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"Joe Palooka": (newspaper strip reprints)

Quote1 The following is the story of... well, we'll call him 'The Black X,' and for obvious reasons, we will use fictitious names throughout. We shall, however, use the actual time and place, for the incident was closed. Quote2
Caption

Feature Funnies #13 is an issue of the series Feature Funnies (Volume 1) with a cover date of October, 1938.

Synopsis for "Joe Palooka"

(newspaper strip reprints)

Appearing in "Joe Palooka"

Featured Characters:

  • Joe Palooka

Supporting Characters:

  • Knobby Walsh

Synopsis for Espionage: "The Coming of Black X"

On Sunday evening 23 December (probably 1934) the impeccably dapper, monocle-wearing, well-known criminologist Richard Spencer faked his own death in an airliner crash, and began his espionage career as "The Black X." Over the next few days he played cat-&-mouse with a small gang of spies, and handily defeated them. Along the way he met a monocled enemy spy, also with no real name, who (except for a facial scar) looked just like himself; this guy escaped by diving off the SS Barintaria near Ellis Island. In the end Black X successfully destroyed a compromised set of "plans for the floating air base."

Appearing in Espionage: "The Coming of Black X"

Featured Characters:

  • Black X (First appearance) (Origin)

Supporting Characters:

  • Major Gale, Black X's boss (First appearance)

Antagonists:

  • unnamed enemy spy who looks exactly like Black X

Locations:

Items:

  • floating air base plans

Vehicles:

  • SS Barintaria

Synopsis for "Lala Palooza"

(newspaper strip reprints)

Appearing in "Lala Palooza"

Featured Characters:

  • Lala Palooza

Supporting Characters:

  • Vincent Palooza

Synopsis for "Ned Brant"

(newspaper strip reprints)

Appearing in "Ned Brant"

Featured Characters:

  • Ned Brant

Synopsis for Archie O'Toole: "The Bodyguard"


Appearing in Archie O'Toole: "The Bodyguard"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

  • Sneezheim
  • Earl of Wintergreen (wears a monocle)

Antagonists:

  • Gil O. Teen, ex-dictator
    • Sydney Slime
    • "Killer" Diller

Locations:

  • Pyromania

Synopsis for "Dixie Dugan"

(newspaper strip reprints)

Appearing in "Dixie Dugan"

Featured Characters:

  • Dixie Dugan

Synopsis for The Clock Strikes: "The Z. Y. Callis Case"

In a wage dispute, manufacturing plant owner Z. Y. Callis closes his factory on payday. According to a radio news story, the cash payroll was in the factory. According to the Clock's files, Callis has a shady background of income tax evasion and embezzlement. The Clock visits the closed factory and prepares to break in. No guards seem to be around, but another guy is in there ahead of the Clock. The masked vigilante abandons his old plan, and shadows this guy, back to the poorest neighborhood in the city, watches him go inside, then bursts into his unlocked house right behind him, and points a gun at him. This guy turns out to be one of the 1800 displaced workers from the factory closing, and needs money for medicine and baby food. The Clock persuades this guy to hand over the entire payroll minus only his own wages. The Clock then returns to the factory, again encountering no security guards, breaks into the office safe, returns the cash payroll along with a Clock calling card, and finds two sets of ledgers. These are incriminating, for Z. Y. Callis, who then gets a phone call from the Clock. An understanding is quickly reached.

The next day, Callis' factory reopens, with a 20% raise and a 40-hour workweek.

Appearing in The Clock Strikes: "The Z. Y. Callis Case"

Featured Characters:

Antagonists:

  • Z. Y. Callis (by telephone only)

Other Characters:

  • one factory worker, turned amateur burglar

Locations:

Synopsis for "Mickey Finn"

(newspaper strip reprints)

Appearing in "Mickey Finn"

Featured Characters:

  • Mickey Finn

Supporting Characters:

  • Uncle Phil

Synopsis for "Big Top"

(newspaper strip reprints)

Appearing in "Big Top"

  • Appearances not yet listed

Synopsis for The Bungle Family: "One More Misunderstanding"

(newspaper strip reprints)

Appearing in The Bungle Family: "One More Misunderstanding"

