All-American Comics #11

The lead feature is still Red, White, and Blue, written by Superman's creator, Jerry Siegel. Like Bart Regan, Spy, the highlight of this feature is the fun romance between the lead characters, Red and Doris. Their interplay keeps the story light even when the subject is the murder-disguised-as-suicide of a U.S. Senator. The Senator's name is Clifton A. Carter, which is interesting because Lyndon Johnson would later have an aide named Clifton C. Carter.

The villain is a Mr. I.M. Glib, a refreshingly friendly mad scientist with an invisible car -- the same gimmick Siegel had recently used with the Ultra-Humanite against Superman. Glib has clothes that make him invisible too, and we even get an explanation for how that works; electrical impulses received by silver wire sewn through the suit cause it to become invisible. Unusual in a story, the Heroes decide to share this secret with the government and ask them to make more invisibility suits. It's unclear how this makes everyone wearing invisibility suits able to see each other.

Glib is foolishly killing senators because they won't agree to give him $1 billion for his invisibility invention; if he'd just taken out a patent and a bank loan, he might have made a billion dollars legitimately.

Hop Harrigan starts with a pretty exciting take-off; Hop's plane is parked on a frozen river, and has to take off just as the ice starts cracking underneath the plane. Mechanically, the Editor could decide this with a skill check for Hop, or maybe even an initiative roll to see if Hop can act before the ice does.

Adventures in the Unknown still has Ted and Alan 1 million years in the past, where they encounter ape men. One million years ago there were several real-life contenders for these "ape men," including neanderthals, homo erectus, and homo antecessor. The ape men use cunning tactics, having some of them roll around on the ground as a distraction while others jump down from the trees from behind. The ape men are also advanced enough to make cages and thatched roof huts.

The Scribbly installment clearly is taking place on New Year's Eve, 1939/New Year's Day, 1940.

In the reprinted newspaper feature Ben Webster, Ben goes on a trip in the first RV (recreational vehicle) in comic books.

In Gary Concord, the Ultra-Man, Gary is captured by Stella Tor, the wicked (and wickedly hot) dictatrix who has stormed Gary's lab with her men and found Gary (and his sidekick, Guppy) seemingly dead, but actually being revived from poison gas while in a comatose state. Recovering, Gary locks a door between them and Stella's guards' futuristic weapons are not able to get them through a steel door.

When Stella escapes, Gary's vibra-detector is able to hear the hum of her rocketship in the distance, and can tell it is hers and not anyone else's rocketship, apparently. Gary's helio-shaft is a rocket that is fired out of a giant cannon, making it faster than Stella's rocket. There's a catch to using it, though -- it can't be steered but will crash when it eventually lands. Rather than take her alive, Gary fires a giant bolo at her rocket; the bolo is made from "elasteel" with "destroynamite" on either end.

Luckily, the helio-shaft lands in water. Unluckily, it lands inside the territory controlled by Stella's father. Gary is captured, and observes first hand the flying guns and destroynamite torpedoes that the Tor Army is amassing. Gary's cell is protected by "ray-eyes" (electric eye beams?), electrified bars, and armored guards. In fact, one poorly drawn guard in the background might be wearing some kind of powered armor.

(Read at fullcomic.pro) 

All-American Comics #10

Wrapping up this month's Red, White, and Blue...

Doris distracts the Master with a flash of light reflected off of her compact mirror so Red can paste him one. I don't think we need any game mechanics for that other than a simple initiative roll. If the players won, then Doris' distraction worked.

A lot of the Mutt & Jeff's featured in All-American Comics are reprints of comics already licensed to earlier comic books, but this one in particular I don't remember. It features a goat -- that very important animal featured in so many gag strips -- but maybe takes the cake for most exaggerated abilities for a goat. This time, the goat can not only push a car with its headbutts, but it eats half the car.  As crazy-powerful as goats are in joke strips, I'm thinking of pushing them up to 1+2 Hit Dice, and let them do 2-8 points of damage with a headbutt, limited to when they are combining pushing with damage (and 1-6 otherwise).

In Popsicle Pete (they wisely removed the The Adventures of part, since there's never any adventure), we learn that a plate of spaghetti could sell for a quarter at a restaurant, but for 45 cents if there is live music.

In Adventures in the Unknown, Ted and Allan continue to encounter anachronisms, as an early man is attacked by a triceratops that went extinct 67 million years earlier. Further, even though "tri" is right there in the name, the triceratops is consistently drawn with four horns. And, of course, they kill it, not caring if it is the last of its species. They also produce a medical kit/first aid kit, which they never listed having with them before. I wonder if I should be more lax on equipment lists and let players save vs. plot to have any common tool they need when they need it.

