Tip Top Comics #32, 35, 42

Almost caught up and going to be done with Tip Top Comics soon!  Woo!

Pricing information: $2 gets you a boy's shirt. Not as high-quality a shirt as Frankie supposed, since it tears so easily, but this ties in with what I was talking about yesterday; keeping starting price points really low, but increasing the price along with quality.

We have recently seen a heroic black lifeguard in the pages of this comic book, but we have perhaps seen no black character as heroic as this racistly-drawn maid who risks her neck to protect Frankie and disciplines the villain in the end.

I included this story because a jewel that can share a preprogrammed phantasmal image showing why the jewel was given as a gift seems like a pretty neat magic item for the game.

I include this one because the Mobster Manual is going to have an entry for sphinxes and I was perplexed by this reference to sphinxes having to do with the number seven. I have done some cursory research and can find no evidence to back this one up -- unless it is an obscure reference to the theory once proposed that the answer to the Sphinx's Riddle ("What has four legs in the morning," etc.) is the philosopher's stone, and the philosopher's stone apparently has some numerical symbolism with seven.

Jumping ahead to March 1939 (vol. 3, no. 11), we rejoin Hawkshaw discovering a gas trap with an unusual -- and a bit unbelievable -- trigger. I would not think the balloons would be able to fall onto even the sharpest arrowheads hard enough to pop them, assuming the arrowheads stayed upright...although, maybe razor-sharp caltrops would work?

I was really expecting there to be something in that barrel before Pastey rolled it at the cops ... glue, oil, razor-sharp caltrops, maybe? I guess it didn't matter because, if a barrel is rolling fast enough and hits your wheel hard enough, maybe it could do this kind of damage...? This will need to be an obstacle in vehicular combat.

If you've ever wondered where monkey sidekicks in comic books come from, you could buy them in pet stores, according to Dick Moores.

For all your 1939 selfie needs, yes, cameras had timers back then.

And we return to Hawkshaw now a few months later (Oct. 1939, vol. 4, no. 6) because he's encountered some traps both mundane and hi-tech. A mundane trap is having trellises appear to be easy access to your hideouts' second story windows, but then rig the trellises so they are easy to push over, or to fall on their own. A hi-tech trap is to rig machinery to the window that passes current through it, shocking anyone who comes in for x amount of damage.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Tip Top Comics #30, 32

Today's entry might be mostly price examples, but we'll get to game mechanics later on.

First, in Fritzi Ritz, Nancy finds a wishing stone that doesn't work for her -- but this made me think about wishes, or just powerful magic in general, and the issue of how common these things should be in a Hideouts & Hoodlums campaign. Should a wishing stone be just randomly hidden in plain view in the urban setting, that the Heroes may or may not find? Or

should it be at the end of a long quest involving beating dragons and giants?

In the next page, Fritzi rents a canoe for $3, and that does seem like a lot, because Ella Cinders was able to rent both a boat and aquaplane for just $3 per 15 minutes three issues ago. Now, maybe Fritzi can keep the canoe much longer, but the point to remember here is that you can't separate Heroes from the money they've been accumulating with high starting price points,

because that's not how things worked in the '30s and '40s. You didn't just go up to a guy with a canoe and offer him $100 to buy it outright; he'd look at you funny like you were up to no good, or trying to pull one over on him.

Also, on the subject of pricing, Frankie Doodle buys baloney by the nickel and buns are two for a nickel at the grocery store.

I can never tell if the dates are legitimate or just made-up, but How It Began seems to be legit when it gives us things like a timeline for bullfighting -- which could be handy during a time travel adventure. You wouldn't want to plan a bullfighting scene in a 1350 scenario and have a smart player telling you that bullfighting wasn't happening then.

Electric toasters for just 69 cents. Granted, it's a special sale price, but still...

We're now jumping ahead to vol. 3, no. 8 (Dec. 1938).

We do have a game mechanics issue to discuss on this one. The grappling rules, as they currently stand, require both the attacker and defender to spend the whole combat turn making grappling attempts at each other; the only time a bonus action is inserted is when the victim wins initiative before the grappling combat starts. But here, the Professor is able to get "bonus actions" of slipping capsules out of his belt and rubbing them under noses during grappling. Or is he? He doesn't manage to when facing a Hero in battle, and I've already established that the Editor can hand-wave combat rules applying to non-Heroes.

As to the wrestling moves: the "aeroplane spin" is a simple throw. I don't have a good equivalent for the drop kick, but I don't think I would count that as a grappling move anyway; kicking is just another form of unarmed combat and I treat it no differently than punching.

I'm not going to bother showing you how Jim Hardy finds the clue that there's a secret door by the half-footprints right up against the wall, and I'm going to spare you how Dick Moores consistently spells clue as "clew", but I did want to show you this page because of the example of how the catch for opening a secret door can be hidden in plain sight. Also, the novelty diner as hideout was an idea I thought worth sharing.

Here we see that animal attacks can disarm as well as attacks from people (indeed, just a page earlier, a mountain lion swats Bill's rifle from his hands in almost identical fashion).

Large eagles might need to get statted at some point, as this one is strong enough to partially raise a young man into the air. It's tricky to do and stick to my formula of 1 hp = 30 lbs, since the largest eagles in real life are no more than 17 lbs.

And now we come full circle back to Fritzi Ritz, with an idea you can use in your hideouts -- a trophy room where all the animals are stuffed, except for one real one hiding among the others, that can really attack!

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Tip Top Comics #26, 27

Welcome back! Still going through back issues of Tip Top Comics, and we're still on v. 3, no. 2 (June 1938) from last time. I actually don't have a lot of game mechanics to discuss this time, so let's just jump in so I can talk about why I've chosen these pages to discuss.

