Feature Comics #30 - pt. 2

We're looking at the second half of this issue of Feature Comics today, and are still in this month's Dollman feature. If you can't guess, Dollman has snuck aboard a German submarine since we last saw him. If you ignore the dynamic layouts and just concentrate on what Dollman is doing on this page, you'll realize there's nothing here he couldn't have done at full-size, backing my contention that a shrinking power is nothing but flavor text.

Now, he did, on the previous page, conceal himself in a crate too small for a normal-sized person to hide in...but the Editor could easily have changed the scale of the crates to fit the Hero.

I know where this is! the highest suspension bridge in the world was the Royal Gorge Bridge in Colorado from 1929 until 2001.

I am really impressed by the wrinkle in this story, that Rance leaves the time bomb intact to give the story a time limit. It's not really clear why. What would make this work so much better is if the time bomb wasn't safe to defuse, so the only way to do so is to find the man who left the bomb in the time they have available and trick him into defusing i for them. Which is almost exactly how this story goes, except for the necessity factor.

This is more of what I like from this story - not only finding out who the villain was, but finding out his backstory, looking for things to exploit so they can trick him instead of beating him up. It's all so ingenuously done that I would probably wind up giving Cameron a penalty to his save vs. plot to see through the disguise (the distance and bad lighting probably help too, so, -3?).

Here's an example of expert level sleight of hand from a non-adventure character. But I was more interested in sharing this page for the unusual word "bohunks." I don't know if you all knew this already, but bohunks is actually a racial slur, referring to an immigrant from central or southeastern Europe, especially a laborer.

We haven't looked at educational filler in a while. Things like this are very useful because, when I'm deciding how high or how far a Hero should be able to leap without some kind of buffing (either by skill or power or spell), I will look to world records, but of course world records keep going up over time. It's hard to believe that the pole vault record was "only" 14' back in 1940; now it stands at 20'!

We're jumping from there into Charlie Chan, where the artist does a great job of getting Warner Oland's likeness with all the shading. Here, Charlie lands on the nature of the bad guys' scheme from two clues. I've spoken about this before on the blog, how difficult it can be sometimes to distinguish the Editor misspeaking from deliberately leaving a clue in dialogue. The better clue, for a RPG, is having Chan realize the binoculars are expensive. I'm not even sure if one should need a skill check to determine that; I would think it would be obvious if a pair of binoculars was fancy enough to be expensive.

This page tells me pigeon blood rubies are worth twice what diamonds are worth. I wish it also told me what diamonds were worth in 1940, as that would be a good cipher for figuring out what all other gemstones were worth. Interestingly, I can find this information online, but only going back to 1960.

You don't hear about "pigeon blood" rubies often, probably because it is as violent as it sounds. Pigeon Blood Ruby meaning is primarily associated with its color that matches exactly with the blood drawn from a freshly killed pigeon.

I'm currently running a campaign where one of the Heroes is working to become a professional boxer, so I found this installment of Slim and Tubby particularly interesting. At first glance it seems that Slim needs a license and bond to become a boxer, but that's not true; he needs a license and a surety bond to work as a boxing promoter, something that's still true today (Slim is looking to become a promoter to promote his own boxing career).

We also see robbers armed with sub-machine guns here (well, sort of -- they never leave the car, but we're told they are that well-armed).

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Feature Comics #29 - pt. 1

Despite having been a lab assistant until recently, Darrel Dane already has a reputation as a private eye. Becoming a private eye is a handy way to get plot hook characters to walk in on you...but shouldn't Darrel have been suspicious that the threatening note was in easily identifiable cursive?

Suave thieves should probably be statted as slick hoodlums.

I'm curious about this, and wonder how typical it would be for a museum to employ five or more security guards for the same shift. It's also worth noting that none of the security guards wear uniforms.

It may also be worth noting this is the first mention of 18th century Spanish painter Francisco Goya in a comic book.

I don't have anything game mechanics-related to say about this page; I just think the set-up of this scene is hilarious. Ugly piece!

I'm including this page of Dixie Dugan for the unusual use of the word "punk," here used as an adjective and simply meaning "bad."

Sir Malcolm Campbell was real and worthy of being a supporting cast member in a Hideouts & Hoodlums campaign someday. You can read more about him here.