We learn that Ted's full name is Theodore Magroodle Dolliver. That doesn't make me like him any better.

With nothing but time on their hands, Ted and Alan begin a three-day trip of rafting upstream just to see where the river begins. While rafting, they are attacked by a huge river python -- and this might actually bear out, paleontology-wise, as pythons would likely have evolved by then. Now, aquatic pythons...that was probably an evolutionary dead end. Comically, when Ted is constricted, Alan keeps trying to shoot it with his pistol, regardless of how good a chance he has of hitting Ted by mistake! When Alan fishes Ted out of the water and pumps water from his lungs, we're reminded that -- back then -- people though you should lay someone on their stomach in that situation.

When Scribbly takes a week's vacation up north in the country, his mother gets fed up with his younger brother and mails the tyke to Scribbly. That might seem like child endangerment today, but apparently this was an actual thing that used to happen until 1913!

Lastly, in Gary Concord the Ultra-Man, we learn that they have "ray eye recorders" in the 23rd century, or what we would call security cameras today. "Televisors" are what they call television. An "electron racer" is a fast personal plane, but maybe that is a make and model (the 2236 Electron Racer)? Electron Racers are faster than cosmic ray craft (another type of personal plane, but a two-seater). Both look like jets. After being shot out of the sky, Gary and his sidekick Guppy encounter a land-tank (suggesting there are also sea-tanks or air-tanks) equipped with a raygun in its 180-degree top turret. When Stella Tor divebombs them after they take control of the tank, she drops poison bombs from the Electron Racer (probably not standard issue and something she loaded in herself).

(read at fullcomic.pro)

All-American Comics #8 - pt. 2

Continuing #8...

For comedic effect, Mutt of Mutt & Jeff is able to ignore below freezing temperatures through force of will, as soon as it allows him to ogle women. It makes sense to allow a saving throw vs. science to avoid some environmental factors, though once the temperature becomes extreme enough to start doing points of damage, I would stop relying on this practice.

I have previously written about how strangely common goats are in early comic book humor. In this issue's Daisybelle, three men are unable to push one goat against its will and it has to be moved by a tow truck. Now, it may be that the Editor was treating this as combat and making them all roll to hit before rolling for damage and then converting that into feet pushed, but they just keep missing their target number vs. the goat's Armor Class. But all this makes me think that maybe even 1+1 Hit Dice is conservative for how tough comic book goats should be treated.

Mystery Men of Mars becomes the more generic Adventures in the Unknown in this issue. Ted and Alan travel to Spottiscourt, Virginia, which sounds like a real place, but if it is, I can't find it. We learn that not only did their robot trophy's brain rust, but the entire body corroded and turned to ash -- much like drow magic items do in D&D when exposed to sunlight. Their second adventure follows the pattern of the first, but this time a scientist offers to take them to the prehistoric past in a time machine rather than to Mars in a spaceship. Appropriate for a time travel adventure, we know the date on which they leave for the past, October 24, 1939.

In The Adventures of Popsicle Pete, Pete and his friends are able to fix up a broken radio, suggesting to me that electronics is a basic-level skill in 1939. We also learn that the license to open a radio station cost $100.

Scribbly's humor tends to be hit and miss, but maybe the best joke yet is this exchange, after Scribbly is sent to the principal's office for drawing an unflattering picture of his teacher.

Principal: That's awful! It doesn't look like you at all! It looks like a pig!

Teacher: Well? Aren't you going to say something about it?

Principal: Oh, my!  I certainly will!  Young man...this is terrible!  The next time you draw a pig, remember to make it look more like your teacher!

In Ben Webster, Professor Mattix returns and smashes the last thought recorder, having decided that it is an "agency for trouble" after spies tried to get it. Using shaky science the author doesn't even try to explain, it is claimed that only one thought recorder can ever be built following the same design. But that doesn't insult our intelligence nearly as bad as Ben Webster creator Edwin Alger's bizarrely racist depiction of black servants, drawing them to look more like bears than humans.

(Read at fullcomic.pro)

All-American Comics #6

Picking up where I left off in #6...

After seeing references to Clyde Beatty in both a previous Mutt & Jeff and this month's Reg'lar Fellers, I looked him up and -- sure enough -- Clyde was a real person and not just a comic strip character!

In Mystery Men of Mars, Ted and Alan don't feel they've killed enough Martian pill-bug men yet, so they drop dynamite on them.  They return to Earth with a trophy, a robot they can control. Despite crash-landing in the ocean from orbit, the boys only take enough falling damage to fall unconscious.

