Archive | news RSS feed for this section

Secret Origin of a Super Hero

29 Aug

August 31, 2011

Do you think Batman just woke up one day and decided to be Batman? No, it took years of training in various martial arts, years of acquiring the mental and deductive skills of master detectives, years of gaining the technology and physical prowess to perform at the peak of human ability. And also the horrible murder of his parents.

However, Bruce Wayne wasn’t the only one to wear the cape and cowl. At various times he was replaced by Jean-Paul Valley, by Dick Grayson (twice), and even Alfred.

Chief O'Hara is skeptical that this arthritic old man could defeat the Bookworm.

And then there is Mark Wayne Williams (no relation to Bruce Wayne, I suspect.)

This paunchy potential protector of the public was found hanging- yes, hanging- off the wall of a Detroit business. He had apparently hooked his Batrope on the roof and was, well, details are sketchy on what he was doing there. Perhaps he was on patrol. And although there is no indication, I like to think that he was hanging upside-down like a bat.

I feel very sorry for the police who had to hoist him back up to the roof because he was really weighed down, and I’m not just talking about his gut. According to other reports, he was carrying a virtual arsenal in his utility belt, which had better have been reinforced.


Something tells me that “Batman” is in for a long stay at Arkham Asylum.

Mark Wayne Williams seems to really live the superhero lifestyle. Unfortunately, his not-so-secret identity is known to the police. Here he is posing at the police station for, he probably believes, his public commendation from Commissioner Gordon.


Given that Mark Wayne Williams is no Bruce Wayne, and that Detroit is certainly no Gotham City, I have to figure that every city gets the crime fighter it deserves. However, I have to wonder about his dedication to the Bat.


The Crow? Sheesh, just let me know when he starts dressing like Wonder Woman and runs down the street with his arms spread wide pretending to be in his invisible jet.

SECRET ORIGIN OF A SUPER-VILLAIN UPDATE!

Remember Johnathan T. Pinney, AKA Doctor Mayhem, the convict who wanted his own island, access to the world’s technology, and a secret volcanic lair? It seems that he is now looking for love. He wants that special woman with whom to share dominion over the planet. Or any other planet.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Saturday Comics: Ching Chow

27 Aug

August 27, 2011

Ching Chow was an unusual strip, in more ways than one. It wasn’t as much a strip as it was a daily fortune cookie. Each day, Ching Chow, in the midst of some strange predicament, would dispense some old-fashioned wisdom, philosophy, or aphorism. The strip began in 1927 and ran with little change until 1980 and it is easy to see why it ended. Ching Chow was a typical Chinese stereotype from back in the 1920’s and didn’t change much over the years. He was originally created by Sidney Smith and Stanley Link, but by the time it was over Henri Arnold was doing the strip. When Ching Chow was cancelled, it was apparently still popular enough that it was replaced by Meet Mr. Luckey, an almost identical though less-offensive Henri Arnold creation. Mr. Luckey seems to be a leprechaun, thus explaining the lucky aspect of his name, but in the strip I’ve included below he doesn’t seem very lucky.

Ching Chow was also unusual in that, at least in New York, it didn’t run in the comics section. It was an anomaly in the modern era because of its size. Unlike most other single-panel strips, this one was one newspaper column wide. That was a popular size in 1904, for example, because most papers didn’t have a comics section but could easily drop a comic panel into a column of newsprint. Today that makes it hard to fit into a comics page where all the other comics have standard sizes and Ching Chow/Meet Mr. Luckey don’t fit. In the New York Daily News it was always placed somewhere in the sports section among the statistics.

I have also included the only instance I found of a Ching Chow topper, placed at the bottom (yet still technically a “topper”) of a Tiny Tim strip. It is easy to see why Tiny Tim doesn’t run today. The Ching Chow strip below it is far better, playing off the panel borders for its gag.

I also really appreciate this patriotic strip from World War Two:

Tags: , , , , , , ,

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →