NEW COMICS #1 (DECEMBER 1935)

We're taking a deep dive into comic book history with this one.  New Comics was a continuing comic magazine and the second continuing title for DC Comics (back then it was the National Allied Newspaper Syndicate, Inc., headed by Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, the legendary pulp writer and comic book pioneer.  It was the company's first half-tabloid size magazine, now the standard size for comic books.  New Fun changed its title to New Adventure Comics  with issue #12 (January 1937); another title change, this time to Adventure Comics, came in November 1938 with issue #32.  As Adventure Comics it ran until October 2011, with issue #529.

Over the years, the comic book blazed its way through the Golden Age with stories about Aquaman, Hour Man, Green Arrow, Manhunter, Sandman, and Superboy, among others; through the Silver Age, adding stories about Congarilla, the Legion of Super Heroes, Tales of the Bizarro World, Aqualad, Black Canary, Black Orchid, Doctor Mid-Night, Martian Manhunter, Spectre, Supergirl, and Zantanna; and through the late Bronze Age with Dial H for Hero, Plastic Man, and Starman; a brief spell as a digest magazine saw stories about the challengers of the Unknown and Shazam; while the lasr few issues included a relaunch of Atom.

But all that was in the future.  New Comics -- the International Picture Story Magazine #1 promised "eighty pages packed and jammed with new comics features, written and drawn especially for New Comics -- never printed before anywhere.  Here is a magazine of picturized stories chock full of laughter and thrills, comic characters of every hue, knights and Vikings of ancient days, adventuring heroes, detectives, aviator daredevils of today and hero supermen of the days to come!"

Let's take a look at the initial line-up, shall we?