Hop Harrigan is probably only a second-level Aviator by now, but he's already upgrading to a trophy plane -- an autogyro that can drive on the ground as well. A chase takes place over Route 26. If this is U.S. Route 26, then Hop's adventure takes place in either Nebraska or Oregon. It turns out that taking on Gerry as a SCM has extra bonuses; she's a plot hook character, in that she introduces Hop to a kidnapping scenario, and then she comes with the bonus of rich parents who want to pay Hop for keeping her on as his SCM. It's like having hirelings, but in reverse!

In Bobby Thatcher, they escape the old man who wants their map, but encounter a riverboat on the river as a wandering encounter. The riverboat accidentally smashes their rowboat. I would assign the riverboat a Hit Die for the purpose of making an attack roll, and then instead of assigning hit points and damage, I might just make a common sense ruling that a riverboat, with its size and mass, would easily smash a rowboat. That Tubby can't swim is a serious complication, and one I would not burden a Hero with, or even most Supporting Cast Members. SCMs meant for comic relief, I might save vs. plot for them to see if they can't swim.

Mutt & Jeff show us that you can get a used jalopy for as little as $10 back in the '30s, but there was a good chance (3 in 6?) the brakes would not work.

We learn in Scribbly that, as of September 1939, Scribbly is 13 1/2 years old.

Boxing champ Jack Dempsey guest-stars in The Adventures of Popsicle Pete -- given the accuracy of the likeness -- very likely with permission.

All-American Comics #4-6

From the tail end of #4...

From Hop Harrigan, I learned that air mail pilots were required to be armed.

Spot Savage, a humor/adventure strip with an odd sense of humor, has had Spot locked up in an insane asylum, in a straight jacket, for one week of "game time" now. I can't imagine any players being happy with that game session.

Moving on to #5...

From Red, White, and Blue, we learn that a live turkey is worth $4.  We see the boys, on leave, playing banko, which as late as the 1980s was still another name for the game of bingo. They also play the card game hearts. While searching a room for clues, they find money and a note hidden in a hollow ashstand (a stand for an ashtray to sit on).  Instead of spies, they seem to be opposing anarchists this time. The chief anarchist calls them "cannon fodder," which is amusing because the term gets thrown around a lot in RPG games. It's also interesting to me that they go to a carnival with a shooting gallery and an old mill ride, as both figure into the upcoming adventure module RT2 Adventures in Fun World.  Policeman Mike Flynn (another old friend of Red's) joins them as Supporting Cast this time, and is helpful at catching all the lookouts posted by the anarchists. Lastly, it is interesting that after beating up the anarchists, the policeman admits that the only charge they can charge them with is for concealed weapons. This could be another good reason for Heroes to go into scenarios barehanded instead of using weapons.

According to Reg'lar Fellers, admission to an all-you-can-eat strawberry-eating festival would be $1. I wonder how common those were.

Ben Webster meets an inventor who has put together a thought radio. It can record and play back someone's thoughts, but the person has to be standing about 5' in front of the radio and has to stand still for at least 1 melee turn. It even works on animals.  Curiously, people they meet are quick to believe in the thought radio, rather than suspect Ben and his friend of some kind of hoax.

In Mystery Men of Mars, the Martian pill-bug men have a melting ray that looks sort of like a planetarium projector. It is revealed that Ted's gun is an automatic, and he has to change the clip between throwing slugs into advancing Martians. In fact, so many Martians fall to his vicious onslaught that the bodies become stacked up too high for more Martians to enter the tunnel. I suspect that Ted is making a lousy first impression of Earthlings for them.

Hop Harrigan runs afoul of an arsonist, a mobster type that debuted in Supplement V and will be in the 2nd edition Mobster Manual. Hop can't escape the deathtrap the arsonist puts him in and would have died, but a new character (Gerry) shows up and saves him, then becomes a temporary Supporting Cast Member for next issue. Because Hop's cheap plane (he'll get fancier ones later) is still lined with paper, he has to be very careful about burning embers falling on it and combusting his whole plane.

In Bobby Thatcher, a half-pint is able to kick open a stuck door. For that matter, Gerry was a half-pint too and was able to do pushing "damage" to Hop to land him in a fountain after his clothes caught on fire.  Being young and small does not affect their abilities much -- except in Scribbly, Scribbly is so sickened by a dollar cigar that he's effectively stunned.

In Spot Savage, the "Duchess" breaks into a safe and finds $60,000 in negotiable bonds.

In Scribbly, we learn that Scribbly earned $8 a week as an office boy, plus $2 for every cartoon of his that got published.

I don't know if I've ever gleaned RPG material out of Toonerville Folks before, but this one page tells me that a carpenter would work to fix a shed for $7 back in the '30s.

