victor Fox was perhaps the most shark-like of all of them, a self-important loudmouth who called himself "The King of Comics".

His staff made fun of that remark and it became an ironic catchphrase many years later. Simon impressed Fox and was soon producing Blue Bolt, a comic which evoked the essence of the time, namely the science fiction serials such as Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers.

In the debut issue of Blue Bolt we meet Fred Parrish, the obligatory football hero who is struck by lightning and finds his way into a weird underground world dubbed Deltos. There he is infused with more lightning power which makes him effectively superhuman with great strength and the ability to fly. He dons a blue costume and with little reflection on the life he left appears to pledge allegiance to the scientist to who made him. The "Scientific City" is in a war with the Green Army led by the alluring Green Sorceress.

The second issue of Blue Bolt brings with it a new flavor as the artwork seems more energetic and alive. That's no accident, as the second Blue Bolt adventure is the first published work by the Joe Simon and Jack Kirby team. Simon seemed well aware what a consummate talent he had discovered with Kirby and was very savvy to hitch his horse to such an artist. Simon's skills were not insignificant as an artist and his skills as a writer and businessman were quite advanced for the time period.

The struggle between Blue Bolt and the Green Sorceress is one of those classic frictions in which there is romantic attraction in combination with fundamental differences in politics. The Sorceress wants to rule of of the tiny world of Deltos and Blue Bolt in service to Dr. Bertoff stands in her way.

The schemes switch back and forth and the Sorceress is captured and then escapes. The story is told not unlike a serial, owing much to its movie inspirations. Each chapter sets up a high-concept bit, but by the end the story is either reset or ends on something akin to a cliffhanger.

Blue Bolt was something of a hit, though Simon and Kirby left the series after ten episodes or thereabouts. The title ran for many years and the character showed up from time to time. Reading these yarns felt at times more like watching the Flash Gordon serials than even reading the original Alex Raymond material which those were based on. Simon and Kirby really tap into that movie vibe quite successfully.

 

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Flash Versus The Monsterpuss!

This dramatic but wacky cover for the fourth issue of Spacemen from Warren Magazines is clearly meant to evoke this clash between Flash and a Ming Soldier from Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars.


Actually that's Buster Crabbe of course as Flash facing off against another stalwart serial hero Kane Richmond.


But what happened that Basil Gogos, the artist of the Spacemen cover didn't gives us a magnificent illustration of Richmond as well as Crabbe. I learned the truth at BookSteve's Library.

This blurb from the Warren editors explains the downright weird situation.

"Actually the cover on our July issue was a collectors item--the first collaboration between Basil Gogos and...Jim Warren! Upon completion of the left hand portion of the painting, Gogos was suddenly stricken with Venusian Virus and ordered to bed by his physician with a 103 degree temperature. Originally Emperor Ming was to be fighting with Flash but suddenly the choice was either a half-blank cover or___? So borrowing a popping eye from Peter Lorre, a bolt from the Frankenstein monster, a swelled head from the Metaluna mutant, a horn from a triceratops and the robotic arms of a robot, your resourceful publisher himself rushed out and got a Draw It Yourself Kit and, with the printer panting down his neck, painted the "immortal kitchen sink creature" which so many of you hailed as a Monsterpuss!"

So it's the handiwork of Jim Warren himself we see and it never to be Kane Richmond on the other side. Hmm. It's a shame the great Gogos couldn't finish this image, but perhaps it wouldn't have been so memorable as what resulted. What a hodgepodge of sources. Here they are.

Peter Lorre
Frankenstein Monster
Metaluna Mutant
Triceratops of Sorts & Obie
NOTE: This is a Dojo Revised Classic Post. 

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Fantastic Fashions Of Mongo!

It's a cliche that to overcome nervousness in an interview or public speaking or some such situation, it is suggested that the audience should be imagined to be without clothes. This is supposed to make them more humble looking and take off the tension. Don't know if it works, but I do know that seeing the mighty Ming the Merciless bereft of his typical robes and overpowering collars I do feel less threatened. (By the way, did Doctor Strange's cloak come from Ming? It's all I could think of recently when I watched the original serial again.)

Apparently one of the gimmicks used by King Features to maximize the allure of the Flash Gordon strip is to have Alex Raymond make paper dolls out of all of the characters. It certainly was a nifty means of extending the adventures into the imaginations of the kids who read it week in and week out, but did boys play with these? I would have, but I was the product of a more modern attitude.

Getting a fashion  paper doll for Dale Arden makes all sorts of sexist sense,but seeing Flash and Zarkov in their skivvies (or near it) is a big odd.