The Clock should be suspicious that the gangsters in the car had taken the time to ditch their identifying papers, but left a letter addressed to "The Reaper" in the car with them. Actually, maybe he is suspicious, because he takes the time to question Holt in the hospital about The Reaper, despite the fact that we learn on the next page that The Clock already knows exactly which local crime boss is known as The Reaper.

Lena Pry makes a surprise return to the blog. Here, Jane Arden's hillbilly counterpart encounters the IRS, and we learn that farm relief has a very old history in this country. I can almost envision a campaign of super-powered IRS agents, having to tour the country handing out checks...

I haven't included an Off the Record in some time. I shared this one, not only because I thought these two gags were funny, but the woman in the dentist's chair with Spike seems like she would be a good character to run into in someone's game. Spike would always be around, growling and threatening the Heroes.

Should half-pints need to save vs. plot to attack anyone with glasses?

Reynolds of the Mounted offers a surprisingly practical explanation for how Reynolds wasn't fooled by the fake clue left for him, but then includes shakier material like a peace pipe that can double as a blowgun, and a hollow wooden pipe being strong enough to be used as a club without breaking.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Feature Comics #25

Feature Comics is still pretty adventure-lite at this point, so I don't have a lot to go over.

This is from Off the Record, my favorite gag filler. When I was growing up these were called shadow puppets; note how they're called "hand shadow tricks" here.

This is from The Clock. None of the original Heroes I've ran Hideouts & Hoodlums for so far have had secret lairs, per se, though one has a secret hangar for his planes. A secret lair is like a hideout for the good guys. When designing their own lairs, players will want to consider security, like being able to lock and bar the place, and whether it should be soundproof or not.

We know these as sunglasses. They're also known as polarized glasses, but they're called smoked glasses here in Dixie Dugan.

Jane Arden is posing as a thief -- highly appropriate considering my making a case earlier on this blog that Jane was one of the first Mysterymen.

The bracelet here is worth $60,000 -- which seems to be about a mid-range value for jewelry in the comics.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Feature Comics #24

Today, I lap myself, sort of. Back in the Winter of 2012, I did a lengthy review of this very issue in the sixth issue of my ezine, The Trophy Case -- and that article was in many ways the prototype for what I've been doing here on this blog for almost two years now. So, rather than re-read this issue and try to glean new insights from it, I'm going to share what I wrote then in my "Comic Book World" column.

Over 68 pages, Feature Comics #24 gave you a whopping 22 features between 1 and 9 pages long. And, reading it, it gives me a bunch of ideas about how I could use this stuff in an H&H game.

The first feature, the longest of the bunch, is a Charlie Chan, complete-in-9-pages mystery.  Charlie Chan is drawn to resemble Warner Oland, the original actor to portray Charlie Chan in the movies. It seems a little creepy, actually, since this issue came out 13 months after Oland died, but given  Quality’s reputation of reprinting never- or obscurely-published comic strips, it is likely that this strip was done before Oland’s death.

The page layout and story pacing suggests this might once have been intended as a three-panel comic strip – perhaps a blessing in disguise for the short story, as it forces a slight advancement in the plot to happen every three panels. It is also fortunate that the plot is fairly simple and straightforward, as Chan has to decide which of the passengers around him on a ship is actually a master jewel thief named Grissac (which is not also the name of a Captain Marvel villain, but so should be).

The plot is straightforward in that there are few complications (Number One Son is conveniently
indisposed with sea-sickness for the whole story so we are never treated to a comic sub-plot) and
simple in that Chan makes several assumptions that just luckily turn out to be true (like how the
friends that he last met two years ago are beyond suspicion). It’s still a true mystery story, though,
with a satisfying resolution. The main clue did escape my attention as it whizzed past at the
rapid pace of the story. And, better still, it charmingly evokes the feel of the Charlie Chan films.

