Famous Funnies #36

A magic trophy item that could double as a deadly trap is the Mystic Mirror. It's perfectly harmless most of the time, but if anyone invisible passes in front of it, he has to save vs. spells or become a permanent reflection in the mirror. As the next page shows, though, the mirror can be reversed with a special process.

Besides the reversing process for the Mystic Mirror, this page of the Adventures of Patsy makes a passing reference to a new spell.

Change People into Animals sounds powerful, particularly if it affects a group of people. I would make it a 5th level spell, limit it to 1 target per level of the spell caster, and make the effect last maybe 2d6 hours.

A doctor's house call cost $50 in the 1930s!

This one might be a bit of a stretch, but since witchcraft and taming snakes is mentioned in the same caption, we might have the first instance of the spell Snake Charm in comics here.

Part of the fun for the Editor is finding clever places to hide treasure/trophies in the game. You don't want to make it too easy for players to find all the good loot!  So hiding diamonds in a box of chocolates seems like a great move, even if Jane Arden is a bit non-plussed about it.

History hasn't born this out, but the Flight author seemed quite convinced here that "roadable gyros" were going to become a legitimate thing soon. Of course, cars that can transform into planes and vice versa have long been staples of comic books; so much so that I just posted about it yesterday.


(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

Famous Funnies #14

The 14th post happens to be about Famous Funnies #14 and starts out, again, with Hairbreadth Harry.

Here, we see Harry has recruited a whole bunch of Half-Pints to serve as his Supporting Cast Members. Notice how they all make successful loyalty checks in the second tier of panels!

Yikes, hyenas!  Hyenas are not yet statted for Hideouts & Hoodlums, but should probably be 2 Hit Dice.  In a pinch, you could use Wolf stats for them.

Keeping Up with the Joneses is not likely to become a recurring feature here, but I dare you to look at this page and not get ideas for non-lethal traps in a hideout!

Here is a perfect example of the Slick Hoodlum, from the romantic adventures of Jane Arden.

For kill-happy players, Dan Dunn gives a demonstration of how to take out the entire crew of a counterfeiters' ship without a single fatality -- though he's aided by at least four canisters of tear gas (not available as starting equipment, but findable as a trophy), a lucky surprise roll, and unsuccessful morale saves from the Cowardly Hoodlums.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)