Funny Pages v. 4 #1 - pt. 1

We return to Centaur's Funny Pages with a new lead feature. Though signed "Richard Bruce," this is believed to be more early work by Plastic Man's Jack Cole.

Here we see a rare origin story for a magic-user. We get a sense that becoming a magic-user is itself dangerous, perhaps even requiring a save vs. poison!  In Supplement I: National, I used the snake bite panel to illustrate the Snark Charm spell. The snake may have been charmed into biting Mantoka, although snakes don't always need provocation to bite.

Here, seemingly soon thereafter, Mantoka has the ability to Polymorph Self, marking him as at least 7th level.  That a 7th-level magic-user would have to run from four dogs seems unlikely, unless Mantoka simply did not want to engage them and possibly see them hurt.

The electric eye trap is our first indication that this is modern day.

This is a really nice page, with a surprisingly P.C. representation of an Indian as an intelligent, modern man, who doesn't need magic to embarrass a racist.

Then Mantoka seems to use the spell Stoneskin on himself, unless it's a magical variant of the Super-Tough Skin power.

Straining your arm is not linked to any game mechanic, but is flavor text.

Mantoka uses a Gaseous Form spell to escape, then uses Burning Hands (even more literal than the D&D version) on the mine guard.

Mantoka gets felled by a head blow.

Mantoka was only stunned, because no one recovers from full unconsciousness that quickly in Hideouts & Hoodlums.

Being tied up does not hinder his spell-casting, since he seems to have cast Enlargement on himself. Unless, maybe he actually used the wrecking things mechanic on the ropes and enlarging was flavor text.

Mantoka then uses either some new intangibility spell, or maybe an illusion to fool the guards, and then casts a Mass Polymorph spell that turns three men into rats. That's got to be a 6th level spell, meaning Mantoka has ten brevet ranks to cast it! In Supplement I, I used that panel to illustrate the Reincarnate spell, though it does not really match it well.


 

Freezing the flood was either the work of a Control Water spell or maybe a Cone of Cold spell. In Supplement I, I used that panel to illustrate the spell Ice Storm.

Now we move on to The Arrow.

As illustrated here, movement takes place before combat actions.

We should not be surprised that The Arrow can kill motors and smash guns to bits with his arrows; we have already seen evidence that he should be statted as a superhero, and is using the Wreck at Range power here.

What's puzzling here is the first panel -- what is going on when they hit the blank wall? Did The Arrow teleport out of the way? Project an illusion of himself being in front of that wall? Or is this skill-based, and he hid in shadows?

That the Arrow is able to take out a thug (generally 2 HD in H&H) in one punch suggests that he is buffed with the Get Tough power. Hitting four men in one turn suggests he is also buffed with the Flurry of Blows power.

This is Mad Ming, though you won't see any evidence of Mad Ming on this page. Gene is a G-Man, Jinny is his ...girlfriend? The old man is a plot hook character, possibly also a supporting cast member (we'll have to see if we see more of him after this). The old man fails his loyalty check and refuses to go down into the hideout/haunted cave.

Jinny's response includes the unusual phrase "Not much!" when she means "No way!"

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Funny Pages v. 3 #10

As another year of comic book reviewing draws towards its close, we come around to Centaur again. This feature is "Diana Deane in Hollywood" by Tarpe Mills. There's an interesting, albeit sexist set-up for a scenario here. Diana is a gender-reversed Tarzan in this story; being a woman, she "naturally" needs to be saved from the apes instead of becoming lord of the apes. The intriguing part here is, how do you rescue someone from a mobster without harming the rescuee? This page offers no solutions, but it does remind me that natives need to have a chance of carrying poisoned weapons.

This page of "Block and Tackle" is not the first time I've seen someone being shown to grapple and punch at the same time, but I still think that overly complicates unarmed combat and it is best to keep those attack forms separately. Of course, if I continue to see more evidence of this, perhaps allowing the two to combine would encourage more Heroes to go gun-less and attack with their bare hands...