• "Now --When I Was a Boy --"  Finding a horseshoe used to be considered lucky, but that's not the case for Uncle Chris in this attempt at humor.
• "Sir Loin of Beef" by R. G. Leffinwell.  Our hero gets ousted by a tavern maid.  Another humor attempt.
• "Axel."  A filler to make you say "huh?"
• "Billy Kid."  Young Billy sends Pudge off on a ride in his soap box car, neglecting to tell him the steering doesn't work.  They had a strange kind of humor in 1935.  A contomuing feature.
• "The Vikings" by Livingstone.  King Harald sails off to war and Sigrid gives birth to his child. Sigrid's father ordered that the boy be left in the woods with a piece of salt pork in his mouth for the wolves.  The babe is found by Kol the Wise, who slays the wolves, as Odin's ravens, Hugin and Munin fly overhead.  To be continued.
• "J. Worthington Blimp, Esq." by Sheldon Mayer.  Two episodes.  Blowhard J. Worthington gets his comeuppance.  A continuing feature.
• "The Tinker Twins at Penn Point."  Hijinks at a military school involving a billy goat.  A one-and-done feature.
• "Sawbones, C.O.D." by Joe Archibald. A text story from a well=known pulpster.  "They were just a pair of saddle tramps and they chewed the dust of the Powder River range.  Yrs, those two old favorites of the cattle country are with us again."
• "It's Magic" by Andrini the Great.  Text article.
• "Petey the Pup" by Constance Narr.  Text story.  "A story of the wintry day and the real young readers...pictures by the author"  (I hope she didn't give up her day job.)
• "Needles" by Al Stahl.  In "Needles Uses His Noodle," he builds a hair-cutting machine, with the expected results.  A continuing feature.
• "Dizzy and Daffy" by Bo Brown.  One-panel cartoons.
• "17-20 in the Black" by Billy Weston. How Jim Gale ends his gambling career to follow a more useful life.  Two episodes, the second has the true title "17-20 on the Black."  Oopsie!  To be continued.
• "Just Suppose.." by H. C. & A. D. Kiefer.  So what if the Gauls had destroyed Rome, or if Charles Goodyear gave up before developing rubber?  Points to ponder.
• "Cartoon Corner."  How to draw cartoons, starting with using pen lines and cross-hatching.
• "Puzzle Adventures" by Mat Curzon.  Solve this puzzle with "the pixies."
• [untitled humor story]  Stereotypical Mexican wants some watermelon.  Not as offensive as it could be, I suppose.  This one-pager was repeated on the next page.  Whoopsie!
• "Gulliver's Travels," originally related by Jonathan Swift and drawn by (oh frabjous day!} Walt Kelley, as "Walter C. Kelley."  This one covers the voyage to Lilliput.
• "Freddie Bell, He Mans Well" by Matt Curzon.  Young Freddie gives up his seat on the subway to a fat woman, irritating the other passengers; then Freddie mistakes a prosperous gentleman for a panhandler.
• "Sister and Brother" by Emakear [I may have gotten the artist wrong; the signature is hard to decipher}.  Part of the "Junior Section For Younger Folks" of the comic book.
• "Bunco the Bear" by Dave Ruth.   More of the "Junior Section."
• "The Travel Twins"  A cut-out fashion for Gretchen the Dutch girl.  "Young ladies ---Try these cut-outs."
• "Fun for All -- A Test of Eye and Wit"  A coloring page (use pencil, crayon, or water colors), with a poem that has blank spaces for you (yes, YOU!) to guess the colors that rhyme.
• "Wing Walker" by Thor.  We're out of the "Junior Section" now, kiddos.  He's a test pilot who has been grounded on trumped-up charges.  He's been kidnapped by the "Sons of the Red Cormorant" to fly a load of weapons south.  attacked by the St. Louis mob and with his engine on fire, wing lands in the Everglades, where he meets a girl who has just escaped from the Seminoles.  There's a lot of bull-tikky and stereotyping to unpack here, but we will just have to wait because the story is continued in the next issue.
• "Cap'n Spinniker" by Tom Cooper.  Another attempt at humor.  Spinnaker attempts to drill up to the North Pole from a submersible and runs into both his nemesis and a sperm whale.
• Stamps and Coins."  Text article, focusing on an Ethiopian stamp.
• "Hobbies" by Danny Ryan (who has spent eighteen years studying hobbies).  A text article, this time on felt handcraft.  Readers are asked to pick what hobbies they wish to discuss112 hobbies to choose from. in future issues, and are given a list of 112 hobbies (phew!) to choose from.
• "Sports."  Another text article.  "Timely comments on the athletic question; Are big schools going high hat?; What is the right age?"
• "They Started Young" by Joe Archibald.  One page comics feature on early starters Bobby jones, Wilcox, Junior Coen, and Helen Wills
• "Worth-While Films to Watch For" by Josephine Craig.  Text article.  Message to Garcia, Under Two Flags, Captain Blood, The Story of Louis Pasteur, Frisco Kid, Typee, Captains Courageous, O'Shaughnessy's Boy, Robin Hood of El Dorado, Mother Lode, Prairie Schooner, and Angel of Mercy.
• "The Bookshelf," reading with Connie Naar.  Indian Brothers by Hubert V. Coryell, The Cove Mystery (they may have meant The Cave Mystery) by S. S. Smith, Radio by John Langdon-Davies, Tin-Can Craft by Edwin T. Hamilton, The Box of Delights by John Masefield (at last!  a book I have heard of and can recommend), Louis Untermeyer's poetry anthology Rainbow in the Sky, The Good Master by Kate Seredy, Red Sky by Theodore Arland Harper, Young Walter Scott by Elizabeth Janet Gray, Moviemakers by John J. Floherty, and -- one more that I know -- Babar the King by Jean de Brunhoff.
• "The Radio Dialer."  A brief article mentioning Bobby Benson's Mickey of the Circus, as well as Let's Pretend and Billy and Betty.
• "Captain Quick" by John  Elby.  London, 1586:  Kendal quick refuses to join Lord Barlow on a privateering expedition against the Spanish.  Some consider him a coward but he is really out to catch two spies bent on destroying Barlow's ship.   Quick goes on for a long career in the comic book.
• "Jibby Jones" by Vin Sullivan.  More (ahem) humor.  Jibby's mother leaves him some money to get a haircut, but Jibby really wants an ice cream sundae.
• "The Strange Adventures of Mr. Weed" by Sheldon Mayer.  Historian Oliver Weed has a change to go back to any point in time with a new time machine.  Two episodes.  A continuing series.
• "Ray and Gail" by Clem Getter.  On her deathbed, Ray's mother makes him promise to take care of his twin sister.  So now they as "On the Trail of Life's Adventures" as slick-talking Willie Gewgaw convinces to two join him on the Gewgaw boat expedition to a secret destination.  to be continued.
• "Allan DeBeaufort."  The saga of a crusader who rode with the hordes of Genghis Khan.  Evidently a one-and-done.
• "Dickie Duck" by Matt Curzon.  A simple task of watering flowers goes astray.
• "Peter and Ho-lah-an" by Liv.  Peter, who has a dog named Rab and a ram named Loki, meets an Indian boy named Ho-lah-an Morango, who teaches him how to make a lasso of wire grass to catch lizards.  A continuing series.
• "It's a Dern Lie," as told by G. W. Falcon of Evanston, Illinois.  Come up with a whopper and have a chance to win $1.00.  This time, great-grandfather Utah Falcon creates the Great Salt Lake.
• And on the back cover is an ad for a real, lifelike Shirley Temple Doll, in three sizes (13 inches, 18 inches, or 22 inches) for a very low price ($2.98, 44.98. and $7.49, respectively).  Don't delay!

Well, they said this issue was jam-packed.  I guess they were right.

Enjoy.

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