Comics in Film: Super Gal in "Ensign Pulver" (1964)

 

Comics in Film: Super Gal nose art in "Ensign Pulver" (1964).

by BK Munn

The character of Supergirl, the cousin of Superman, was first introduced in Action Comics #252 in May, 1959, but it is unknown if this image is intended as a reference to the comic book character or is just an ironic gender flip of Superman typical of the humour exhibited by the artists who painted plane fuselages during World War II. If an intended reference, the image is an anachronism, since Ensign Pulver is set in the 1940s. In the film, a sequel to the 1955 John Ford-directed film Mister Roberts, a planeload of nurses lands on a Pacific atoll and become wound up in the redemption arc of the title character, heroically helping him perform an important operation. (The sequel retains the same characters but replaces all the actors. Jack Lemmon won the Oscar for his portrayal of Ensign Pulver in the original, but he's replaced here by relative unknown Robert Walker Jr.) There was a comic book adaptation of Ensign Pulver, published by Dell in 1964, but I'm unsure if the "Super Gal" art was reproduced there.

Pussy Katnip by Len Short

by BK Munn

Pussy Katnip was a super-powered nightclub singer and detective who appeared in over 20 comic book stories in the 1940s, mostly in anthology funny animal and humour titles published by Fox Feature Syndicate. Created and drawn by cartoonist Len Short (I know nothing about him), Pussy Katnip debuted in 1944. The owner of the Katnip Kafe nightclub, Pussy and her boyfriend, firefighter George the dog, would get involved in solving a mystery or crime in every short story. The villains of the series were local gangsters Boss and Mugsy. The thing that makes the series interesting, besides Len Short's weirdly wonderful art style, is that Pussy got her superpowers from an old family recipe (her family look like witches!) for "Katnip Fizz"!!

When confronted with a problem she cannot solve, she quickly runs to her secret pantry shelf where is concealed a bottle of Katnip Fizz ... brewed in Olden Times by Pussy's ancestors and passed on to each succeeding generation, this potent drink changes her usual shy self into a fighting fury and gives her an insight and intelligence unsurpassed in Feline History!

These two strips are from the comic book Ribtickler #1, 1945.

Myra Breckinridge is a Marvel Comic Book?

“I’m quite happy with Raquel doing it,” recalls [Myra Breckinridge director Mike] Sarne, who nonetheless screen-tested her. “Because she has a marvelously artificial way of acting. And you could totally believe that she was a sex-change in a mad sort of way …. To me she fitted kind of stylistically into my Pop-art gallery. And Mae [West] fit into that, too; the pose, the walk —‘I’m Pop art, I’m a Marvel comic.” —quoted in ” Myra Breckinridge: Swinging Into Disaster” by Steven Daly, Vanity Fair’s Tales of Hollywood (Penguin, 2008)

Super Mom

by BK Munn

In honour of the 70th anniversary of the appearance of the Superman character in comic books, Mystery Hoard presents the first in a series of reflections on the Superman influence in comics.

"Richie Rich, the Poor Little Rich Boy in Super Mom"
Richie Rich Millions #45
January 1971



I bought this comic as part of a small Mystery Hoard at a local antique mall. Antique malls are an interesting source of Hoards --it is rare to find a large selection of comics in such places. Rather, small collections are usually offered by individual dealers, as found, more or less in the beat up, random state they were discovered at an estate sale or auction. I suspect this is the situation under which I found a small selection of Harvey Comics titles recently, as I browsed through the mall, with one eye peeled for old Little Dot comics. The Dot comics were intended as a joke birthday gift for a relative who had fond memories of the character from childhood. Imagine my pleasure, then, when I discovered this collection, which contained among other things an issue of Little Dot's Uncles and Aunts. As well, the collection contained this issue of Richie Rich Millions, featuring the titular character and a hodgepodge of his fellow Harvey "stars" like Little Lotta, Dot, and Wendy, the Good Little Witch.

Every Richie Rich story is the story of hyper-capitalism gone wrong. Richie, "the poor little rich boy," is the freakish, hypercephalic hero of a fantasy world that combines the kid adventure scenarios of Little Lulu and Casper with a nightmarish, Dick Sprang-like parody of Scrooge McDuck-style wealth. In Richie's world, people fly around in solid gold helicopters and eat off of disposable dishes made of giant diamonds. Parodied successfully in Dan Clowes' wonderful "Playful Obsession" strip of some years back, these stories represent a childish or pre-capitalist conception of wealth and power: the child reader for whom 25 cents represents a small fortune sees in the "money to burn" universe of Richie Rich a reflection of their own dream of mobility, power and adulthood.



"Super Mom" is a typical Richie Rich outing in that it involves the core members of the Rich clan, including Richie's father and mother (missing is the family butler Cadbury) in a short adventure that takes place in the Rich mansion. The story combines the standard Richie Rich plot device of staggering displays of cartoon wealth with a minor mystery and a punchline "payoff", also involving a joke on wealth or money. Where this story deviates from the norm is in its Oedipal theme and in the presence of the superhero plot device.

Richie's opening salutation to his mother, who is clad in a supergirl costume for a costume party, reads like dialog out of an adult film and we can't help but notice along with Richie, perhaps for the first time, that the voluptuous curves of Mrs. Rich do seem to lend themselves to the wearing of superhero tights (and that Richie's thick-ankled go-go boots look much more fetching on a woman). Nor can we help but notice the impish glee Richie evinces at the sight of his mother's rapidly retreating, yet still magnificent, blue bikini-clad buttocks.



