All-American Comics #2-4

In Bobby Thatcher, Bobby and his friends are setting up for the night in an old abandoned cabin when they stumble across a secret compartment in the fireplace, containing a box of old letters and a simple treasure map.

Skippy is pranked with a trick camera that squirts blinding ink.

On to #3...

This month's Red, White, and Blue is the first story to take place in Baja California, Mexico. The story moves to Hermosillo, Mexico, showing that someone really paid attention to his atlas -- just maybe not the artist, as we never get a sense of Hermosillo being such a big city. The three of them also "dicker" (a rare word for bartering or bargaining) for horses to get to Hermosillo instead of taking a car or train, which probably was not necessary in 1940.

Instead of answering to some office in Washington, D.C., Red, White, and Blue are headquartered out of a San Diego G2 intelligence office. I can neither confirm nor deny that such an office existed in real life.

Red learns a lesson from Whitey about reading both sides of secret notes for clues.

Blooey stops a plane from taking off by standing on the tail and making it too heavy (let's assume for now that is how it would work). He's not using any real skill to do it, he's just resisting the science of wind resistance that would normally sweep him off. That's why this would be a passive saving throw instead of an active skill check. I would still allow a mysteryman to burn a stunt to do it automatically.

Skippy tells us that butter went for 24 or 25 cents per lb.

Ma Hunkel and the Hunkel Family debut in Scribbly this month. While Scribbly's family always seemed like how Sheldon Mayer imagined gentile families lived, the Hunkels are a breath of fresh air and the truest-feeling New York ethnic ghetto dwellers since Moon Mullins. 

In Mystery Men of Mars, Alan empties his pockets. Many times after defeating hoodlums, Heroes will pause to search their pockets. I even put a table for random pocket contents in adventure module RT1 Palace of the Vamp Queen.  In this story, Alan has 56 cents, a knife, and a slide rule in his pockets. Funny, but I never would have thought of a slide rule!

When the three men are thrown in a cell, they are locked in with what appears to be an automated stenotype machine that records their every word, but turns out to be a talking computer. Although drawn comically, the concepts here are pretty advanced for their time.

It's an interesting story detail that the Professor establishes communication with the Martians by solving math problems with them.

Mutt & Jeff tells us you could buy a dozen eggs for 40 cents, or a dozen cracked eggs for 25 cents -- which says a lot about how poor people were in the '30s.

In Ben Webster, we learn that "all the jack" was slang for "all the money."

On to #4...

No sooner are Red, White, and Blue assigned to investigate saboteurs, than a saboteur tries to drop a cement block from a roof onto their heads. It seems obvious that the cement block would have done considerably more than just the standard weapon damage of 1-6 points of damage, and probably more like 3-18.  The block appears to be a 5' cube, which I would only allow to hit one target. Further, even though the saboteur has a more passive role in the attack once gravity takes over, timing is a critical issue in the attack and so I would require an active attack roll, rather than just passive saving throws from the targets.

Another point to consider is, does a Hero's save vs. missiles apply here, after the attack roll? The missile is larger than average -- almost large enough to count as an area effect attack -- but is also slower than bullets. I would allow the save.

Blooey comically says "Well blow me down!" -- a line Popeye would already be famous for.

The saboteurs are an oddly multicultural bunch; one uses the Italian word "signor," while another uses the French exclamation "sapristi," and still another uses the Latin word "amici."  Either the author grabbed words at random, the saboteurs are deliberately trying to throw people off as to what country they are from, or there are an awful lot of countries engaged in this conspiracy!

A "highpowered launch" sounds like a trophy item motorboat that goes faster than normal (Boat +1?).

This adventure takes our boys to Honolulu (via Pearl Harbor, though the story does not pause there), where there is another G2 office.

In Mystery Men of Mars, some of the Martian bug-men are revealed to be robots, and it is not clear if all of them are actually robots.

Daisybelle teaches us that ice cream cones only cost a nickel.

According to Reg'lar Fellers, movies cost 25 cents -- but there might be a free gift for attending, like a shaving cup.


(Scans courtesy of fullcomic.pro/read-comic-online.)

Popular Comics #18

Evidence that the best traps are the ones that are activated by your players' own curiosity -- "best" in that they don't appear arbitrary, or seems like the Editor is out to get them.

I've written before about cover, and soft cover vs. hard cover, but maybe that's too little to cover situations like this, when Pat is behind a window with most of his body shielded from harm. Should penalties to hit instead be based on percentage of cover, or is that not abstract enough? Things to ponder...

Like the importance of knowing the range on missile weapons, as evidenced here.

