Stupid Comics

Fiction House's Jumbo Comics was the publisher's most enduring title, and one of the regulars in this anthology was Ginger Maguire, a flighty redhead using the feature name of Sky Girl. Her actual creator is lost to time, but her writer was Bill Gibson which was a pen name for possibly more than one author and was originally drawn by Classics Illustrated's Alex Blum then later passed on to good girl artist extraordinaire Matt Baker who was the first black man to draw for a major comics publisher. Starting out as a ferry pilot in the Pacific during WWII, she ended up as a waitress working at an airport cafe where she would regularly get into one bizarre sitcom escapade after the other and for some reason have her hair fluctuate between red, gold, and strawberry blonde. One of the Sky Girl's distinctive dilemmas from Issue 111 had her getting snared into a movie deal where Stupendous Pictures is filming an aviator feature as she bungles trying to stop what she though was ...

Edward Albert Bushell joined the Canadian comics publishers of Maple Leaf during WWII, took up the pen name of Bert Bushell, and later went on to work for American publishers like Lev Gleason and Harvey Comics. One of the earliest properties he worked on in Lucky Comics that he eventually became the writer and artist on was first titled Ether Escapades featuring Phil Dauntless, a Canadian air force pilot ace that waged war against the Axis Powers in his prototype amphibious aircraft that he called the Fish Plane. The Axis got back at Phil by framing him for espionage, so Mr. Dauntless then became a masked avenger calling himself Black Wing. Wearing a cowl over his head and the occasional cape, Mr. Wing became a full-time mystery man never taking his disguise off, even when he went on vacation. Taking a cruise ship to the fictional South American country of Argentango, Black Wing makes his way to a cabaret and is greeted by the dancing girl Carmelita who automatically knew who his was, ...

Vernon Miller headed up Maple Leaf Publishing which was the first comics publisher in Canada which opened its doors during the Golden Age, the majority of which were called Canadian Whites because they were mostly all done in black and white to save money. One of Maple Leaf's titles started out being called Name-It Comics which they allowed the readers to vote on the ongoing name for that eventually became Rocket Comics. One of the regular features in this anthology was by Spike Brown titled Cosmo And His White Magic about a rich scientist named Cosmo Grant that used his parents' old creations to fight evil as a freelance defender alongside his partner Captain Tom Hadden with the nickname of Hoot, so Cosmo and Hoot where the Dynamic Duo of their time. Similar to Batman, most of Cosmo's arsenal of freedom were given his own personal branding often referred to something with moniker of "Cosmo-" at the beginning of it. One of Cosmo's cases in Issue 9 had him thwa...

Aside from its hit Vampirella magazine, Warren Publishing also had a few other horror anthologies. The creators of Famous Monsters Of Filmland had a comics publication titled Creepy hosted by the ghoulish Uncle Creepy, and there was a sister title called Eerie with the equally cryptic Cousin Eerie as its acting emcee. Russ Jones acted as the first editor after convincing publisher James Warren to come out with its first horror compilation in the spirit of Tales From The Crypt while avoiding the highbrowed Comics Code by printing the stories in black and white magazine format. One short but memorable story in Issue 35 got right to the point that many comic fans look for, zombies vs. Nazis! Army Of The Walking Dead came out over thirty years before Robert Kirkman's iconic urban horror comic and was drawn by former Captain America artist Syd Shores. Taking place during WWII, Nazi egghead Dr. Tumbler has developed a way to reanimate dead soldiers as zombies with augmented strength much...

Atlas/Seaboard Publishing was a rival company to Marvel Comics that was established in the early 70s set up by Chip Goodman whose papa Martin sold Marvel with Stan Lee acting as head editor and would hand the position over to Chip when Martin retired. Lee of course became the Grand Poohbah instead and dismissed Chip, so Martin set up Atlas as Marvel's archenemy with Chip at the helm along with several other Marvel artists who jumped ship to go to Atlas. Much of Atlas' titles were slight rip-offs of Marvel, although Tiger-Man might be an exception as he made his premiere in Atlas' Thrilling Adventure Stories in early 1975 in a black-and-white story fast forwarding the character's career as an already established superhero taking on a white slavery ring. Following that, Tiger-Man got his own series in color that only lasted three issues written by Gabriel Levy who did several other Atlas titles and drawn by former Harvey Comics artist Ernie Colon. Beginning in the wilds o...