While the creepiness of Richie Rich is legendary, the sexual aspect of the character is the least often acknowledged, although the obvious phallic nature of his monumental obsessions and his overcompensating, moronic displays of wealth and gestures of charity all combine to form a picture of Freudian perversion.



The essential plot of "Super Mom" is similar to typical mystery stories involving iterations of the classic Superman and Superboy characters. Very often, members of the Superman family would develop superpowers or engage in what appear to be superheroic feats, only to have the hero figure out that there is a completely logical explanation. Thus, Ma Kent might be compelled to act as a costumed bankrobber until Superboy figures out she is being controlled by gangsters, etc. In a sense, this Scooby-Doo style plot is the basic premise of most children's mystery comics.



Although Richie was to appear as a superhero in later adventures, this seems to be the only instance of his mother exhibiting super-powers. Her abilities are never mentioned again, even after, in the story's denouement, it is revealed that she has developed super-strength through the constant, life-long wearing of heavy jewelry (were children ever amused by this?).

Jim Mooney, Classic Supergirl Artist

Jim Mooney, 1919-2008

by BK Munn

Wow, less than a week after the amazing news that the Siegel estate has regained the Superman copyright comes the sad news that cartoonist Jim Mooney, one of the last remaining artists of the classic Superman Family stories, has died. Mooney died on Sunday, March 30, according to this obit by Mark Evanier.

Mooney was best known for his long association with Supergirl --he illustrated her adventures from roughly 1959 to 1969. Along the way, he was also responsible for delineating many of the most fondly-remembered adventures of the Legion of Superheroes. In the 1970s, Mooney moved to Marvel and worked on Spider-Man, Ms. Marvel, and, most famously, Steve Gerber's Man-Thing and Omega the Unknown.

Mooney's Supergirl art developed into a perfect match for the character, with soft lines and many feminine details --like the trademark long eyelashes and frilled skirt he added to the character. At DC, Mooney usually inked his own pencils, controlling every aspect of the finished art. (In contrast, Mooney would usually work either as a penciller or inker when at Marvel, finishing pencils by Romita or John Buscema and being inked by Frank Giacoia).

Before he landed the Supergirl gig, Mooney had drawn humour, girl and funny animal comics, eventually moving on to adventure comics including ghosting Dick Sprang on Batman and illustrating Tommy Tomorrow and Dial H for Hero. His style on Supergirl is in strong contrast to the other Superman artists of the period. These artists (Curt Swan, Al Plastino) preferred muscular, dynamic figures and slick inking. Even Mooney's closest parallel, Lois Lane artist Kurt Schaffenberger, had a slick style with more in common with strip cartoonists like Alex Raymond and Mandrake the Magician's Phil Davis. Mooney's female figures are delicate and his teenagers look like teenagers, not smaller versions of adults. He also had an eye for the humourous, and was responsible for some great goofy aliens and one of the most memorable aspects of the Supergirl strip, Streaky the Super-Cat. According to an 2005 Daniel Best interview printed in TwoMorrows' Krypton Companion, "Streaky the Super-Cat was my design. I think the writer came up with initial idea, but I designed him so he looked a bit more like an animated cat. I fell in love with Streaky from the very beginning. I still draw him. I love cats. But instead of the editor telling me, 'Make him look like this.' or 'Look like that,' I pretty much drew him my own way."

Mooney's cartoon realism blend was the perfect fit for the Supergirl series. While not of the order of Ogden Whitney's bizarre, frozen art style, Mooney compositions and figures often had an underwhelming, pedestrian edge, in keeping with the sometimes low-key adventures of Supergirl. The off-putting, melodramatic premise of the series, that the orphan Supergirl is kept as a secret weapon by Superman, forced to live in an orphanage until she masters her superpowers and can be revealed to the world, resulted in many stories that merely retread ground already covered by Superman and the Smallville-bound Superboy. Thus, like Superman, Supergirl is tested by the Legion of Superheroes and has a mer- love interest. She wears a wig and uses a loyal robot double, stored in a hollow tree until needed (surely, one of the saddest aspects of any comic book ever!). Many of Supergirl's Midvale adventures revolve around the world of highschool and high-school romance. Mindful of the intended female audience for the character, the writers along with editor Mort Weisinger, found many opportunities to threaten Supergirl with marriage to strange aliens or have her develop crushes on cowboys who are really magic flying horses transformed from ancient Greek centaurs.

Conversely, Mooney was responsible for some interesting science fiction imagery and was adept at fanciful costume design --he drew hundreds of costumes for both the Legion of Superheroes feature and the Dial H for Hero back-up. Mooney is responsible for the look of many popular Legion characters including Chameleon Boy, Invisible Kid, Colossal Boy, Triplicate Girl, Phantom Girl, Brainiac 5, Shrinking Violet, Sun Boy, and Bouncing Boy.

Mooney's characters were capable of expressing a broad range of emotion. While the plots of many Supergirl stories often resembled those of romance comics, the fear, sadness and love that the characters expressed facially and the approach to body language, ranging from delicate hand gestures to slapstick double-takes, were unique to comics. On an average page, Supergirl/Linda Lee was likely to move from wide-eyed excitement to creased-brow worry to blissful dreaming to eager determination.

These are some of my favourite children's comics, a beautiful body of work created by Jim Mooney, a skilled, professional artist, who worked in tandem with great writers like Otto Binder and Superman's co-creator, Jerry Siegel.



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A gallery of Supergirl commissions by Mooney.

500 pages of Jim Mooney's Supergirl for $15.

The origin of Streaky.

A gallery of Mooney covers.

Superman robots

Super-Mom