Al Jaffee and the Inferior Man

Jaffee at the New York Comic Convention
in Manhattan, October 9, 2010. Via

Inferior Man would appear to be the product of many authors and artist, but this creation was all the product of Al Jaffee. I am still not sure why he used a different pen name every comic, but the quality of his work did not vary.

Jaffee knew his best hope from finding work as a Jewish man at the end of the Great Depression was in comics. Superheros were the main game of the day, but Jaffee found he couldn't reproduce the art of the popular Superman-type comics. Jaffee created Inferior Man to go with his art style. He found that it "leaned towards the cartoony figures." 


In a Mother Jones interview, Jaffee reveled more about the creation of Inferior Man,

"..I made a drawing of Inferior Man with a couple of monsters that he     might be fighting—and a friend of mine said, "Why don't you take that up to Will Eisner? He's hiring." I went up there, and Eisner was intrigued by Inferior Man, and he hired me on the spot. Ten dollars a week, which was a fortune! A subway fare was only five cents. And there, I met Dave Berg and a number of other people that I would know through the years. And that's how I got my start. Unfortunately, because the war was on, Eisner—whom I respected enormously—said to me, "Why don't you put Inferior Man in the Army. He'll be a nondescript soldier by day and a superhero by night." I always did whatever an editor told me to do, so I did it. But I just couldn't make it work. Within a couple of months, it just wasn't going anywhere. That's how I moved on to Stan Lee." (Source)

In a 2010 New York Comic Con panel for golden and sliver aged artist, Jaffee Reveled more about that character's creation. CBR reports,

"Jaffee went on to explain that the concept intrigued Will Eisner, who told Jaffee he would hire him and use the Inferior Man stories as filler mainly in military comics. Moreover, Eisner suggested that they scrape the accountant background and make him a quartermaster."

Now without further ado, a taste of his work from Military Comics #7 (Feb. 1942)...(Scroll to read here)

Page 01  //  02  //  03


To find out more about Al Jafee check out these links...
Lambiek - Al jaffee

NYCC: GOLDEN/SILVER AGE LIVING LEGENDS
Mad Man: Meet Al Jaffee, Cartoonist Icon of America's Longest-Lived Humor Magazine

Sheldon Moldoff (Part 1)

Sheldon "Shelly" Moldoff died February 29, 2012 due to kidney failure.


Moldoff was one those names that was everywhere in the golden age. If you read DC from the time at all it is a legendary name.


Mark Evanier has written an excellent obituary on his blog. I feel that all I can add is love for the Sheldon Moldoff's art work.


Here you will find his art work for the characters he was best known for: Hawkman and Hawkgirl.

From All-Star Comics #7

Script Gardner Fox, Art Sheldon Moldoff

30 //31 //32 //33 //34 //35 //36

"Her Name Was Zero"

There were many spies during world War II. They were daring, quick individuals, and generally good looking. At least, that's what golden age comics taught me.

None was as mysterious as the woman known as Madam Zero. Little of her story is know of her since she only appeared in four issues of Fight Comics in the early 1950s.

Although these issues are available online, a solid collection of all her stories has been complied in Madam Zero Secret Files Collection. The introduction is fitting, making this collection well worth your time.

Below you will find Madame Zero's introduction from Fight Comics #82. Written by George Dennison (also the pen name on #83), art by "Charles Sultan" (who maybe Matt Baker, but I can't can't decide).

Read By scrolling here. Read page by page below.

                                   001 //002 // 003 // 004

    Back up Links: 01 // 02 // 03// 04

Popular!

You may notice that some of the images are not displaying. It seems that a few post were so popular it used up my monthly bandwidth. All will be back to normal on March third.
I put up some tinypic links for the photos that were drawing so many hits. I never really anticipated this would happen. I'm happy so many people are reading, but I hadn't planned for this.

Have fixed up theses pages:

 The Origin of Flame Girl

Señorita Rio

Patty O'Day

I'll be adding tinypics for Flame Girl in a few hours.

The True Life Story of Gene Tunney

Gene Tunney was an undefeated man. During his successful boxing career, he was the regaining World Heavyweight Campaign from 1926-1928. He was know for his strategy.