Huh...after a lengthy absence, "Abdallah" returns, but not even on the same adventure it left off on! Here we see an ogre. Specifically, an Arabian ogre, but so far I see no reason to stat it any differently. Perhaps I should mention in the (next year's?) Mobster Manual that ogres can live in caves for very long periods of time with very little food.

Bats, piles of skulls, and roaring fires can all be hideout dressing, even though these things are normally associated with fantasy dungeons.


Here, we see an unintelligent mobster not taking advantage of its hostage. Editors must keep the relative intelligence of the mobsters they use in mind.

The ogre is making successful grappling attacks each turn. According to my rules on grappling, once you're grappled you can only attack back with grappling in that turn, but here Abdallah is winning initiative each turn and attacking with his sword -- and missing -- before being drawn back into a new grappling contest. When the ogre wins each time, he just throws Abdallah prone on the floor, as if toying with him.

Throwing a torch is no big deal; anyone can toss an improvised club weapon as a missile attack. What is somewhat inexplicable here is how the cave suddenly becomes a "roaring inferno." Clearly the torch did not set the stone walls on fire. Perhaps this ogre should be statted as a 1st level evil superhero/supervillain/bad man, which would give it the Blast I power. In that case, the thrown torch is now flavor text for what triggers the Blast power.


Nowhere in the rules will you find swords being able to do extra damage as the result of a charge. It really seems like it should be a lance Ab is using in this scene anyway.


We also see evidence (which I had always presumed to be true anyway) that ogres cannot move as fast as horses.

Bank robberies in comic books are as old as comic books, but the new wrinkle here is that the robbers are robbing the post office. At least, the text tells us it's a post office; it looks suspiciously bank-like inside, down to the on-duty armed guard. Perhaps the guard came with the special delivery.


Note the unique weapon: the shoulder-mounted machine gun. A trophy item, or just badly drawn? You decide!

Law enforcement works in mysterious ways in comic books, like this instance, where a man in his cell still happens to have $1,000 in un-confiscated money on his person.

This is peculiar. Note how The Arrow is on the rooftop above them, yet is able to reach down way over the edge of the roof and grapple people. I have previously changed my ruling on The Arrow -- that, upon closer inspection, he's a superhero and not a fighter, class-wise. Here, we might be seeing a new power that would be called Extended Range, allowing you to make melee attacks somewhere common sense tells you that you would not be able to reach.


(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum -- and yes, black and white scans seem to be the only ones there are.)

Funny Page v. 3 #8

The Arrow leads this issue, and I have to say I think this is the best installment yet.

This page tells us something about the value of gems, without really telling us much. A "set" of star-sapphires can be worth half a million dollars!  But how many are in a set? Assuming it was a set of 10, that would still be $50,000 each.  At the end of the story it is revealed that each set is mounted on a bracelet, so maybe this is more reflective of the value of jewelry.

Here we get an interesting tactic for bad guys to use. Borrowing a car for a getaway car is an unusual twist on the cliche of using a stolen car. The pro is that it's easier to trade cars afterwards, and the con is that you might leave a witness behind who can describe you and your "new" vehicle.

And here's a good tip from the other side -- our Hero, The Arrow, is chasing a car, but doesn't know if this is the right car or not (we don't know if the garage attendant gave him the license plate number or not). So he follows the car anyway and watches for a suspicious reaction. Even without knowing details of the car, he could have followed any car he saw on this road until one driver betrayed himself.

Just last post, I talked about that being the first time I'd ever seen a waterlogged gun not work in comics. Here we already see another dripping wet gun shooting normally again.

Wreck at range. An Editor can require an attack roll with wrecking, but it depends on circumstances (I would require it here, given the size of the target).

 Dark!

The price of duck was 32 cents per pound.

Windy, normally a one-page gag strip, was upgraded to two pages this issue. Though not a serious adventure strip, this haunted house could still make a good encounter area, and "Haunting Inc." is an idea worth exploring...

After a long absence, Abdallah finally returns with a new installment. Here we see that the "dragons" that inhabit Abdallah's Arabian fantasy world are actually dinosaurs. This is the first allosaurus in comics. Wisely, Abdallah high-tails it out of there on the next page and doesn't try to fight them. Dinosaurs would have such scary high Hit Dice that I haven't included any of them yet in the 2nd edition basic book (except for giant pterodactyls).