If I was running this scenario as an H&H adventure (I’ve seldom, in 28 years of gaming,
been lucky enough to have players who enjoy a mystery scenario, but hypothetically), I would
make a list of assumptions the players could make that are true and roll for one assumption for
each Hero -- like a rumor table, but with all true ones. Nothing bogs down a mystery scenario
more than players who are afraid of spending too much time on a dead end and, I suspect, this
approach would help narrow their options without making the scenario feel railroaded. I would also
take from this story the effect of its pacing and be prepared to have a character around the Heroes
voice a clue or helpful suggestion – or just have something happen around the Heroes, like a
knife thrown from the dark – at frequent intervals.

For a longer scenario, I might also take an old time movie, like a Charlie Chan film that my
players are unlikely to have seen or recall accurately, and steal from it like crazy.

Following the longest story in the issue is a one-page feature called “Off Side” that consists of
four, one-panel jokes. The jokes aren’t funny, but I suspect they aren’t meant to be. Instead of an
abrupt transition between features, these one-pagers serve as a sort of pallet cleanser, getting
you ready for the next story. Perhaps one reason there are no successful anthology comic books
anymore is that this technique has been forgotten. The abrupt transition forces the reader
to either ‘switch gears’ quickly or put down the comic book for a while and come back to it later,
while a successful comic book is devoured in one sitting.

That said, the next feature was not worth the pallet cleansing, being instead another three pages
of pallet cleansers bearing the name and character of Lala Palooza. Lala is an upper class society girl plagued by her comic relief, good-for-nothing, Wimpy-like, live-in brother Vincent.  Indeed, if Lala was ever actually the star of these one-pagers, she has long-since been eclipsed by Vincent’s shenanigans. Vincent fights and gambles when he’s not being idle and avoiding work, making it impossible to understand why Lala would put up with him – but I suppose that’s more thought than you’re supposed to invest in this. The past page of the three is the last, with the semi-clever notion of contrasting Vincent’s classy-sounding diary entries with how he really spends his day.

Rance Keane is Feature Comics’ resident cowboy. The plot is nothing original – a conman is pretending to be the inheritor of a ranch so he can sell it, but Rance can tell he’s a phony because the conman is dumb enough to use the wrong hand. What makes this story worth studying is that every character -- the sheriff, the old Indian, the cowhand -- has a history with Rance and we even learn who long he has known them. Every H&H Editor needs to put at least this much effort into planning how Supporting Cast Members know each other and how they figure into the Heroes’ back stories.
Rance would enjoy some better than average artwork in future issues, but none of it is on display yet in issue #24.

The following two pages are more pallet-cleaning comic strip reprints. ‘Toddy’ is about a Dennis the Menace-like young scrapper who clearly makes his mother miserable. ‘Mortimer Mum’ is less clear. In one half-page installment, Mortimer becomes a ‘mum’ when he finds a baby in a basket on his doorstep, but the following installment is a short joke at Mortimer’s expense with no baby in sight.

Two pages of comic strip reprints of ‘Jane Arden’ follow, spread out over four pages. It’s hard to say what Jane is. Each page of her strip ends in a paper doll of Jane or one her friends with some outfits to dress them up in (go on, kids, cut up your comic books!) so it would seem she’s a model, but the police are asking her to go undercover for them at the beginning of this adventure. The plot is similar to the Charlie Chan story, but this time Jane needs to find a jewel thief by locating his fence, rather than picking him out from a crowd of suspects. There’s not much to recommend about Jane Arden for H&H, though perhaps one could make an argument for using paper dolls as miniatures. The artwork on Jane Arden is quite good and usually the best work in Feature Comics since Will Eisner’s Black X
moved to Smash Comics.

At the bottom of each page of Jane Arden is a shorter strip called Lena Pry, a very poor quality Li’l Abner clone. The less said about it the better.  The two-page ‘Big Top’ is a straightforward soap opera, but with all the visual appeal of the circus. It anticipates the movie The Greatest Show on Earth by 14 years, but is otherwise of little use to gamers.

Another page of ‘Off Side’ follows with one good visual joke out of five attempts. This time the pallet cleanser is there to get you ready for ‘The Clock Strikes’. This was Feature Comics’ big draw until Doll Man debuted. Bought from his previous publisher, Centaur, The Clock is not only widely credited for being the first original masked character in comic books and for being the “missing link” between the pulp heroes and the superhero genre, but also must hold a record for the sheer number of titles he jumped around between two companies. That said, it is also easy to see how The Clock would up languishing in obscurity, with the fault almost entirely being in the hands of his creator, George Brenner. A subpar artist, Brenner would seldom draw any kind of action scene, would trace old panels as often as he could, and one time committed the unpardonable sin of reusing the entire art from an earlier issue with only the word balloons changing.