There is a long tradition stretching back to mythology of imagining ways to make man fly. It seems a little odd how often this keeps coming up after the invention of the airplane, but here we have an invented trophy item that makes people float in the air.

Killer whales -- 30 HD, with 10-sided dice? Not something you want to fight unless you're really high level.

Streaky is really observant. In some games, this would come from using the skill system to roll-play the situation, but another way to play this is just to ask smart questions, as the player, and have the Editor come up with smart answers.

Cars that can turn into airplanes are useful trophies. Tolls are terrible things and, apparently, could be as high as 50 cents back in the '30s!


(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

Popular Comics #13

Nebbs reminds me that, when I statted half-pints for Hideouts & Hoodlums Book II: Mobsters & Trophies, I should have given them some natural climbing ability.

Maw Green's pearls of "wisdom" usually just annoy me, but this installment has some useful 1930s pricing information:  prunes – 10 cents a can, bananas – 15 cents a bunch, soup – 7 cents a can.

Dick Tracy runs into more "gangland trickery" -- a car with a concealed machine gun under the hood that shoots through the radiator grill. This is a good example of combining two hi-tech trophy items to create a new item.

Gasoline Alley features a map to a gold mine that you can read over Mr. Bat's shoulder and use in your home campaign.

This page of Tom Mix would take some explanation to fit H&H. First, he is hearing noise, as if at a door (with the same 2 in 6 chance of success).

The chance of the floor crumbling is a trap (perhaps a 2 in 6 chance of crumbling each turn 180+ lbs. remains on it).

Falling and landing on an opponent and damaging the opponent has been covered previously. Falling and landing on two opponents -- that's just a freebie from the Editor.

Here's another freebie -- apparently, the Editor rolled for surprise after Tom fell and gave him a free surprise turn to act. Normally, if the Editor felt the situation warranted a surprise roll, the mobsters could only be surprised long enough for Tom to get back on his feet, not to move as well.

The firefight in the dark is tricky too. Tom is in complete darkness, so the gunmen are at a -4 to hit penalty against him. But, the gunmen are in dim light -- a charitable assumption by muzzle flashes alone -- so Tom still has a -2 to hit them. That Tom hits them all with rocks before they shoot him is quite lucky.



I'm not sure, but remain skeptical that H&H needs a game mechanic to cover pinning someone's clothes to the wall. It seems more like flavor text to me...








Now, Don Winslow might be making sense -- I helped you against a rampaging jaguar, now you help me -- right? For a one-time favor, an Editor could easily hand-wave the encounter reaction roll and rule by common sense. However, if Don was looking to recruit those natives long-term, or to put them in mortal danger, then the Editor would still be right in rolling randomly for an encounter reaction.



Bos'n Hal learns that the U.S. Navy decided in the 1930s that dirigibles were obsolete, so they became available for sale (the police dirigibles on Batman: The Animated Series were probably Navy surplus dirigibles). However, given their limited availability and a presumedly high price, I still plan to keep them off the starting equipment list.

And, lastly, Skippy makes me think I may have underestimated how many hit points half-pints have. Or are these 3rd-level half-pint fighters?









(Scans courtesy Digital Comic Museum)

Popular Comics #12

We're finally up to 1937, a year and a half pre-Superman.

And first up is Dick Tracy, who demonstrates disguise skills. Should this be available to everyone, or a special feature of the Detective Class?  The Detective Class debuted in The Trophy Case v. 2 no. 7, badly needs playtesting, and will probably have to sit out from re-release in the next edition of Hideouts & Hoodlums.

There's also a neat ambush trap, with gunmen loaded up inside a fake gas tanker blocking the road.

One of the oldest tricks in the game for making mobsters seem fresh and different is to combine them. So here we get a mad scientist, coupled with a jaguar on a leash, and you get an encounter more interesting than it would have been with either one of them alone (who were statted in Book II: Mobsters & Trophies and Supplement III: Better Quality respectively).

Tiny Tim has graced these pages before, but no previous installment looked as gonzo-creative as this one!  Here we get ride-able giant robots in the shape of a man (large robot?), a stork robot, "Dreadnaught Crabs", and a mechanical dragon.

Despite how impressive the latter two sound/look, I'd guess they're really no more than 6 HD robots, since they are easily destroyed by the "fire-spitter" weapon mounted in the beak of the stork robot. This seems to shoot fireballs or concussive blasts of devastating effect.  At least the stork robot has to be piloted by a midget or child-sized pilot.

Skippy learns that the most satisfying traps are sometimes ones the victim has to trigger himself -- like a camera that sprays ink in the face of the person activating it. In a more dangerous hideout, you could replace the ink with acid -- but be careful of clever Heroes taking that trap and turning it into a weapon!

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)