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Vintage comic covers

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Women in love by vintagesmack on Polyvore

Gallery — Vintage smack! / Gallery — Vintage smack! / Gallery — Vintage smack! / Gallery — Vintage smack!

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Vintage comic prints

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Bang!

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Harry Harrison, January 1953

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Hi-School Romance #61

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Try shooting now, you cheap crook.

—“Madame Strange” in Great Comics #2 (1941) by Charles A. Winter

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From Harvey Comics Chamber of Chills # 11, 1952.

It ends as happily as you suspect it will. 

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Great post!

There has been a resurgence of interest in the work of Fletcher Hanks in recent years, to the point that I just assumed every comics fan was familiar with his work by now, but after I reblogged a handful of Stardust pages the other day, it became obvious that a number of people were seeing this work for the first time, including superstar artist and member of One Direction, Jamie McKelvie ( mckelvie ). Rather than petitioning to have his comics celebrity status revoked, however, I decided to write this post.

The Golden Age of Comics (roughly the late ‘30s to the early '50s) was a strange time. The medium of comics was new, and conventions of genre and form were still being formulated. Comics of this time–even by masters of the form like Jack Kirby and Will Eisner–were raw, wild, and unpredictable. And no comics were rawer, wilder, or less predictable than those of Fletcher Hanks.

Hanks wrote and drew comics for forgotten publishers Fiction House and Fox Features Syndicate during the brief period from 1939 to 1941, after which he disappears from comics altogether. During this time, he created a handful of characters–Stardust the Super-Wizard; Fantomah, Mystery Woman of the Jungle; Big Red McLane, King of the Northwoods; Buzz Crandall of the Space Patrol; Space Smith; Tiger Hart of Crossbone Castle on the Planet Saturn; Whirlwind Carter of the Interplanetary Secret Service; “Yank” Wilson, Super Spy Q-4; Tabu, Wizard of the Jungle–for a number of different titles–Fantastic, Jungle, Planet, Big Three Comics, Fight, Daring Mystery–using a host of different names–Fletcher Hanks, Barclay Flagg, Bob Jordan, Hank Christy, Henry Fletcher, Carlson Merrick, Charles Netcher, Lance Ferguson, C.C. Starr.

With all these different pen names, how do we know all these different comics are by Hanks? Well, he’s got a pretty discernible style.

His work has an expressionistic quality to it, filtered through an almost outsider art kind of lens. You can feel the anger as Stardust surges to a size great enough to crush a criminal in one hand. It’s one of those things where you kind of know it when you see it.

Hanks’s best known creations are Stardust and Fantomah–arguably comics’ earliest super-heroine, pre-dating Wonder Woman by a significant margin–due to the elaborate and seemingly nonsensical punishments dished out to the gangsters, poachers, spies, and fifth columnists they encountered. The other stories are wild, but more straightforward, tales from the popular sci-fi, fantasy, and lumberjack genres.

Basically everything we know about Hanks’s personal life comes from the efforts of cartoonist Paul Karasik, who found and interviewed Hanks’s son. While many more details can be found in Karasik’s collections of Hanks’s work, the basic gist is this: Hanks was an abusive alcoholic who once kicked his four year old son down a flight of stairs. He considered himself an artist, and he froze to death on a park bench in 1976.

The entirety of Hanks’s comics work is collected in two Eisner-award-winning volumes:

I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets!

You Shall Die by Your Own Evil Creation!

The first book has the majority of the best known Stardust and Fantomah stories, as they were cherry-picked for the collection and also features a comic story by Karasik about his discovery of and interview with Fletcher Hanks, Jr. The second volume, while featuring a more uneven collection of stories (due to simply collecting the balance of the Hanks oeuvre), also features a more thorough accounting of Hanks and his life. Both volumes are, in my opinion, essential to anyone interested in the Golden Age of Comics.

If you would simply like to sample some more Hanks comics before purchasing these volumes, all of Hanks’s work–like many comics of the Golden Age–has fallen into the public domain and as such is easy to find online.

Stardust appeared in Fantastic Comics, Fantomah appeared in Jungle Comics. (NB: Most Golden Age comics were anthologies. You’ll need to skim through these 64-page issues to find the short Hanks material. Also, not every issue of these series has a Hanks story. Look, I can’t do everything for you.)

The other effect of Hanks’s work being in the public domain is that the characters have popped up here and there in other comics.

Notably, joekeatinge did a Stardust story with Mike Allred for the Fantastic Comics #24 issue of the Next Issue Project.

Fantomah has appeared at various times in Tim Seeley's Hack/Slash series, including a sequence done in Hanks’s style. (Side note: that volume also has a story I wrote in it, completely unrelated to Fletcher Hanks. Just, you know, just dropping that info, though.)

You can buy amazing Stardust and Fantomah statues here. Hell, buy one for me. My birthday is in two months.

Stardust also makes a cameo in the background of an illustration from one of the text pieces in Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen:

Look! Now you got a reference you didn’t get before and you didn’t even have to read jessnevins ’s annotations.

Also I know there is a webcomic out there that unites most or all of Hanks’s characters into a cohesive continuity, but I can’t remember the name of it, and Google’s not helping right now. Sorry, creator of that comic!

Paul Karasik himself did a Stardust parody in the latest SpongeBob Comics annual, with Patrick Star in the role of Stardust. There are a lot of kids who are going to be confused as hell by the spot-on parody.

There are certainly more references to Hanks’s work throughout comics, but there is definitely one less than I had hoped for. lesmcclaine and I tried desperately to include Stardust and Fantomah in our run on the Tick, but it never worked out. My original pitch for the Golden Age-flavor story we did in issues 5 and 6 was a much more Hanks-esque tale featuring the Vulture Vixens of Venus. Maybe one day…

And there you have it. Hanks the Great and Terrible. But you don’t have to take my word for it.

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It's beautiful Walter! Beautiful!

Everything seems beautiful, seen through your eyes, Kathy! Perhaps it's because you're so young...and so lovely yourself!

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From what I hear you've certainly been getting around....

I didn't see any reason to sit home. By the time Ken called, I had several dates...

Him: From what I hear, you certainly been getting around. Can't say I care about being given the air...but I'm willing to forget and forgive.

Her: You forgive? Ken Morgan, you've got more nerve than.....

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Got you kid!

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At last I've caught up to you...and now it's my turn!

But as they near the house....shots and screams ring out...

At last I've caught up to you...and now it's my turn!

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At first I though this was a pole dancer. #axe #poledancer #pinup

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The Black Cat and the doomed orphans

The glorious Linda Turner, famous Hollywood actress, smiled prettily at the crowds that surrounded her train and shouted words of greeting. This was Smokeyville, Linda's home town, which she was revisiting after a long absence. 

After endless autographing of cards and books, Linda settled down in the lavish sofa in her uncle's home. In the conversation that followed, Linda's uncle revealed that the crooked Mayor of Smokeyville was victimising the local taxpayers . . . but nobody could do anything about it because they couldn't prove his guilt. 

Linda smiled to herself, someone was going to visit the Mayor and see if matters could be adjusted. That night a lithe graceful form fitted along the dark, empty streets. It was the Black Cat. She broke into a mad race as the screams of terrified children filled the air. The Blackwell orphanage was on fire sending black puffs of smoke up to the moon-lit sky…..

A great band name, "The Black Cat and the doomed orphans"

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Girl on the run

"Mac..meet me in front of the library at once...and don't spare the gas...so long!"

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