This is the 2nd griffin/gryphon in comics. Interestingly, it is an underworld guardian and not encountered outdoors where it could make use of its wings.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Funny Pages v. 3 #2

It's 1939, so when you read a title called "Funny Pages" there's sure to be a scene of a girl strangling a man with a lasso!

I'm disinclined from giving lassos special abilities, especially ones that circumvent the hit point mechanic via strangulation. Lassos will probably just do 1-4 points of damage in 2nd ed., and if that's enough damage to render someone unconscious, then maybe it went around the neck after all.

This is an awfully goofy page of filler, but I think it has a strong moral for Hideouts & Hoodlums players:  don't get too goofy because you think your Hero can soak up any damage he takes; the Editor always has a way to kill off your Hero if you start playing him stupid.

And maybe there's a lesson for players in this page too. If your Hero uses ruthless tactics, the Editor is going to be more inclined to use ruthless tactics back at you.

We have a true Magic-User in this gag filler story. Is this a new spell called Spirit Money, or a clever use of Phantasmal Force? Because the money disappears after Keeno stops concentrating, it's likely Phantasmal Force.

Should riot cars be trophy items? It seems like this car has a better than average change of wrecking through doors (as if a 1st level Superhero?).

The new riot car is also the "fastest thing on four wheels" -- that might be guilty of hyperbole. 

More importantly, we may have learned that The Arrow is from Newark, New Jersey!

Gas station attendants have nerves of steel -- they should have fantastic morale saves! 

The Arrow uses the Improved Take-Off/Landing stunt.

Is lightning speed narrative hyperbole, or the Outrun Train power?

Breaking through a window should not require a wrecking things roll.

The Arrow either shoots the arrow during a surprise turn and grapples first because he won initiative on the first normal turn of combat, or is using Multi-Attack to get multiple attacks in the same turn -- and then can apparently split them between different attack forms, which the power description does not specify about.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum).

Funny Pages v. 2 #12

After taking nearly two weeks off (yikes!), I'm back and looking at Centaur to see what they've got going on there back in December 1938.

This is new aviator strip hero "Skid" Davis. I share this page because I currently have an Aviator Hero in one of my two Hideouts & Hoodlums campaigns and one of the things I worry about is coming up with more aviation-themed things for him to do. Rather than just be the party's chauffeur, I have tried to keep him busy in his downtime with racing and pilot rivalries. But it's important to remember that a good pilot is going to be sought out to do all kinds of experimental flying -- any of which could become a plot hook in the right hands.

This is from The Arrow. While we still don't know where the Arrow is from, we at least know for sure it's not Chicago, because he has to go to Chicago for this one adventure.

There's also a bit of a history lesson here, as to how police officers timed speeders before Radar guns were invented.

I love how this cop has a gun trained on a seated Arrow, but the Arrow still has time to jump up and notch an arrow before the cop can shoot him. This proves that you should always have to roll for initiative each turn in H&H.

Yeah...I've never shot an arrow into a keyhole before, but I'm thinking an arrow couldn't really do that. Now, if The Arrow was a Superhero, and there was some sort of "hold portal" power, this could be the flavor text explanation of how it works.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

Funny Pages v. 2 #11

This is the second appearance of Centaur's first superhero, The Arrow.  Now, I had skimmed a few Arrow stories before, but until last night when I read this one, I would have bet money that The Arrow was actually best statted with the Fighter class. But here he is, wrecking chains, and climbing a sheer wall with a person on his back (this would require the new power, Wall-Climbing, I plan to introduce in 2nd ed.).  Perhaps most impressive, he shoots an arrow through this guy that pins him to a stone wall.  Hold Person?

It's unclear how The Arrow blows up the yacht with the canister of nitro-glycerine. Perhaps he just throws it at the yacht? Of course, many players would rather capture the yacht, and keep both that and the nitro-glycerine. One of the challenges of being the Editor is to always make blowing up, or otherwise destroying, the trophy items seem like a good option.

And that's all I've got to say from that issue!

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)