This page is rather exciting because -- well, look at that lifeguard! At this same time, Centaur Comics was still publishing minstrel show-type strips of blacks eating watermelon, and here we have a normal-looking black man, acting in a heroic manner.

Less PC as far as devils are concerned, How It Began has a very interesting history of cider that makes me want to run a medieval campaign like this someday, where the Devil isn't evil so much as he's just lazy, and you never know where you might trip over him.

There is a lot of filler in this issue, which means more learning for me; I never knew this about envelopes.

We're now in vol. 3, no. 3 (July 1938).

I had never encountered the term "sky pilot" before being used to refer to a preacher. It certainly gives new meaning to the 1960s song for me.

I'm so amused by this page, probably more than I should be. Just the thought of running scared from a cow...

The polevaulting over a river that wide-looking would probably take a stunt, or at least an expert skill check (atheletes can clear 20').

Both a boat and aquaplane can be rented here for just $3 per 15 minutes. Of course, the operative word here is rented. Most businessmen will be disinclined to rent to vigilante heroes, as they tend to get things wrecked.

I'm really surprised this was ever published, teaching kids how to make firecracker bombs in people's cars and telling them it's a funny prank adults do too? Geez.

Well, this is how you set a bomb in a car with a firecracker and some spark plug wires, apparently. Knock yourselves out, future H&H Heroes needing a diversion.

In module RT 1 Palace of the Vamp Queen, I added a table that was really useful for me, a list of random things mobsters might have in their pockets. I'm pretty sure they are on it, but I'll have to go back and see if I thought of handkerchiefs, cigarettes, and a license. I'm really surprised a common mobster would be carrying $485 on him, unless he just came back from a job. Although...I'm thinking from my modern perspective of how little cash I need to carry around these days, thanks to debit cards. Maybe, back when we paid for everything in cash, this wasn't so extraordinary? If so, then I would need to rethink $1 = 1 xp if I was going to have wallets this full.

I'm hoping this filler was well-researched, because I'm certainly putting a lot of stock in it lately. This is a fascinating explanation of where the Jack and Jill story came from that I'd never heard before.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Tip Top Comics #22, 23

Or, v. 2, no. 10 and 11, from Feb. and Mar. 1938.

And we'll start with The Captain and the Kids, one of, if not the oldest, comic strip to be republished in comic book form, having begun back in 1914 (though called Hans und Fritz until 1918). For such a superficially Germanic feature, it's odd how long the strip was based in various parts of Africa.

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Game notes: Well...um...still trying to wrap my head around gluing pants to a tree. Would it really be easier to climb out of the pants rather than rip the pants? Climbing out of your pants is normally too easy to roll for, but under these

conditions, I would treat it as an expert skill check just to not tear them accidentally. And wrecking a pair of pants would be much easier than wrecking a door -- same mechanic, but with a +1 or +2 bonus.

Then there's the other issue of running with a barrel over your head and not falling over. Save vs. science to keep your balance? But how often to force rolls? I guess that depends on terrain - maybe once every 360' on level terrain, but every 180' on lightly wooded, flat terrain?

On to Jim Hardy. I'm not interesting in game mechanics for torture, as I've said here before, but I share this page because of the efforts to use a tool to break down the door, which begs the question, should that plank of wood give him some kind of bonus? If Jim had a big sledge hammer in his hands, I'd consider a +1, but awkwardly hitting the door with a wooden

plank in his hands? I think he's more likely to give himself a splinter than to knock that door down.

And then there's the other issue, of how he sees the rocks piled behind the door, even though he couldn't budge the door an inch just a panel earlier. I can't explain that one, but I can explain that the rocks would make it much harder to wreck through the door. Essentially, it is not a door anymore, but a stone wall, much harder to wreck.

In the debut of Frankie Doodle on this blog, we see some new prices -- 98 cents for boys sweaters (gosh!), boys overcoats for ...is that $4.98? And, of course, the joke is that Frankie fails to see sodas are 5 cents.

Chris Crusty learns the advantage - and disadvantage - of wearing a fake deputy badge. I suspect Heroes would not object to this disadvantage, though, and would welcome the chance for danger that it brings. Lawful Heroes would need to save vs. plot to carry badges they know are phonies.

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No real game content here, but I never knew the origin of the word tuxedo before. Remarkable!


And now, we return to Peter Pat, which I had initially enjoyed for its dramatic story, but it really strains credulity for the amount of stuff this little boy can do. I mean, he's like an Olympic-level athlete sometimes.

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Here we have a different kind of ape man. Usually, ape men are just men drawn to look more like apes, and is sometimes dangerously close to just looking like a racist caricature. This ape man is most definitely a gorilla, yet one with human intelligence (and modesty).

We know Peter was at least 10' high in the tree, because you need to fall at least 10' to take falling damage.

Here, our little Olympian uses a trip attack, and then gets tripped, all on the same page, making this the first time I've seen tripping happen twice in the same combat.

Peter also establishes that you can pick up two dropped items in the same melee turn.

And we learn this ape man can talk!

I shared this page because boxing a kangaroo for $5 seems like it would be a fun first scenario for 1st-level Heroes, and give them a good sense for how vulnerable they are at the beginning of their careers.

I have room enough for one page from the next issue I have access to, and it brings us back around to The Captain and the Kids again, this time giving me two ideas for a trap. One is, someone opens the door, and the log swings down and hits the person in the doorway. The other idea -- and it's more in line with what you see in this page -- is that the log swings down, hits a cutout in the door, and the cutout comes out and strikes the person in front of the door. The first version could do a lot of damage, depending on how heavy the log is. The second version would do less damage, as a lot of kinetic energy would get lost in the transference to the cutout, and I'd have that do maybe 1-4 points of damage.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)