Comics on Parade #24

Happy February! We're back and revisiting Comics on Parade and, for the first time in a long time, Tailspin Tommy.  Boy, it feels like Tommy and company have been stuck in that valley forever! 

Here we have a remarkably rare occurrence of an animal not being dropped by a single bullet. Cougars need to be really tough in Hideouts & Hoodlums; I'll have to review the stats and see if I should raise them.

It appears our Hero plans to act as a living shield for the damsel in distress, but since he is the only threat present it makes sense that all attacks would go towards him anyway.

We have an unusual use of "cookie" as slang here, but the real reason I shared this page is the tip about following tracks back to the lair. I have mixed feelings about this. There have been times when I had a lair all prepared and was frustrated that the players didn't want to follow the tracks back to it, and other times when it was a completely random encounter, and I was frustrated when they did follow the tracks!

The concern about an animal having a mate nearby is a sound one too. When rolling for number encountered, bear in mind that the total number doesn't have to be encountered all at the same time.

Detailed plane information for your next transportation trophy.

Oops, don't have a lot to say about this page. Keep scrolling down...

Hi again! So Abbie an' Slats is obviously not an adventure strip, but there is a strong moral dilemma here that I think would be delicious to explore in a game session at some point. A rich girl will save the town for you if you're willing to get rid of your most important supporting cast member. Is that 100 XP for a good deed worth it to you?

There are three things that stand out from this page for me. One is the uncommon term "soup strainer" for mustache. Two is the amount of money would could expect to find on someone of, let's assume middle class. Three, and perhaps the most unusual thing here is the exact height of her husband. Cartoony men are often drawn short, but in this case it is not exaggeration for comic effect. Yeah, and there's some racist depictions here too.

Yes, I'm obsessed enough on little details that I checked to see if the Bowery Lifter Upper Society was a real thing. This is almost surely a reference to the Salvation Army. 

A $150 purse seems really good for a boxing match in the 1930s, or even the 1920s (this story was first published in 1936, and the scene within it is a flashback to some years earlier). 

I'm not sure what the crime was here. Prizefighting without a license? Or was it illegal to be a female boxer? I can't figure this one out. I know it was legal for women to box in the 1950s, but I can't find anything about the earlier half of the century.

I had to look up "demi-tasse;" it's a small coffee cup, so this is an insult about his short height.

Lochinvar is a very obscure reference today, and I can't help but wonder how often this went over the readers' heads in the 1930s. Lochinvar was the fictional, romantic hero of the ballad "Marmion" by Sir Walter Scott (1808).

 

Even Fish Cake Fannie maybe isn't a throwaway line - "Fish Cake Fanny" was a 1923 play. 

This feature continues to educate! "A Bird in a Gilded Cage" was one of the most popular songs of 1900, reportedly selling more than 2 million copies in sheet music at the time.

Drinking champagne from a lady's slipper became a symbol of decadence in the early 20th century, possibly before 1910. 

"Skiddoo" meant "go quickly," later shorted to "shoo!"

And I'm tossing this gag filler in because I thought it was funny!

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Comics on Parade v. 2 #11 - pt. 1

I have been reading Tailspin Tommy off and on since this blog began, but never enjoyed it until this storyline, with an eccentric group of passengers and crew trapped in a remote valley. There is all kinds of survival advice players could use if someone sprang a similar scenario on them, like how important rationing food is, how many watts of power it takes to power a radio to reach 50-60 miles, and slang terms like "fan his conk." I'm pretty sure that means punch him in the nose...

The stranded passengers and crew do all the right things, figuring out how to hunt birds (they have to improvise missile weapons), foraging for edible berries, and looking for frogs down by th' creek.

We see a rare example of cussing from a newspaper strip as Tommy fails to see the value in trigonometry -- and, to be fair, I'm not sure how the professor's plan helps them any either.

Also note how soap opera relationships help keep tensions high among the cast.

Sorry if you planned on building your own Seversky Trainer out of paper; I'm more interested in capturing its max. speed and landing speed.

I never thought we'd talk so much about Abbie an' Slats -- but I've said that about a lot of strips by now, haven't I?

What I like about this page is that it deals with the main character's failure to win a scenario. Good guys always win? Not in Abbie an Slats they don't, and your players shouldn't feel like victory is always assured either.

Here we get some pricing information and, while some of it suspect, since the man paying is filthy rich and showing off that fact ($50 a day for room and board?), $40,000 for a high-end Rolls-Royce is definitely still believable, even for the 1930s.