In this installment, Brian O’Brian (usually spelled O’Brien) drops in on his friend, Police Captain Kane (hint for H&H players: police contacts are great for picking up plot hooks!), and learns of a swindler who is about to get away scott free because the witness against him has been murdered. The police have nothing other than circumstantial evidence linking the swindler to the crime, who has an alibi to boot. Still, that doesn’t keep Brian from suspecting him and he mails him one of The Clock’s business cards with the threat that he will show up at midnight. The swindler, frightened, summons all his accomplices to help protect him. This is all the proof The Clock was waiting for, as he needed to catch the swindler and the real killer in the same room to prove their collusion. He then paralyzes
all three mobsters present with nerve pinches so the police will find them together. How a good
lawyer wouldn’t manage to get them off on evidence like that is never explained, but in a five-page story you can’t expect an episode of Law & Order.

The best lesson the H&H Editor can take from this is not to get too hung-up on the reality of how the law works. Flimsy evidence and the admissibility of evidence gathered by vigilantes are staples of the genre. And in most cases, that’s all it takes. Except for a few popular supervillains, most bad guys who get arrested are never heard from again.

The following pallet cleanser is a half-page of ‘Rude Goldberg’s Side Show’, a quarter-page of
‘Candid Cartoons’ and a quarter-page of rhyming ‘Twisted Tales’. Rude Goldberg’s witty inventions
are rightfully famous and this issue’s mosquito killer is no exception (the mosquito, having dulled
the tip of its proboscis on a false leg, will surely head to the nearest emery wheel to re-sharpen it…).

The next four pages are dedicated to the ‘Joe Palooka’ syndicated comic strip. Joe is a boxer from Brooklyn(though we never see him boxing in this issue) who isn’t well-educated, but his innocence highlights the hypocrisy of everyone smarter around him. It’s a charming strip.

‘They’re Still Talking’ is a one-page pallet cleanser drawn in the ‘Ripley’s Believe It Or Not’
style, but with a sports theme.

The next four-page feature is ‘Gallant Knight’, a Prince Valiant-lite story of the paladins of
Charlemagne. Sir Raymond of Navaria has just won a duel with a Tartar spy, but is still lost in the
Enchanted Forest until he comes across a lone maiden at a bridge who offers him water. The maiden is an “enchantress”, but only in the magic-lite sense that the water is drugged. Easily subdued by soldiers who were hiding nearby, Raymond is dragged off to the court of the unimaginatively named Land of Shadows where he is made a slave.

Meanwhile, Sir Neville goes in search of Raymond only to encounter the same maiden, but luckily thinks he’s too busy to drink the water and has to be dragged down by greater numbers by the soldiers in hiding. Later, Raymond passes Neville’s cell and warns him that all the food and drink is drugged to keep the slaves weak. By not eating, Neville is able to stay strong enough to overcome the guards until he finds someone with a whole pot-full of “potion” that will serve as an antidote to the drug.

With the rest of the slaves freed, the King of the Land of Shadows is quickly overthrown. Raymond stays behind and Neville rides away as this serial draws to its not-too satisfying conclusion, with a note at the bottom that next month will feature the new adventures of Captain Fortune.   No explanation is given as to why these Frenchmen have such English names.


The following pallet cleanser is another page of ‘Rude Goldberg’s Side Show’, ‘Candid Cartoons’, and ‘Twisted Tales’, with the first of the three being the only reason to pause on this page.

The next three pages come from another syndicated comic strip called ‘Dixie Dugan’.  ‘Dixie Dugan’ seems to be a soap opera with a strong vein of comedy thanks to her Pa, a sort of domesticated Captain Haddock. The art is on par with ‘Jane Arden’. At the top of each page is a short strip staring “Good Deed” Dotty, done in an entirely different style. Sort of a homely Little Audrey, Dotty is about as whimsical as you can get in three panels.

