Feature Comics #23 is an issue of the series Feature Comics (Volume 1) with a cover date of August, 1939.
Synopsis for Charlie Chan: "Introducing Charlie Chan"
(newspaper strip reprints)
Appearing in Charlie Chan: "Introducing Charlie Chan"
Featured Characters:
- Inspector Charlie Chan (First appearance)
Supporting Characters:
- Lee Chan (First appearance)
Other Characters:
- British Intelligence:
- Viscount Hillary Stacey
- his chauffeur
- Sir Cedric Chelmsford
- Michael Ramsgate
- Peter Charing, chemist and inventor
- Keena Charing
- charter pilot
Antagonists:
- Baron
- Sharp
- Lugger
Locations:
- England
- London
- Regent Hotel
- British Intelligence, secret office
- Bank of England
- Charing's house, in Margate Place
- Croyden, England
- Cove Island, England (off the Southern Coast)
- London
Items:
- Charing's "Dark Light" Discovery (See Notes.)
Vehicles:
- Ramsgate's airplane (Destroyed)
- Sharp's airplane
- Lee Chan's chartered airplane
Synopsis for "Dixie Dugan"
(newspaper strip reprints)
Appearing in "Dixie Dugan"
Featured Characters:
- Dixie Dugan
Synopsis for Gallant Knight: "Thunder in the Orient"
(reprints from the British comic Wags)
Appearing in Gallant Knight: "Thunder in the Orient"
Featured Characters:
- Sir Tyrone Neville of England
Supporting Characters:
- Alice D'Assigny, Princess of Navaria
Antagonists:
- Tartar Horde (shattered)
Other Characters:
- Prince of Navaria
- his ten thousand horsemen
- Charlemagne
- his army
- Sir Raymond of Navaria
Locations:
- France, near Marseilles
- Castle of Greyloch
- Walled City of Albracca
Era:
- Early 9th Century, Reign of Charlemagne
Synopsis for "Ned Brant"
(newspaper strip reprints)
Appearing in "Ned Brant"
Featured Characters:
- Ned Brant
Synopsis for Slim and Tubby: "Episode 23"
(newspaper strip reprints)
Appearing in Slim and Tubby: "Episode 23"
Featured Characters:
- Slim
- Tubby
Synopsis for The Clock Strikes: "The Burton Kidnapping"
Burton the millionaire is kidnapped and the police investigate. Captain Kane's wealthy friend Brian O'Brien wants to help and asks to look at the clues, but Kane just brushes him off. That night, The Clock breaks into the station house, where "first class, third grade detective" McDuff is examining the evidence with a magnifying glass. The Clock uses ventriloquism to trick McDuff into leaving the room, steals some of the evidence, and 20 minutes later he's back in his own hideout. He's recovered six cigarette butts, an empty matchbook, and a pair of broken spectacles, from which he deduces that the kidnapper had a long wait before Burton arrived, and that there was a scuffle. Microscopic examination yields no further results. He gets an idea, leaves his hideout, goes to a payphone, calls the Daily Mail, and places a classified advertisement for the next day's morning edition.
The next morning, the kidnappers see the ad, and fall for the Clock's ruse. They now believe that some other crook is trying to muscle in on their caper. Butch sends Squint to meet this person, at the spot designated in the ad, to bump off this chiseler and steal his money. Squint arrives half an hour early, to set an ambush, but the Clock has arrived even earlier, and now has the drop on Squint. Squint squeals. Clock ties him up and puts him in his own car, which the Clock then drives to Butch's place, on the 2nd floor of a crappy rooming house on the east side of town. Before going in, he calls McDuff, then he gets himself and Squint inside, and uses his trick walking-stick to knock out Butch, then ties both kidnappers to chairs. McDuff arrives outside, suspicious of several things at once, and the Clock meets him on the sidewalk, tells him where the kidnappers and the hostage are, and that he can have credit for the collar and the rescue, also he returns all the stolen evidence.
The next morning, McDuff is telling Capt. Kane a highly colorized version of how he solved the crime, when the Clock's calling card falls out of his pocket, tipping off Kane to what really went on.
Appearing in The Clock Strikes: "The Burton Kidnapping"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Detective McDuff
- Captain Kane
Antagonists:
- Butch Barron
- Squint
Other Characters:
- Burton (Behind the scenes)
Locations:
Synopsis for "Mickey Finn"
(newspaper strip reprints)
Appearing in "Mickey Finn"
Featured Characters:
- Mickey Finn
Supporting Characters:
- Uncle Phil
Synopsis for "Jane Arden // Lena Pry"
(newspaper strip reprints)
Appearing in "Jane Arden // Lena Pry"
Featured Characters:
- Jane Arden
- Lena Pry (See Notes.)
