Crackajack Funnies #21 - pt. 3

I had a page of Boots I wanted to share, but for some reason I couldn't download it. Anyway, the joke at the end was that a cab fare was $25 and change, which was a surprisingly large amount to the character told that, but not out of the realm of the possible. I'll have to remember not to treat cab rides as freebies in my next campaign!

Here's a rare instance of Our Boarding House turning up here, and again it's to remind me of prices. $2 for moving men is reasonable, $5 seems a rip-off. Storage houses make house calls. You reading this, Public Storage? It's also worth remembering that, despite how cheap everything seems to us today in 1940 prices, they still expected quality from their merchandise.

 It should shock no one that the Iconi Indian tribe is made-up.

42' is really impressive for an anaconda, which usually top out at 30' long.

According to Wikipedia, "the large South American characins of the family Erythrinidae have also sometimes been called 'tigerfish'," but most tigerfish are found in Africa.

Poisonous reptiles has got to refer to snakes. There are pit vipers in the Amazon and...and...oh heck, there are plenty of sites you can look at yourself for this information, but I'm not looking at more pictures of real snakes to share them with you.

It's unclear if the crocodiles capsized the boat or simply took advantage of an accident.

One can't deny that swinging from vines, ropes, etc. into a battle is very cinematic. But is there any real advantage to it? He gains some momentum in the swing, but he also loses his ability to accurately target his kicks, while needing to maintain his balance and hold on the vine/rope/etc. at the same time.

If I had a precedent of using ability score checks in my campaign, I would ask for a STR and a DEX check, and only both are successful would I give a +1 to damage for the swing-kick.

From the outside of the fence, we can't tell if that is a professional hockey game, but 50 cents seems awful high for a non-professional game in 1940. The question then becomes, which hockey league is this? The Pro Hockey League was the earliest of its kind, started in Michigan in 1904. The National Hockey League, the one that's still around, began in Canada in 1917 but quickly spread to the United States. I suppose it depends on where Freckles takes place, but I don't think we've ever been given a clue. Heck, I don't even have a clue, after all these years, what that circle is in the middle of Freckle's face. A parrot beak?

But the real reason I shared this page is for the detector. I don't know if that's a real thing like the others, but it seems like it would be a really useful trophy item for mobsters to have, able to detect cars or planes approaching their hideout.

Dan Dunn gives us a detailed schematic of how to make your own buoy and use it to surreptitously drop off packages.

And here's a useful clue that you're dealing with a spy -- portable radios with inoperative tuning dials, so they can always pick up secret wave lengths.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Crackajack Funnies #20 - pt. 2

And we return with Freckles, which surprises me sometimes with its continued relevance to this blog. Here we see how easy it is to find treasure in the game -- particularly when the treasure is meant as a plot hook, and then you can literally snag it up anywhere.

An interesting code of colored lights for villains to use to communicate with each other.

I think I've mentioned elsewhere how natives need a better chance of hearing noise.

The cowboy genre has lots of reasons for bad guys to want to take someone's ranch by force, but this may be the first time the bad guys have wanted the ranch so they can turn around and sell it to the government. Won't the joke be on them if the government declares eminent domain on the ranch and builds the dam anyway!

Do natives also need a better chance of hiding in shadows, or should that apply to half-pints?

Sleight of hand is a skill you don't often see bad guys using, but this outlaw is an expert -- managing to move his hands over to an exposed axe right in front of Red and still goes unnoticed.

We haven't visited our old friend Myra North in awhile. Most male heroes solve problems with their fists; Myra solves this one with just her shoulder! I wrote recently about how a character should be able to sacrifice his chance at an attack to modify someone else's attack roll upwards, but here is an example of someone foregoing her attack to modify someone's attack roll downwards.

It's also interesting that this scene hinges on wind direction, an element often neglected in stories and RPG scenarios.

"Forcing away" needs to become a stunt in dog fights between aviators; basically a push attack, but without contact between the planes.

Power dive is already an aviation stunt, but I should probably write something about this tactic, of playing chicken with airplanes. It would apply equally to cars; the non-Hero/non-Heroes involved have to make morale saves or swerve out of the way. The Hero then has to make a save vs. science to pull out (or hit the brakes) in time to avoid the collision. Of course, the goal is to make your opponents swerve so hard that they crash, so they have to make saves vs. science if they fail their morale saves, crashing if they fail again (just not into you).

Blowguns are a surprisingly rare weapon in comic books.

According to Clyde Beatty, clowns have a soothing effect on crowds. Perhaps Heroes should bring clowns with them so their allies will all get a bonus to morale saves.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)