‘Slim and Tubby’ is an unusual two-page feature. It’s set on a dude ranch and you’d think
it’s a Western, but it’s really a soap opera. Slim and Tubby are ranch hands, but they’re more like
spectators to the drama going on between the guests on the ranch. The theme of this issue’s installment is boxing, with two guests at the ranch being boxers; one is a bully and the other wants
to teach the first one a lesson by training one of the cowhands (not Slim or Tubby, but a tougher
hand named Benton) to box him.


“Wind screamed through the taut rigging like angry ghouls,” begins the two-page text story “Devil’s Head”. All comic books had a couple of pages of text story back then so they could be sold at cheaper magazine rates. This is a simple, but heartwarming tale about two brothers, one tough and one timid, and the inner strength the former learns of too late from the latter. However, what really makes this story stand out is the overblown prose which, if taken literally, would make for an exciting H&H adventure about a ship beset by ghouls and demons during a storm.

The next syndicated feature is four pages of ‘Ned Brant’ comic strips. Ned is a high school/college football coach who takes some of his players along with him adventures. Because the art is pretty sketchy, it is hard to say what exact age the players are supposed to be. One of them has a rich father who believes mobsters are looting one of his gold mines. He is right, but the coach and players find the secret tunnel to where the gold is being kept and ambush the mobsters.

What makes this H&H-relevant is the temporary Supporting Cast Members – for this adventure only, the regular cast is accompanied by two unnamed government agents. The author uses them exactly right, keeping them around to eliminate false leads while keeping them away from the action until the heroes have had a chance to shine. In this case, had the government agents not been there to check out the tire tracks, the heroes might have followed them and wound up being miles away when the
mobsters doubled back for their gold.

Two pages of ‘The Bungle Family’ follows, a syndicated comic strip about George Bungle and
his domestic adventures of getting so into a radio program that he literally sticks his head inside the
radio, or catching so many fish he sinks his boat and then no one will believe him. It’s light-weight
comedy done in a cartoony style, but the imaginary radio show, “Daggers of Doom” actually sounds more interesting. The artist has a gift for drawing clothing patterns. Each page of ‘The Bungle Family’ is accompanied by a cute two-panel strip called ‘Little Brother’ and a one-panel strip called ‘Another Day Shot’ that misses two chances to be funny.

The next feature is the four-page ‘Reynolds of the Mounted’. This installment is unusual for starting in medias res, jumping into the action without even an explanatory caption. A killer is out for revenge against a village of fur traders.  The effort to bring the killer to justice requires an ensemble cast, with Reynolds assisted by fellow Mounties Bob and Tom and pilot Bert. 

Reynolds is a low-level Fighter; the only time he goes solo, he is knocked out right away. The story has a randomness to it that makes it seem like it was a RPG transcript as well; you would expect Reynolds to deliver the final blow to the bad guy since it is his strip, but Bob is the one who hits the bad guy – with a crashing plane. It’s like Bob blew a saving throw, but the Editor took pity on him and turned his fail into a win. Also worth pointing out to H&H Editors is the role weather plays in the story. Reynolds wants to play it safe and wait for Tom and Bob to come back to him with dynamite, but no Editor would want the low-level Heroes having over-kill like that. So the weather just happens to turn dangerously cold, forcing Reynolds to act rashly or take cold damage.

A one-page pallet cleanser of six panels of mildly amusing ‘Off the Record’ follows.

The last feature is four pages of the syndicated humor strip ‘Mickey Finn’. Mickey is a cop, but this is as much a police procedural as Car 54, Where Are You? half the time, he is just watching his dim-witted Uncle Phil getting into trouble. At the top of each page is a three-panel strip called ‘Nippie’. Nippie is a boy who always does things wrong, but not in a particularly funny way.

One thing the old anthology books apparently did not always do was leave off with something
exciting. I can appreciate the difficulty of balancing humor and adventure, as well as the more important need of hooking the reader with a strong first story. Indeed, this too would be a lesson for the H&H Editor. Each scene in his scenario should be like a Golden Age anthology title, with a strong opening scene to hook them, a good balance of adventure and humor, and scenes that move through the scenario briskly.

(You can read the issue yourself here!)