Synopsis for The Bungle Family: "Cause of War"
(newspaper strip reprints)
Appearing in The Bungle Family: "Cause of War"
Featured Characters:
- Bungle Family
Synopsis for Reynolds of the Mounted: "Jim Slade's Plot"
Appearing in Reynolds of the Mounted: "Jim Slade's Plot"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Jim Slade, rancher
- Jud, ranch hand
- Tom, ranch hand
Other Characters:
- Mr. Brewster
- Bess Brewster
Locations:
- Canada
- Circle A Ranch
- Slade's Ranch
Synopsis for "Big Top"
(newspaper strip reprints)
Appearing in "Big Top"
- Appearances not yet listed
Synopsis for "Lala Palooza"
(newspaper strip reprints) (See Notes.)
Appearing in "Lala Palooza"
Featured Characters:
- Lala Palooza
Supporting Characters:
- Vincent Palooza
Synopsis for Rance Keane, Knight of the West: "Trouble At the Mountain Valley Ranch"
Rance and Chaps meet pretty Joan Hern, whose dude ranch has been robbed by two ex-employees. Rance tracks down the bad guys, who at first get the better of him in a galloping gunfight, but then he tricks them into a good ambushing position, and drops a lasso loop around both of them, yanking them off their horses and hauling them up a steep rock face. He marches these losers back to the Hern's ranch, then Keane and Shaw ride away. Behind them, Miss Hern is quite smitten with Lance.
Appearing in Rance Keane, Knight of the West: "Trouble At the Mountain Valley Ranch"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Chaps Shaw
Antagonists:
- two bandits
Other Characters:
- Joan Hern
- Jess Hern (mentioned)
Locations:
- American Old West, the 1910s
- Arizona
- Wagonwheel
- Mountain Valley Ranch
- Arizona
Synopsis for "Joe Palooka"
(newspaper strip reprints)
Appearing in "Joe Palooka"
Featured Characters:
- Joe Palooka
Supporting Characters:
- Knobby Walsh
Notes
- Published monthly by Comic Favorites, Inc.
- Archie O'Toole has moved to Smash Comics.
- "Espionage Starring Black X" has moved to Smash Comics, and changed its title to "Espionage Starring Black Ace."
- First issue for Charlie Chan by Alfred Andriola.
- Peter Charing's "Dark Light" technology can be used to photograph objects through an opaque screen. It also can make visible, through a screen of sulfide of zinc, objects beyond the range of any other existing light. The formula for "Dark Light" was destroyed in an explosion, but Charing himself was alive and sane at the end of this story.
- Viscount Hillary Stacey is a man, named "Hillary," which, like "Evelyn" or "Wendy", wasn't always a girl's name. It's 1939.
- Panel layout implies that this is five daily newspaper strips per page. If so, when first presented, this 10-page story took nine or ten weeks to run in the newspapers.
- Last issue for Rube Goldberg art, and reprint material, on Lala Palooza, replaced next issue by John Devlin and original material.
- Rance Keane:
- This adventure is partly set at a dude ranch, so these stories might be set in the '1920's, when those became popular. But tourist ranches also already existed in the late 19th century, so maybe not. Still no cars or telephones or railroads are seen in this feature.
- Rance gets his gun shot out of his hand, but his hand seems undamaged.
- Also featured in this issue of Feature Comics were:
- Good Deed Dotty by J.P. McEvoy and J.H. Striebel, running across the top 1/5 of all 3 of their Dixie Dugan pages.
- "Joe Palooka's Boxing Course" by Ham Fisher, running across the top 1/5 of all 4 of his Joe Palooka pages.
- Lena Pry by Monte Barrett and Russell E. Ross, running in the bottom-left 1/4 of all 4 of their Jane Arden pages.
- Little Brother by H.J. Tuthill, running across the top 1/5 of both of his Bungle Family pages.
- Mortimer Mum by Bill Sakren, across bottom halves of both "Toddy" pages.
- Nippie ("He's Often Wrong") by Lank Leonard, running across the top 1/5 of all 4 of his Mickey Finn pages.
- Off The Record (1-panel gags) by Ed Reed, in two places in this issue.
- "Rain Bird, Part 2 of 2" (text story) by Robert M. Hyatt.
- Rube Goldberg's Side Show, by Rube Goldberg, in two places in this issue (First appearance)
- They're Still Talking: "...About One of Baseball's Greatest Stories", by Bob Zuppke and R.W. Depew.
- Toddy by George Marcoux, across top halves of both "Mortimer Mum" pages.
- Twisted Tales by Rube Goldberg, running across the bottom 1/5 of both of his Side Show pages.
Trivia
- William A. Smith signed his Rance Keane stories as "Will Arthur".
See Also