From Fight Comics #19....Art by Alex Blum

 22 //23 //24 //25 //26

There an identically titled story in Fight Comics #6, but the art and script of 19 are completely different. It is listed second as the art is less than fantastic. 


 38 //39 //40 //41
(I brightened the panel to the left, but I was not able to nicely clean these scans. They are exactly from yo will see in the cbr file.)

Wild Desire (Untamed Love #1, Jan. 1950)

She plumb sick of him!

One last bit of love before the month comes to an end. ♥

Another Taste of Campus Love

I was going to share this educational tales here on Valentines day, but love and midterms got in the way.

"I knew all about men... because I'd studied every textbook and thesis on the subject! But one day a rebellious student trapped me wit a real, live man...and nothing in those textbooks could show me how to keep from falling in love with the perfect example of the undesirable male!"

Go read it on scans_daily! 

Practical Psychology for Girls

Here are some backup links! "Undesirable male" - 01 // 02 // 03  //04 // 05 //06  // 07 and the Short - He's My Boss!

Campus Loves

THE QUALITY COMICS BOSS: We need a new romance comics!

BILL WARD: I can draw pretty ladies in there underwear.

THE QUALITY COMICS BOSS: Okay you're on art! Now remember, women go to college to pick up men.

I think that's how it might have gone.

Campus Loves (Quality Comics, 1949) is a series of four books that was yet another attempt by Quality to jump on the coming romance fad of the fifties. They followed this up with Diary Loves November 1949 - April 1953,  Broadway Romances (January 1950 - September 1950), Brides Romances (November 1953 - December 1956), and Exotic Romances October 1955 - November 1956.

Here you can read the first story from issue #1. (Read by scrolling here)

 Campus Loves #1 03 // 04 // 05 //06 //08 // 09  //10 // 11

Pictorial Romances #17 (and #9)

Running 21 issues, Pictorial Romances was in press from January 1950 to March 1954. 


A warning to feminist readers, punching your screen will not make it any better.

Thanks to the Romance Comics Reading Room you can look though Pictorial Romances 9 (Matt Baker cover and story art)

Before you do that check out a story from #17, "Sharecropper's Daughter" Art by Matter Baker.

003 // 004 //  005//  006//  007//  008//  009//  010

I hope to be adding a lot of Matt Baker's work soon. ♥

My Real Love #5 Highlight Reel!

Kicking off the weekend of love we have 1950's My Real Love #5, highlight reel!

The cover (see left) stars David Wayne & Gloria DeHaven from "Down Among the Sheltering Palms." It has little to do with the content of the comic.

If you have a link to a missing section, please post it in the comments.

"In Love with Love" Art by Art Saaf- Read it here!

"Too Much Family!" Art by George Tuska

"Love on the 5:15" (1 pg, text story) story by Madeline Mines - Read it here

"Good-Time Girl!" Art by Nick Cardy - Read it here!

"He's My Boss"  - Read it here! (or here)

"Shattered Dream!" Pencils by Alex Toth, Inks by John Celardo - Read it here!

"No Regrets" (1 pg text story )Script by Patty Hendryx - Read it here!

"I Ran from Romance" Are by Vernon V. Greene - Read it here!

"The Second Look" - Read it here!

Military Man: Johnny Doughboy

Johnny is not a newcommer to this blog. The name Bernard Dibble is. He started on newspaper strips in the 1920s. He best know for Iron Vic (see left) who he created for United Features Syndicate in 1940. He stayed in the comics game until the 1950s, when he began work as a Park Employee with the New York City Dept. of Parks.

Today, I share with you some of his work on John Doughboy from Military Comics #33, #17, and #34. (Please note that 34 contains some racist content.)

#17

#33

#34

You can read Bezzey Bubble, a short from Crack Comics, here.

For more checkout...

Comic creator: Bernard Dibble

Bernard Dibble

BERNARD DIBBLE - The Wooly Art and Cute Girls

From Crack Comics #39.

New Look and Fresh Links!

As you can see the page has gotten a make over! After fighting with blogger over a layout we can agree on, it has come to this. Feedback would be much appreciated.

I've also taken the time to do some more link fixing. All theses stories are back up"

“Dixie Dugan”

Avon's The Unknown Man (1951)