Number 1481: “Bring me his corpse!”

Yesterday was the annual Great American Feast of Thanksgiving, when hundreds of millions of people consume huge amounts of calories: turkey, mashed potatoes, yams, pumpkin pie... Not only did I eat too much, turkeys are loaded with tryptophan, which puts people to sleep...including......me.............zzzzzzz-zzzzzzzzzz

Oh, hey, but we have a post today, don’t we? It’s about artist Bill Draut, who was part of the Simon and Kirby studio when they were doing comics in the late '40s. Draut was a longtime journeyman comic book man, drawing for DC into the '70s, working on various romance, mystery and war titles. His early work showed a fully formed Caniff-style, which was very popular in the forties. According to Lambiek.com, besides his later comic book work Draut also did model sheets for the G.I. Joe TV cartoon show. He died in 1993.

From Headline Comics #27 (1947), Draut does two stories, one a police procedural about a dead gangster, the other a story of a hot wife and a cold husband (real cold, as in dead.)

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Al Plastino and JFK, 50 Years Later

I wrote many years ago about the famed Action #309 issue, where Superman divulges his secret identity to President Kennedy so the later can impersonate him (as Clark Kent) at an event where both Supes and Clark are both expected to appear.  Horrifically for DC, the issue appeared on the newsstands a full month after JFK was assassinated, although (obviously) it had been scripted, drawn and sent to the printers before the events in Dallas.

I also noted that DC had another story featuring JFK in the works at the time, which they had pulled from publication, but after urging from his successor Lyndon Johnson, they published in Superman #170, with this note at the end:

Well, turns out that Al Plastino died on Monday, and there was an additional story:

Controversy arose when the original artwork was found up for auction 50 years later -- not in the library as originally planned. Plastino asked a New York state court to release the name of the person who sent the artwork to auction in an attempt to retrieve the piece and ensure its public display. "I do not want anyone to feel sorry for me. I just want the right thing done here and to be treated fairly," he wrote in a Facebook post to fans. The auction has been removed from the schedule, but the fate of the famous Kennedy comic remains up in the air.

 Further details here:

Plastino believed the artwork was supposed to have been donated to the planned Kennedy Library in Boston 50 years ago, the same year Kennedy was assassinated, according to court documents.

Plastino was surprised to learn recently that it was scheduled for auction on Friday in Beverly Hills, California. Heritage Auctions has since pulled the artwork from this week's sale, said Heritage spokesman Noah Fleisher.

Given that original art comic pages commonly go for hundreds of dollars, and that this particular issue would be regarded as particularly historic (especially with the auction coming near the 50th anniversary of Kennedy's assassination), it would certainly appear that Plastino had a legitimate issue (as might the JFK Memorial Library).  However, the current owner has a defense:

"Heritage policy is not to publicly discuss pending litigation," Fleisher said in a prepared statement. "I can tell you, though, that our consignor bought the artwork at a Sotheby's auction and we withdrew the artwork weeks ago as soon as we learned of the dispute and have returned the item to the consignor." (bolding added for emphasis)

 Kudos to longtime commenter and emailer M Hamilton for finding this.

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Number 1480: Thanksgiving Turkey Award 2013 featuring Shock Gibson

It is time again for our annual award, the Thanksgiving Turkey Award, which is given to the comic book story I think is the most oddball, stupid or awful (or some combination) that I have encountered in the past year. The judgment of what wins the award rests solely on me. You don’t get a say in the matter, so if you don’t agree with me you can tell me, but my decisions are final.

The 2013 Turkey Award story was a clear winner, which I picked out of Speed Comics #8 (1940) this past January. I figured I wouldn’t find a more worthy candidate for the honor of accumulating gobblers than this story of Shock Gibson’s trip to Africa to end the slave trade, wrestle a gorilla, fight a knight from a lost city, build a pyramid single-handed, rescue the sexy queenֹ’s son from some other knights, and reject the queen’s marriage proposal. (We are not told what happened to the former king, the prince’s father.)

The Grand Comics Database gives credit to writers Maurice Rosenfeld and Bill Scott as “Maurice Scott,” (it took two guys to write this?) and art credit to Norman Fallon ?, with that question mark meaning they aren’t sure. Whoever is to blame, it earns a solid three-and-a-half turkeys out of a possible four.

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From latest to earliest, the former Thanksgiving Turkey Awards winners. Just click on the thumbnails:

2012: “Yarmak’s yakety-yak”:

2011: “Andy’s Atomic Adventure”:

2010: “Satanas”:

2009: “The Million Year Monster”:

2008: “The Bride of Jungle Jimmy”:

2007: “The Beyonders”:

2006: “The Flat Man”:

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Number 1479: Queen of Uranus

Snickering aside over the title of this little opus from Forbidden Worlds #78 (1959), this story is the kind that appears well-intentioned, but the result is not.

The message is if you aren’t beautiful, you don’t deserve to be loved. Poor Miss Purdy, she doesn’t doll herself up so she can’t attract a man or even have respect from the schoolchildren she teaches. Ah, but then an alien from Uranus arrives and he is smitten by Miss Purdy looking just the way she is! Of course, going by the values of the society from whence she comes she thinks, “If he loves me the way I look now, I should improve on my looks just for him.” It backfires in that case, and yet after that rejection Miss Purdy finds true happiness here on Earth with her students and principal by putting on a false face. Happy ending.

The story is drawn by Ogden Whitney, and written by the editor, Richard E. Hughes, using the name Thomas R. Drew. These are new scans. I showed this story before several years ago, and made the same complaints.

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