And really, just how many outfits is a Lion Man going wear anyway.

I certainly would've played with a Princess Aura paper doll, as taking off her clothes might be fun indeed. It still might be.

Don't judge me please.

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The Sunday Funnies - Flash Gordon 1941-1942!

Flash Gordon proved to be one of the most successful adventure comic strips of any era. But unlike Prince Valiant it quickly fell into other hands after Alex Raymond departed during the war and beyond. The potency of the strip though had already weaken before Raymond's departure.

In this final of four over-sized volumes we get Flash Gordon's last Raymond drawn adventure. After a brief stay on Earth to help defeat an all too familiar foreign enemy, Flash, Dale and Zarkov seems all too ready to jump into a rocket and get back to Mongo. The expressed reason is to get radium to help with the war on Earth but when Flash crashes the rocket (his patented landing technique) that is quickly forgotten as they try to survive in the land of Tropica.

Tropica is ruled by Queen Desira who is quickly deposed by her general Bazor and the next two years are swallowed up by the struggle to put Desira back on the throne, in the name of freedom no less. I've always been struck by how monarchies are the default governmental form in these stories, but that's owing to their fairy tale roots I suspect.  Without Ming to tussle against Flash is clearly a hero in need of an antagonist and we get Brazor, a remarkably bland wannabe dictator. The strip becomes nearly pure adventure for a few years with almost no real science fiction elements present save for the random appearance of a peculiar creature or vehicle. Flash owes as much to H. Rider Haggard as to Edgar Rice Burroughs in these final Raymond stories.

Frankly it all gets a bit stale and more than a little bit dull. Flash and Dale seem to have finally moved passed her getting jealous of his every encounter, though shadows of that do surface and the villains and turncoats in the comic are dispatched with as little concern as they are developed. It's all been done before and with more dash and spirit, but eventually Desira is returned, the land of Tropica is happy and our heroic trio head off to new adventures which will alas be more of the same.

I possess the Flash Gordon comic strip adventures in three forms. The first is the amazing Nostalgia Press volumes from the 70's which I still remember seeing ads at the time and lusting after. I got them pretty quickly and enjoyed the stories and tucked them away.

Much more recently I found the Checker Publishing volumes for exceedingly discounted prices and went ahead and picked them up since my Nostalgia Press tomes were showing the wear and tear of age and sometimes indifferent storage due to the hazards of daily life. That series offers up one more Flash Gordon adventure, his trip to Marvela after leaving Tropica. (I note that Flash leaves the rocket in Dale's capable hands and she doesn't crash. Hmm.) In Marvela Flash and Dale match wits with a devilish pair named Lura (beautiful with designs on Flash...check) and Ardo (scientist who makes monsters...check). By the end we earn Lura and Ardo are siblings (shades of the Skywalker twins) and are pawing each other before Flash and Dale can get into the air for more shenanigans in another land.

The drop off in the allure of the strip is quite remarkable, especially comparing it to the rip-roaring wonder of those earliest adventures. Reading it alongside Hal Foster's Prince Valiant it is clear that the quality of the latter is much more refined and much more satisfying over the long stretch. Flash Gordon was printed for many years, and I'm positive some of those adventures are dandy, but once they were glorious and mythic.

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The Saturday Serials - Universal's Flash Gordon!

When Flash Gordon was adapted to the big screen by Universal studios it was appropriately enough in the serial or chapter play format. Serials were commonly the domain of pulp or comic heroes and in 1936 the Flash Gordon comic strip had become very successful and had maintained that success for a few years, a good sign that interest would be strong for a film rendition. When they started looking for someone to play Flash they found the rough and tumble but handsome mug of Buster Crabbe looking at them. An inspired choice, Crabbe became one of the mainstay stars of the serial in the 30's and 40's and beyond when serials became television. He was joined by Jean Rogers, probably a bigger star at the time and Frank Shannon as the intrepid trio of terrestrials who fly to the speeding planet of Mongo to save the Earth.

They find on Mongo the deadly Fu Manchu, or the variation on the "Yellow Peril" villain designed by Don Moore and Alex Raymond called Ming the Merciless. Joining forces with Thun the Lion Man and Prince Barin the trio battle Ming and his forces again and again until ultimately prevail and return home (spoiler alert?). I've always liked the idea that Thun was played by a Tarzan actor and that he joined forces with Crabbe, a one-time ape man himself. The serial worked hard, sometimes to its detriment, to cleave to the images that Raymond had burned into the memories and imaginations of the youth of America. Universal borrowed sets sets from Frankenstein, clips from Just Imagine, and costumes from who knows where, but still they pulled it off, and with sufficient success to warrant a sequal..

