Number 1397: Mandrake and the Ratmen of Rodencia

When the call to help comes from Magnon, the emperor of the “central galaxy” of a million planets (!) Mandrake and his pal, Lothar, jump into action. A guy who has a million planets as a kingdom is not a monarch to refuse.

Mandrake, created in the 1930s by Phantom creator Lee Falk, was always pretty fantastic in the plot department. Mandrake could gesture hypnotically and make anyone believe anything. He also walked around in a top hat, cape, and evening attire, even while subduing creatures from outer space. Mandrake is a hero with class.

According to the Mandrake Archive “The Rats of Rodencia” by Lee Falk and Fred Fredericks appeared in the Mandrake daily newspaper continuity from January 15 to May 5, 1973. This reprint, numbered #200 by the Times of India for its Indrajal Comics imprint, was published a year later.

I’ve said before I’ve never seen an actual paper comic book from this company, only online like the one I’m showing here. It’s cheaply printed and has an odd color scheme...faces look jaundiced, and Lothar is so dark brown as to obscure his face in some panels. But it’s still nice to know that someone was publishing Mandrake for the sake of fans. Indrajal Comics, which began publication in 1964, ceased publication in 1990 after 805 issues.

Here's another Mandrake science fiction story. Click on the picture.

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Number 1396: An innocent man in prison stripes

In casting about for ideas for a new comic book character someone at Harvey Comics decided a man wrongfully convicted of murder would be a good candidate to join the costumed hero ranks. In 1941 his origin was presented in Pocket Comics #1, and I’m showing it to you thanks to the folks at Heritage Auctions who scanned it. You can see the Zebra was a prisoner framed for murder who escaped two days short of his execution date, and set about to clear his name.

Huh. Well, if we accept that then we can accept that his costume, derived from his prison garb, gave him his name.

My usual source for credits, the Grand Comics Database, has no information on the artist for this story. Later the Zebra was put in the hands of artist Bob Fujitani. The costume was modified (stripes on shirt only), as shown in an April posting, Pappy's #1354.

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Demons of the Swamp

Here's another bat shit crazy classic from the September 1953 issue of Mysteries #3, seriously, this is one completely out of control Superior issue, and I've just decided I'll be posting the entire thing here this week (see "The Shrinking Horror" from our previous post HERE, as well as the OMG deranged "The Avenging Corpse" HERE, --that one I posted way back in 2008!) I'll have the fourth and finale story in our next post! [THOIA Archive Keyword: SWAMP for more bayou babes in weird 'n wet, terrifying troubles!]

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Number 1395: Sergeant Barker/Bilko

Sergeant Barney Barker, a character from Atlas Comics in the fifties, was cashing in on the popularity of The Phil Silvers Show (originally You’ll Never Get Rich), a CBS comedy starring Silvers as conniving Sergeant Ernie Bilko. I was a Bilko fan, and watched the show in its original run and in syndication.

The sponsor was Camel cigarettes. Here’s an ad from a 1956 campaign tieing in with the show, using a fumetti-style comic strip featuring Silvers and Maurice Gosfield as Pvt. Duane Doberman.

DC Comics licensed the characters for a Sergeant Bilko comic, and even a spin-off title, Sgt. Bilko’s Pvt Doberman, both drawn by Bob Oksner. The derivative Barker strip wasn’t long-lived. According to the Atlas Tales website there was the issue these two short-stories came from, G.I. Tales #4 (1956), and three issues of Sergeant Barney Barker (with a cover tagline, “Even with Barker we won the war!”) Nowadays I can appreciate Barney Barker because it was drawn by John Severin. In the fifties I would have turned up my nose at it for being “fake Bilko.” Yes, I was that kind of person; I didn’t like imitation, and yet now I see it as being an interesting sidelight to the popularity of the television show.

Here's yet another Barney Barker story from Four-Color Shadows.

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Number 1394: Swimming to distant Shores

Syd Shores did the artwork for this horror story from Ziff-Davis’ Nightmare #1 (1952). It’s a supernatural revenge tale made special by Shores’ drawing. Check out his renderings of a turbulent sea, his characters’ faces, or the spectral lighthouse keeper, all examples of an exemplary job by an under-appreciated master of comic art.

Ben Oda did the lettering for this story. Going through old comics I see Oda’s lettering in many of them. Because of damage to the lettering in page 5 panel 1, I replaced the doctor’s dialogue by using the free comic book lettering font, Odaballoon.

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