And on to #6!

In Red, White, and Blue, it appears that Doris lives with her aunt, and that Whitey still lives at home with his parents. Blooey has a pet parrot that stays with him like a Supporting Cast Member.  Of course, the parrot saves the day later by repeating something it hears. Red is thwarted from snooping at a window by a noisy cat, which in this instance is just as effective as a watchdog.  The bad guys are saboteurs again, but since they are all kind of Japanese-looking, this time they are spies. There are five spies, and one of them has a sub-machine gun.  The leader has a pistol and knife and goes by "The Eye." Although much of the fight happens off-panel, Blooey beats a saboteur with a shovel so hard that the man has to go the hospital. 

(Read at fullcomic.pro.)

The Funnies #22

Alley Oop uses pteranodons a lot. They are called pterodactyls in the strip, but the scale is off (pterodactyls were too small). Pteranodons are one of the few dinosaurs that can be domesticated and ridden in Alley Oop. Dropping rocks while flying overhead is also shown to be an effective tactic. Helmets are shown to protect wearers from attacks directly overhead, though (act as shields from overhead attacks?).

This is from Four Aces and the lesson here is that pilots flying mail planes were, apparently, authorized to carry a gun.

Goat joke #15!

Oz is a place you could send Heroes to in Hideouts & Hoodlums.  Maybe they need to recover some of this Magic Powder of Life?  It's hard to define, in game mechanics terms, what this powder does. Besides functioning as a Raise Dead spell, it also grants sentience and intelligence.  This stuff would be worth a ton of experience points!

Should a pumpkinhead be a mobster type? Maybe statted the same as a bugbear?

This is a, so far, faithful adaptation of The Marvelous Land of Oz, second book in the Oz series.

Mombi has a potion that will turn Tip into a marble statue. I should have a mobster type for witches, maybe with a random table of crazy potions or powders they might be carrying.

From a gag page called, appropriately enough, Hold Everything.


(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

The Funnies #18

The importance of communicating by telegram cannot be overstated. Telephones were not reliably private and depended on the operator, or a series of operators, being able to make the right connections. Important messages were still sent by telegram, which cost about 75 cents on average, according to this page of Dan Dunn.

Ten cents for a beer. Bear in mind that you could get a hot dog for only five cents.

A good playing tip from G-Men: dressing in a mail carrier's uniform is a good way to get close to a hideout, and also an excuse to check their mail. Also note the tropes of secret writing, and the secret marijuana trade.

The text here in Don Dixon doesn't specify what "Ogi" is, but given the name and his height, it seems a fair guess that Ogi is an ogre, possibly the first one in comic books.

Tad of the Tanbark is suddenly my source for new spells!  Smoke Image is like the spell Projected Image, except that it can only be projected through pre-existing smoke closest to where you want to project to. This has to be a 3rd or 4th level spell.

There are some good tips here from Captain Easy about always checking up on new people you meet, and what to look for in identifying a fake twin, but the real find here is what Spain was, allegedly, paying foreigners to come and man their air force during the Spanish Civil War. Any Heroes down on their luck might want to consider fighting in a war, even in a pre-WWII campaign.

Tailspin Tommy reminds us that pirates, even modern-day ones, can't resist acting out the tropes of their genre, and would have to save vs. plot to resist doing things like making their prisoners walk the plank.

The Four Aces remind us why some villains use deathtraps -- it's to hide the evidence of the murder from police. Of course, why they don't shoot them first and then burn the building down, isn't explained...

According to Scribbly (yay! I get to post Scribbly!), a newspaper's weekly payroll was only about $7,000.


(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

The Funnies #15

We've made it to December 1937!

Tad's player is taking a huge risk here, shooting at a snake, while his friend is standing directly on the other side of the snake. Given the circumstances shown here -- and provided Tad's player understands those circumstances, and still chooses to shoot -- I would give the bullet a good chance of hitting his friend if the shot missed the snake (maybe a +1 situational modifier to hit).

Captain Easy is like a comic strip tutorial for playing Hideouts & Hoodlums.  Here, Easy shows you how to create your own plot hook characters!

Scribbly's Mom shows us that, even when a mobster encounter begins hostile, you can still ask the Editor for another encounter reaction check (finally -- finally! -- I found an excuse to showcase a page of Sheldon Mayer's remarkable Scribbly!)

Goat joke!  I've lost track of how many goat jokes we've had so far...

And lastly -- I'm not sure if this was a real thing or not, because we typically haven't seen $100 fines for anything so far in the comics, but according to Daisybelle you could get a $100 fine for picking up a hitchhiker on a highway.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)