Feature Funnies #20

This is from Espionage, featuring Black X!  Black X knows better than to pass up a plot hook, even if just casually shared over coffee. After that, his strategy of tricking the hiring manager into thinking they know each other was a good one, and must have only failed because the guy made his save vs. plot to see through it. Blackmail is clearly Black X's plan B, but the guy makes another save and isn't cowed by the threat.

What I really don't get is the leap in logic that the blackmailer could only be Black X. Way to use player knowledge, Editor!

Jane Arden is lucky to live in times when a man is willing to risk his livelihood for a $5 bribe. I seriously doubt she could have pulled off so much for so little today.

If you can get past that middle tier, I want you to look at the bottom left panel of Archie O'Toole here. That wicked layout is your proof that this is a Will Eisner job. I'm not sure how to map that castle, but I like how the uppermost level is on top of the middle level, sitting in a big box in the middle of the lower level.  Or at least, I think that's what I'm looking at!

The story makes it clear that these three brothers are ghosts. So what can they do? They have a chance of inducing fear, can turn invisible (I think), and can alter their form. They can also be quite reasonable (not all are Chaotic?).

Okay, Reynolds of the Mounted says that's a giant grizzly, but is that hyperbole or are we looking at needing to add giant bears to Hideouts & Hoodlums?  Are we going to need 10 Hit Die bears?  Yikes!

Okay...I'm not sure if I support this "Landslide!" trick having an effect on game mechanics, because I could see players over-exploiting this.  Still...it kinda makes sense to have it do something. Maybe, if your opponent misses a save vs. plot, he loses initiative for that turn (but can't be tricked again during that combat).

The Clock demonstrates the important of carrying around a flashlight, even if you're a mid-level Hero!

No, Dixie Dugan isn't a furry! I'm not sure how often Heroes are going to be buying Easter Bunny outfits, but maybe $50 is a good estimate for a low-end superhero costume?

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

Feature Funnies #17

This is from The Clock Strikes, and that's not shoes in that shoebox -- that's radium!  This is 1939 and not too many people understand how radiation works, so it's not important that it work right in your 1939 campaign either.

That clever Clock figured out a good way to earn an extra 100 xp for a good deed in the middle of the scenario, extorting that charity check out of the good doctor!

This is Espionage -- always a favorite of mine, but I share this page to point out two things. One is the implied license to kill given to Black X. This is one of the good guys, but as of 1939, it was still okay for the good guys to kill. That would make some of my more bloodthirsty players very happy!

Also, using the torn pieces of paper as a passkey like that is a good idea worth stealing for an espionage-themed scenario.

Predating James Bond by 15 years, Black X has a wealth of super-spy weapons such that Q might have come up with, as inventoried in Supplement IV: Captains, Magicians, and Incredible Men.  Here we see the tear gas pen, good for temporarily incapacitating foes at point blank range.

We also see how volatile technology is when it makes a scene more dramatic.  The wrecking things rules has a note about wrecked generators setting hideouts on fire, but really it should apply to any machine, even when being wrecked by non-Superheroes.

This sword fight might be an example of a parry rule in play, or it might just be flavor text -- it's hard to say with parrying. The ability to go "full defense" and get an Armor Class adjustment is still asked for by my players, and Hideouts & Hoodlums will probably keep Parry as a game mechanic.

I'm not sure how jumping out of a high window into your car would negate taking any damage -- although it would, admittedly, look really cool and that's often reason enough for players to want to do something. Perhaps the Editor just rolled low falling damage.

This is from Gallant Knight. The panther's spring attack is more like tripping/overbearing -- a grappling attack that definitely needs to be accommodated in the rules and, apparently, usable by even non-intelligent foes.

This is a rather clever ploy from The Gallant Knight's player -- if he manages a positive or friendly result from an encounter reaction check, he could force some morale saves with this ploy. Since there is a large force of men involved here, the Editor could hand-wave individual morale saves and just say, oh, 30% of the men make their morale saves.

There's nothing particularly adventurous in this installment of Dixie Dugan, but I was struck by the similarity between this scenario and the video game franchise Animal Crossing, where you do favors for animals and retrieve loaned items in exchange for trophies -- and realized that one could play a Dixie Dugan H&H campaign based on this same premise!