And now, since it's much in the news these days, let's discuss misogyny in golden age comic books. Or, is it ever okay for your character to spank a lady?

Since the object of many role-playing games is to kill your opponents, spanking them seems pretty mild in comparison. I think it's also relevant that she slapped first, and he's doing the same amount of damage back. Would it be worse, or better, if he returned the smack instead of switching to spanking? From a game mechanics standpoint, he has to initiate grappling before he can spank, meaning he's invested more actions in his violent act than she did. And he would have taken an extra element of risk to do so in Hideouts & Hoodlums, as she would have an equal chance as him of reversing the hold!

I would say, had he spanked her butt as she walked away, that would have been a more tit-for-tat for the slap.

Moving on, this is from a full page of For the Record, but I only found the bottom two funny.

The Captain and the Kids also takes an unusual turn this issue, as it becomes a long flashback sequence for the Inspector, in his "youth" back in the 1890s. Note how Mitzi was of age to marry at 16, and everyone objects to the Inspector for leaving her at the altar, not for clearly being at least in his 40s at the time.

A few new nuggets turn up on this page. One is that the steamer's voyage across the Atlantic takes 30 days. Two, I love the detail about finding your way in the New York of the 1930s -- turn right at the lamp post with a cop tied to it. It's a grim detail if the cop happens to be dead, but certainly a good clue for any H&H Heroes that they are about to be on an adventure!

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Popular Comics #46 - pt. 3

We return to Shark Egan. This is far from the first or the last time we'll see a Hero in a diving suit and, while it doesn't inspire me to race out and craft a pearl-diving scenario, I'm struck by the interesting detail that you can hear the compressors from other divers, making it difficult to gain surprise under these conditions. Maybe everyone's chance for surprise would drop to 1 in 6?

Also, having a mix of lined and line-less diving suits in an underwater combat certainly gives one side a strong advantage over the other.

Okay, old guy....It's hard to take potassium seriously as a rare and valuable element, considering I can go to the pharmacy and pick up potassium pills super-cheap. Was potassium somehow rarer in the past? So far, I can't find any sources that back up why this geezer is so excited to find potassium (unless he just forgot his pills at home...).

The moss in the waterfall, resembling a hangman's noose, is a really nice story touch, and example of outdoor dressing.

The other thing here I would want to address is that Tommy and his pal have climbed 1,000'. How many skill checks would that take (I think it's safe to say, from the 2nd edition skill rules, that this would be basic skill checks, since they have the advantage of climbing with equipment)? The rules are, I think rightly, silent on how far one can climb per check, because there are just too many variables to take into account, like the steepness of the slope, the roughness of the mountainside (does it have good handholds?), whether they have to navigate around overhangs, etc. And then there is personal bias; I personally consider mountain climbing to be really dangerous, so I would think requiring a skill check every 10-60' is not unreasonable.

Then there is the issue of how far to have them fall if they failed. The mountain is not one sheer drop to the bottom; they are likely to land on the mountainside further down below them. If they fell from 500', let's say, I would probably roll percentile dice 5 times, giving a range of 5-500' they fell (which, yes, would likely leave them unconscious unless they were super-lucky).

We haven't seen a goat on this blog in ages! This is a mountain goat, though, which I would probably stat with 1+1 Hit Dice.

"So what? If we miss Jupiter we just sail on past it forever until we die? Is it too late to get off this ship?"

Actually, Jane keeps her skepticism about Tornado's INT score to herself and we're treated to some sketchy science about re-entry (though they did get right that you would need parachutes to break your fall).

I wonder how this mistook another planet for Jupiter. Were they not checking their trajectory en route?

The 1930s was right around the time when scientists started to figure out that Jupiter was not going to look like this.

"By Jupiter! It's Jupiter!" is a great line.

The alien insect looks like a giant wasp with a disturbingly cat-like face. Very rare for Golden Age comics, the insect survives a gunshot and needs more attacks. I would probably have to assign this at least 2 Hit Dice. Giant wasps were statted in 1st edition (Book II, Mobsters and Trophies), but I only gave them 1+1 HD then.

Giant ants have been passed over in H&H so far, though the alien Bandar (statted in an early Trophy Case issue) were certainly ant-like. This page shows us 6' long ants -- which probably have 4 Hit Dice -- and come here in a group of at least 12.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Popular Comics #44

Today's lead feature is Gangbusters!  Here, we're reminded that electric drills might make a good mundane trophy item, slot machines are worth $80, and might have $60-$80 in them on a good night (that's pretty impressive, considering these were apparently nickel slots). We also know police cars can hit 70 MPH...

