Stupid Comics

Probably the single longest running ad campaign in comic books was spearheaded by the one and only Mr. Charles Atlas. Angelo Siciliano was a scrawny Italian who moved to America and in the 1920s developed one of most spectacular exercise programs of all time that is still making money to this very day. After changing his name to Charles Atlas, former-wimp Angelo promoted the ever-living heck out of his revolutionary muscle building system he branded "Dynamic Tension" and reduced the population of 97-pound weaklings to near extinction, or at least that was Chuck's original intention. Being the former circus strongman that he was, Charles was regularly photographed in Tarzan shorts as the self-proclaimed World's Most Perfectly Developed Man. The Atlas ads were for a free illustrated book titled Everlasting Health And Strength that you could send away for, although the ad at first doesn't mention anything about how Atlas makes any profit from this. Many other fitness...

Farrell Publications had several imprints when it was in swing during the mid-Golden Age, one of which was Four Star Comic Corp., but like many of the Farrell's titles they would reprint stories from former publishers. The one we're looking at now is titled Doing The Turkey Trot which was featured in Issue 5 of their horror anthology of Midnight, although it was originally printed in the first issue of Farrell's Phantom Lady comic which mainly repurposed some of the buxom brunette's earlier adventures and have the given title of The Silly Sorceress. This comedic horror was rewritten slightly to fit a Thanksgiving theme since Blood Freak was still a few decades off. If you wanted a "funny" look at the Salem witch trials, then this comic's sense of humor might work for you. In it, pinhead pilgrim Pinwheel hunts for a turkey but gets chased off by the indigenous locals who have a bone to pick with those greedy colonists, and the fact that the comic has the na...

Seen as being the original patriotic superheroine, Miss Victory was drawn by Blue Beetle and Cat-Man artist Charles "Chas" Quinlan in 1941. The character was Joan Wayne, no relation to a certain Batman, who was a government stenographer when she smelled trouble during wartime would put on her red-white-and-blue outfit with the occasionally chest-exposing top as the masked maiden Miss Victory. There's never been a definitive example of if she had any genuine superpowers, but her knack for to surviving deadly situations has left many to believe she was at least partially invulnerable with varying levels of enhanced strength. One of her adventures had Joan working for the Secretary of Commerce checking up on some hometown pals who were in Washington as defense workers. Joan goes to her friend Maggie Duckett that had been kidnapped by Nazi spies who sent their agent Fritz to sabotage a munitions plant as Mr. Duckett. Joan changes into her heroic persona to stop the Nazis who ...

A terrible miscalculation in size can be a real bummer when you're planning to assault another planet, and this shows in spades in Chalton's Space Adventures 41 with another Bill Molno-drawn sci-fi oddity. I Am From Earth introduces us to the Zebra People of Karas on an alien world who were planning to in attack Earth, but then they get a surprise when an Earthling representing shows up in his big rocket and it turns out that humans are at five times as big compared to Karas' striped citizens. Introducing himself as William Robb, this captain of Earth's space force picks up one of the Zebra People as if they were an action figure and puts him down giving him the pet name of Ed as he starts to go all Godzilla on Karas. They aliens send their flying saucers after him and start shooting like planes on King Kong hitting him with everything from heat rays to nuclear blasts all of which have no effect on the invulnerable human. Captain Robb picks up Ed again and demands the Z...

Artist Bill Mono did great deal from Charlton Publishing's various sci-fi anthologies and really stood out in Issue 60 Strange Suspense Stories with the unorthodox tale of The Two-Headed Glip. In what seems like a family-friendly episodes of Twilight Zone, John Reis regularly tells bedtime stories to his toddler son Billy starring fantasy creatures such as dragons and giants, but the reigning champion of his fictional universe was the Glip, a humongous two-headed serpent that scared off all the other monsters. John then starts having dreams where the Glip is chasing him only to be saved by his son with toy bow and arrow, so one night he decides to stop telling Billy stories. Later on, Mr. and Mrs. Reis here a roar from outside, but they shake it off thinking that's it's just a coincidence a mysterious roar sounding like the monster one of them thought up is staring at them right outside their window. John again dreams of the Glip hunting him down and biting him on the arm o...