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

Feature Funnies #10

Ah, a pleasant walk in the park with two big dogs...all well and good until you start getting dragged for points of damage!  Yesterday's post brought up the subject of being pulled off your feet in combat, but today's Joe Palooka makes me wonder if there is a lower threshold for what should be able to pull you off your feet? In other words, does it need to be two dogs dragging Knobby, or could one dog have done it?

I'm thinking someone should have a chance to pull a target with up to 3 times his hit points off his feet. A small dog would have no chance of pulling a grown man off his feet, but a giant rat might. That same giant rat would likely not be able to pull a 2nd-level Hero off his feet. 

This is from Off the Record. I thought it was really funny.

I never thought I would be featuring Lena Pry, and probably shouldn't here. I mean...if Hideouts & Hoodlums is to reach as broad an audience as possible, I shouldn't engage in the very negative stereotypes I point out on this very blog, right?  So if I was tempted to include a hillbilly mobster type that is permanently confused and shoots shotguns at random targets...I should just ignore that impulse, right?

I include these panels from Gallant Knight because I want to pose the question -- should fire have any additional effects than regular damage? Weapon damage does not take into account any residual effects, like bleeding, so it seems wrong to take residual effects like being set on fire into account.  Plus you just don't see many instances of people burning to death in comic books.

You do, at least here, see fire having a stunning effect, similar to how weapons sometimes just seem to stun people. So maybe H&H needs a game mechanic for any type of damage having a chance of additionally stunning the victim for 1 turn. Maybe there should always be a save vs. science?

Twelve days ago, I used a Dixie Dugan strip to support my supposition that people were accustomed to walking everywhere in the 1930s. I failed to remember how far back America's love affair with the automobile goes and, while this page of Dixie Dugan is probably exaggerated, it does go far in refuting my supposition. The urban streets were definitely still full of cars in the 1930s (or at least they were on weekends!).

I have no reason to post this page of Dixie Dugan, though, except that it's hot.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

Feature Funnies #9

Hey, it's my blog to do with what I want -- so sometimes it's not all about Hideouts & Hoodlums.  This page of Joe Palooka I'm just sharing because it's so funny...and maybe I can relate a little...

This, on the other hand, is a bit of a sore subject for me. It's a proven fact that torture does not produce reliable information, yet it always seems to work when Heroes like The Clock want to use it. It's one of those areas, like racism, that is a tough call -- how far are you willing to go to emulate the comic books, even if it encourages non-heroic actions?

This cane with a spring-loaded trick head was mentioned in the Clock entry for Supplement IV: Captains, Magicans, & Incredible Men.

Will Eisner's Hawks of the Seas has been running for awhile now at this point and is starting its second story line, but I've never found an excuse to feature it until now. The new magic item is a Locket of Warning, that plays music whenever the owner is in danger (read: immunity to surprise).

It's often the non-adventurous strips, like Dixie Dugan, that give us the best idea of what life was like in the late 1930s. Note how Dixie's date balks at an 8-course meal for just $3 -- what sounds amazingly inexpensive to us now, wishes for the 50-cent dinner, but then lucks into a hot dog place selling everything for 5 cents each. Now, I'm not sure how many fancy hotels had to sell their in-house restaurants to hot dog vendors back then, but it does seem plausible to me that fancy eateries were going out of business often.

More subtle -- and more interesting -- is the fact that they are walking home from the beach, apparently having to cross the entire town to do so, and that's not even an issue either of them are worried about. The fact that her date can't afford better transportation doesn't even come up as part of the joke. This tells me that a lot more people were just used to walking to get to where they needed to go back then.

This is from Off the Record and, while funny, I think the interesting thing about it is that the girlfriend sitting on his lap in front of the parents is not part of the joke. Was it really socially acceptable in the 1930s to have your girlfriend sit on your lap?

Though lotteries were technically illegal in the 1930s, this "bank night" at the movie theater sounds an awful lot like a lottery...

This page of Mickey Finn seems to confirm a question I had last month about carnival rides in the 1930s. Apparently, an open spin-around ride was a real thing. I wonder how many people got hurt on those!

Lastly, from the back cover, this ad shows how available firecrackers were to anyone, for just $3. Firecrackers are, of course, excellent tools for diversions in any H&H scenario.



(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)