This is a reminder to myself that I haven't statted look-outs yet. This mobster type would have a better chance of surprise and a lower chance of being surprised.

I have no intention of getting rid of the hit point mechanic. But, if I was, I might consider damage categories, as evidenced here in this first panel. The police officer is shot and receives a "bad wound". A bad wound apparently leaves him able to attack, but not move. But then he bleeds out some more and the bad wound becomes a "critical wound", leaving him unconscious and dying.

The dearth of specific makes and models of guns in early comics made me rethink how specific the 1st ed. Hideouts & Hoodlums equipment list was, but the true crime genre might prove I was right the first time. Here we get a .38 Colt revolver, a 7.65 German Mauser, and a 12 gauge shotgun.

The Masked Pilot is in another dogfight. Second edition is going to allow Heroes to wing their own stunts, which gives them greater flexibility, but it doesn't allow for a list of stunts with set game mechanics. Aviator dogfights need mechanics. Here we have the popular Power Dive stunt and, although it goes unnamed, the Masked Pilot countered with Find Blind Spot.

Here we see two more aviator stunts -- Improved Take-Off/Landing and Repair Plane Damage. There's probably another one here I hadn't thought of before -- Blind Flying.

Plane crashes have, pretty obviously, a high chance of death involved (save vs. plot or die?). Because of that, Heroes' planes don't run out of hit points and crash -- they accumulate complications instead, like the blinding oil spray on the previous page.

Note how the enemy pilot rolled so low to hit that the Masked Pilot's gunner didn't even need to duck or anything to get missed...

There seems to be a "Big Two" kinds of gems that are highly sought in the early comic books, diamonds and -- as here and on another recent post -- star sapphires. Making a gem "priceless" -- as happens here in Mr. Wong -- may be useful for a plot hook, but it's not good news for if your Heroes ever manage to lay claim to it (unless you rule that priceless, technically, means no XP or $ values).

Ha -- "As senior officer of this ship and a government mail pilot, I am, by virtue, an officer of the law!" I wonder if there's any truth to that or if Tommy is totally bluffing with these folks...

Tex Thorne's hunch about the "trick" could be explained by the result of opposed surprise rolls coming up in Tex's favor, but it also could have been a smart player asking for a head count of the outlaws in front, realizing there must have been more, and guessing correctly where they might have gone. Players making the right calls should be able to trump game mechanics sometimes (as I've talked about in the past about searching in the right places).

(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 #13

If TV shows aren't lying to me, then Dan Dunn is using a legitimate police "trick" here, ignoring the obvious smuggling charges because it's not his department.

Having a law enforcement officer present can be a handy incentive for getting mobsters to talk. How much they reveal is always up to the Editor, and it doesn't always have to be as specific as this ship captain is here, about the secret door.

But here...Dan seems to be on some pretty shaky legal ground here. I'm not an expert on what the rights were of police captives in the 1930s, but I'm pretty sure you weren't supposed to beat them up and drug them.  That's not to say that your Neutral and Chaotic Heroes couldn't possibly do this to prisoners...

Captain Easy always offers a wealth of playing tips. Here, we learn the value of prearranging a simple code between Heroes, so you can safely write messages to each other, even when captured!

Even though we get a great overhead shot on this page, it doesn't reveal too much about the hideout. We do learn that the clever mobsters have concealed doors leading to adjoining buildings, so that they can escape more easily.

These mobsters also have a pretty fancy car, that has a smokescreen ejector and is bulletproof as well (that's revealed on the next page). Bulletproof cars and smokescreen ejectors can be found in Book II: Mobsters & Trophies.

Another player tip is to remember how old-time doors used to have transoms above them. They're a good way to peek into the next room, or drop gas bombs into the next room. But bear in mind that the bad guys can use them against you too!

Somehow I missed this stunt when I was designing the Aviator class for The Trophy Case v. 1 #6-7, but there should be a barrel roll stunt that allows you to force someone to fall off the surface of your plane, or out of the passenger seat, if not strapped in.

Five cents for a root beer seems like useful information, but really I'm just interested in this Daisybelle strip because, if I was ever tempted to open my own hot dog stand, it would like just like this.

A fortune telling booth is actually a trophy item listed in Book II -- though it's not much of a trophy item if it works this poorly.


(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)