Stupid Comics

Baily Publishing Company had a sparse collection of releases in the 1940s, including a series of one-shots titled Illustrated Stories Of The Opera. One of their comics was an anthology starring the first comic book appearance of the titular Cisco Kid. Aside from the gag character of Super Baby, the only horror feature in this comic highlights the enigmatic Funnyman, and this was four years before the creators of Superman made their own mirthful crimefighter of the same name. Just before his comic story, Funnyman gets a one-page prose tale written by former magician Bruce Elliott where a police detective goes to investigate the urban myth of a supernatural bad guy. Chamber Of Chills artist John Giunta worked his weird ways for the 8-page comic that follows which opens up on a bunch of men hanging out at the barber shop telling their own horror stories, which is like getting a mini-anthology horror comic inside an anthology comic. The barber facetiously named Dead Pan begins his own stor...

Weird Adventures must have been a popular title for a comic book during the summer of 1951 as it was used by two separate publishers. One was P.L. Publishing which ran for a short three issues, while the other was a one-shot printed by Ziff-Davis even though it was numbered Issue #10 of a series. The cover story for this sci-fi anthology was The Seeker From Beyond where John Grant is out on the town with his girlfriend Jane as he is followed by a gorgeous blonde dressed like a Star Trek lass-of-the-week. John almost gets run over by a car, but the bikini-clad diva shoots a ray gun at the oncoming automobile. John just goes home thinking that it was a little strange that a random space babe melted a car in the middle of downtown when the girl appears in his bedroom claiming that she was Zada, Queen of the far-off planet Xedes. Zada relays a telepathic backstory about how she killed her ex-lover Zandor that raised an army against her, and that she had gone on a long quest looking for Zan...

Harvey Comics couldn't resist the urge to use the stock phrase "hair-raising tale" for the cover of Witches Tales #23 with its short horror story, The Wig Maker. Set in the small town of Webster during 1890, one of the settlement's successful stores was oddly Lemuel Boone's Rarefied Wig Salon". Lemuel gets a visit from Mr. Averall who needs a wig as all his hair fell out and wants it to look like his original blonde locks. Lem then sets out that night to the local cemetery to find a buried bundle with similar hair that he cuts off with a hatchet, so the peculiar perruquier gets most of his repository from the formally alive. His business thrives over time but gets a challenge when a rare female customer wants a fully brunette wig. Lem ransacks the boneyard for a dark-haired duplicate to end up only with nothing, although he finally hits pay dirt when he tries a native burial ground. Lem makes his sale only to literally lose his head when the ghost of the corp...

Romance comic books were ubiquitous for the majority of the Golden and Silver Ages, most of which were dull and lifeless. The typical story usually had two young adults working through their feelings for each other before eventually getting hitched. St. John decided to spice things up a little in 1949 with their series of Adventures In Romance whose second and final issue was renamed Spectacular Adventures for some reason. They tried to make the tired genre peppier by adding in the element of cliffhanger action, normally having white men going on global ventures in feats of derring-do. One story has an encounter in Shanghai senselessly titled China Bombshell. The main one we're looking at here is Slave Girl where the Sheik Alli-Din-Hassan purchases a honey pot blonde who was really the Lady Deborah that got captured by pirates and sold to Moorish slavers. Her lover Sir Ronald Craig tracks her down to the Sheik's harem where her shapely form is spread out over two pages. Ronald ...

Tygra was another Sheena copycat that sprouted out during the Golden Age. Having a year-long run in Nedor Publishing's Startling Comics, Lynn Thomas was a typical blonde American girl whose plane crashed into the African jungle. A tribe called the Fire People inducts her as their goddess figure, and she gets a bonus above other jungle queens by taking a drug that gives her permanent super-strength. Lynn adopts the name Tygra and acts as the local sheriff along with her hunky boyfriend Terry, all while she sports a quintessential tiger-skin bikini. One of her more superlative adventures was in Issue #50 where she allies herself with Professor Ransome who is exploring the jungle for the last descendants of Romans sent on a mission by Caeser two millennia ago. Tygra, Terry, and the Prof. in due course find the missing Romans lead by the skimpy siren Nerea Caesar doing her best Cleopatra impression. Nerea immediately became jealous of Tygra's gorgeous gold hair and enslaves her whi...