These Asylum Films plots get weaker every time.
Feature Comics #23
Comic Favorites Inc. (August, 1939)
I’ve been trying to avoid the newspaper strip collections because there’s enough comics for me to go through and I’d rather focus on the original comic book comics. Plus newspaper strips weren’t really designed to be read in a comic book format. In this case, there is some reformatting, so you don’t have to see the title every page, just the start of every story.
I was also curious about the comic being introduced here. The Charlie Chan movie series is rather controversial to “modern audiences” because the main character was always an actor in make-up even when there were other Chinese actors in roles like Charlie’s “number one son”. I never understood that myself, but I’ve also not really watched a Charlie Chan movie all the way through, just episodes of Hanna-Barbera’s The Amazing Chan And The Chan Clan in reruns. Yes, that actually existed.
Imagine if Chan’s other kids joined de-aged number one son and formed both a rock band and their own detective group while having access to an advanced version of Inspector Gadget’s Gadgetmobile, and kept sticking their noses into dad’s mystery solving, then needed him to save their butts. It’s not even as interesting as it sounds, and I probably lost some of you already. Anyway, to the reviews!
Charlie Chan by someone whose name I can’t read even when I zoom in
Charlie and Lee (the aforementioned #1 Son I think) are vacationing in London prior to Lee’s art appearing in an art show in Croydon. Scotland Yard stealthily calls for their help to find a missing scientist who has discovered a way to take pictures through walls or something (whatever a “non-transparent screen” is supposed to be), and Chan must find him on the downlow along with an inspector. Also, he ends up playing Cupid for the inspector and witness. The funny part is Charlie complaining about Lee’s use of modern slang as an affront to the English language when he still speaks in broken English himself. (It’s not his native language.) Overall a good mystery.
Gallant Knight by Vernon Henkel
Our heroes celebrate the events of a previous story when the knights of Navaria are called upon to aid in a war against a pagan uprising. Unfortunately, the guide who meets them turns out to be a spy for the enemy, but two of the knights manage to find help. It’s not a bad story of knights in Ye Olden Days, but not something I’m usually into. Prince Valiant is kind of a fluke with me.
The Clock Strikes by Geo. E. Brenner
I don’t know who the Clock’s alter ego is to know why he would just walk up to the police chief and demand to see evidence of a kidnapping. When that shockingly doesn’t work, he steals the stuff in costume (which is just a suit and a facemask…I don’t see anything clock related about this guy), analyzes it and fails to find anything. So he comes up with a plan to trick the kidnappers into helping him find them. I don’t know who this guy is that he thinks he alone can solve this and seems to work against the police until it’s time to have them arrest the crooks. Even Batman doesn’t go that far, though he will sneak his way into police records. And as mentioned his costume is lame and doesn’t have a theme related to his name. I don’t even think he wears a wristwatch. Just kind of lame overall, actually.
Jane Arden was one of those clearly newspaper comics they didn’t format. I couldn’t tell from skimming it if it was comedy or not given the art style and the Jane Arden paper dolls on each page. I opted not to read it. There are more interest girl heroes in Golden Age comics than this.
Reynolds Of The Mounties by Art Pinajian
A cattle rancher’s daughter is kidnapped to stop him from making the last drive he needs to have the money to pay off the mortgage. Reynolds suspects the neighbor, who has been trying to buy the ranch. This is a story that needed a bit more time to better pace the story out near the end, but I’ve seen worse attempts at shoving into the allowed page count. It’s a fair story.
Rance Keane “The Knight Of The West” by Will Arthur
Rance and his pal Chaps (not the oddest names I’ve seen this week) come across a ranch that has been robbed by two of its former hands, who accidentally set a barn on fire and nearly cook the girl left behind. Rance rescues her and tracks down the robbers. This does a better job fitting into the pages allowed.
overall
I passed a lot more gag comics than usual, one text story, the aforementioned Jane Arden story and similar comics Ned Brant and Big Top that was only two pages long and may or may not have been a complete story. That’s the trouble with the comics of the time. There’s almost too many stories in the hopes enough of them will find a readership. Most of the stories that did interest me were good to decent. I may check out a few more issues when they come up. Maybe.
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