Now the first Flash Gordon serial was a huge success and so a rare sequel was scheduled. But by the time it rolled around one Orson Welles had made a big star out of the planet Mars so it was decided that Flash and his allies would go there instead of Mongo in the directly titled Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars. (Not all that surprisingly it looks a whole lot like Mongo.) This new adventure has more polish than the first one, more surface production value and while the first one cleaved to the Alex Raymond original to its detriment at times (do we really need to see Frank Shannon's knees?) this one felt comfortable enough to add a character.

That character was named "Happy Hapgood" a news hawk (played by Donald Kerr) who ends up accidentally along for the ride into space. Happy is added to the mix to give jokes, to be the comedy relief. He's totally unneeded and unwanted and he messes with the classic Flash Gordon formula something awful. One of the strongest aspects of  this installment is the presence of the Clay People who are cursed and as a consequence are able weirdly blend into the walls of their territory. Watching them blend in and out of the walls is seriously creepy and one of the scariest memories of my childhood. They are wraiths in nearly every sense of the word, ghosts blended with goblins to form a really unsettling creature.

Then some years later they did it again with Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (a most unwieldy but memorable title. As in the comic strip Flash, Dale, and Zarkov go back to Mongo and get involved with saving the planet from Ming yet one more time. Again the movie looks like the comic strip, but by this time the comic strip was lush and handsome indeed. This is a good looking serial and one of my favorites, because it was this serial I owned first as it has always been in the public domain for some reason. 

There is much daring-do and the serial looks great. Buster Crabbe never looked more handsome or dashing on the screen. But some of the blood and thunder was missing, and that's true of the comic strip as well. There's a sense at times of going through the motions, both on screen and on the Sunday funny supplement. More on that tomorrow. 

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Flash Gordon Zeitgeist!

Flash Gordon Zeitgest is the brainchild of Alex Ross, an artist of great reputation and talent who apparently adores the 1980's versions of Alex Raymond's iconic hero. In fact both the DeLaurentis film and the Filmation cartoon adaptations are given no small heed as this potent retelling of the classic clash unfolds.

This rendition of the Flash saga takes place in 1934 and includes on the villains roster alongside Ming and Klytus, the original super-villain of the comic book world -- Adolf Hitler. Here Hitler is a lackey, serving at the whim of Ming who is supplying the Third Reich with technology to make it even stronger. When the war is over the little Paper-hanger will be one of the myriad "rulers" who serve beneath the heel of Ming the Merciless. We follow three fighters from Mongo (a lion man, a hawk man and a golden woman) who seem to be working in sympathy with the Allies.

On Mongo itself the familiar story unfolds with a change and alteration here and there. Flash is still condemned by Ming and as usual he overcomes the many threats to his life and brings something new to Mongo -- esprit de corp.

Dale Arden is once again the sexual desire of Ming, though as usual his desire stems more from a wish to overpower than to woo her. She is the Earth in raven hair and as such Ming wants her to submit and like it. She disagrees.

The story flows back and forth from Earth to Mongo with designs from Ross which evoke the old Sam Jones flick. The silliness of the movie is erased, though some of the inherent absurdity of the inter-planetary struggle remains embedded in the yarn. The battle on this planet rages throughout and we even get brief glimpses of other heroes who are defending the Earth.

The artwork by Daniel Indro is pretty good, though like some much in the modern art of comics a wee bit busy. It is lush, but that gives way somewhat when in later issues Ron Adrian is tapped to illustrate the Eric Trautmann scripts.

Throughout the run Alex Ross supplies the stunning covers and in this instance was the motivating force for the series and so designed all of it. as well. It's interesting to see the interplay of the various  versions of Flash Gordon get tapped in part as the story unrolls.

One very interesting change is an emphasis on Zarkov who steps out of the shadows a bit to contribute to the inevitable defeat of Ming. It's all too clear in the original that his ideas were central to the success of the uprising to this point.  We get some powerful biographical information about Zarkov and how this man came to be what he was.

As with any of the Flash Gordon yarns a victory is the result of the unending fighting, and as in all the there is an eventual victory over the forces of Ming or whatever substitute is on hand. Ming is defeated in this story as well and new leadership is put into place and that's a surprise in its own way.

But as in the classic Alex Raymond comic strip, Ming is not quite finished and his revenge is terrible indeed. This iu that rare Flash Gordon story that truly has a finale that allows for, but doesn't beg for another story. Flash Gordon Zeitgeist is a dandy story, if imperfect and does quite a bit to move Flash Gordon into a new era.

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