Jeeps & Creeps

Jeep Comics had an insane publication as its 3-issue run was split up over two separate publishers. The first two issues were printed by the R. B. Leffingwell and Co. from 1944-1945, whereas the final issue was done by Palace Promotions as a one-shot in 1948. R. B. Leffingwell only had the two issues of Jeep Comics, while Palace had a number of one-shot specials and was apparently connected to the equally brief publishers named The Spotlight, plus featured artwork by Charles Voight and Jack Alderman. The titular character of the series was Jeep who had been discharged from U.S. army at the height of WWII and was given a former military jeep as compensation instead of money even though he managed to kill a hundred Nazis during the Battle of France. So, "Jeep" takes his used jeep and strapped a rocket attachment he invented which instantly gives the vehicle the power of flight. Exactly how aerodynamic a jeep is with a fancy booster welded to its tail is like something Wile E. Coyote would come up with, not to mention how an invention like this could revolutionized travel with its more economic fueling as it ran on only a few drops of lighter fuel. Mr. Jeep then decides to sport a pointlessly extravagant red cape and on his first test flight brings along with his young partner of indeterminable connections who ironically was named Peep. Whether Peep was the boy's real name or if he got that from being a junior league voyeur is unknown, but the kid willing went along with Jeep as one of the most disposable sidekicks ever. Jeep and Peep's first case had them confronting of all things evil monster trees that would pickpocket innocent citizens brought to life by some mad scientists, so our heroes borrow a de-atomizer ray from the US Army to merciless kill the living trees and eventually outfly the bad guys in their own surplus Lockheed airplane. The second issue of Jeep Comics had Peep being the butt-monkey of Jeep's criticisms about being too fat to be his sidekick, so he becomes the victim of a scheme put on by some crooked hoods who create a reducing method that literally shrinks people. The last issue of Jeep Comics featured the heroic duo nosediving by a dinosaur on the cover, but the actual story had Peep using the flying jeep to stalk his teacher that he has a crush on only to fight some Scooby-Doo-themed baddies dressed up as ghosts to scare the lady off her property in the swamp as it's near a huge radium deposit. Aside from their airborne land vehicle and a fabulous cape, Jeep and Peep brought incredibly little to the crimefighting game when a flying jeep would have been more useful to the US forces during wartime instead of taking down evil trees.