Featured Characters:

  • Bungle Family

Synopsis for Slim and Tubby: "Episode 13"

(newspaper strip reprints)

Appearing in Slim and Tubby: "Episode 13"

Featured Characters:

  • Slim
  • Tubby

Locations:

  • Old West

Synopsis for Gallant Knight: "Sir Borat's Plan (Part 1 of 2)"

(reprints from the British comic Wags)

Appearing in Gallant Knight: "Sir Borat's Plan (Part 1 of 2)"

Featured Characters:

  • Sir Tyrone Neville, the Gallant Knight

Supporting Characters:

  • Inez

Antagonists:

  • Sir Borat
    • 3 assassins

Other Characters:

  • Duke of Berengar
  • Duchess of Berengar

Locations:

Era:

Synopsis for Captain Cook of Scotland Yard: "Meet Captain Cook"


Appearing in Captain Cook of Scotland Yard: "Meet Captain Cook"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

  • Sir Ronald Higgs, Scotland Yard (First appearance)
  • Officer Smith
  • Officer Quinlan

Other Characters:

  • Merle Atherton, curator
  • assistant curator
  • night watchman

Locations:

  • London
    • Wells Museum
    • Scotland Yard

Items:

  • the Ka-Amen Rubies

Synopsis for Clip Chance at Cliffside: "The Bert Ball Encounter (Part 1 of 2)"

Bert Ball joins the Cliffside football team and behaves very badly.

Appearing in Clip Chance at Cliffside: "The Bert Ball Encounter (Part 1 of 2)"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

  • Slim
  • Coach Barr

Antagonists:

  • Bert Ball

Locations:

  • Cliffside College

Synopsis for "Jane Arden // Lena Pry"

(newspaper strip reprints)

Appearing in "Jane Arden // Lena Pry"

Featured Characters:

  • Jane Arden
  • Lena Pry (See Notes.)

Notes

  • Published monthly by Comic Favorites, Inc.
  • Inside front cover, for the second time, is a generic advertisement for "Candy," featuring Joe Palooka, Lala & Vincent Palooza, Jane Arden, and Mickey Finn. Blurb: "CANDY is DELICIOUS FOOD . . . Enjoy Some Every Day!"
  • Espionage, Starring Black X:
    • Black X wears a monocle, as does his unnamed counterpart in the enemy espionage organization.
    • 1934 had Dec 23rd fall on a Sunday. This story is essentially a flashback to Black X's origin, which is necessarily several years earlier than the issue's cover date.
    • This story, like almost every early Black X story, ends with Black X and Major Gale comparing notes at an unnamed fashionable cafe in Washington DC.
  • First issue for Captain Cook, but after this the feature is absent until Feature Funnies #18.
  • Also featured in this issue of Feature Funnies were:
    • Flossie, by Al Zere ("Toddy" and "Flossie" share their pages, much like "Jane Arden" and "Lena Pry".)
    • Good Deed Dotty by J.P. McEvoy and J.H. Striebel, running across the top 1/5 of all 4 of their Dixie Dugan pages.
    • "Joe Palooka's Boxing Course" by Ham Fisher, running across the top 1/5 of both of his Joe Palooka pages.
    • Lena Pry by Monte Barrett and Russell E. Ross, running in the bottom-left 1/4 of both of their Jane Arden pages.
    • Little Brother by H.J. Tuthill, running across the top 1/5 of all 3 of his Bungle Family 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.
    • Pirates Ahoy: "Tomato Pie Made Massy A Pirate" (text story), by Charles B. Driscoll
    • Screen Snapshots: "Lionel Barrymore", by Bernard Baily
    • Strange As It Seems: "America's Foreign Legion", by John Hix
    • Strange As It Seems: "Elizabeth, Empress of Russia", by John Hix
    • They're Still Talking: "...About the Twenty-Two Yard Kick That Decided A Titanic Contest", by Monte Barrett and Russell E. Ross
    • Toddy, by George Marcoux ("Toddy" and "Flossie" share their pages, much like "Jane Arden" and "Lena Pry".)

Trivia

  • Will Eisner signed his Espionage stories as "Will Erwin" and his Archie O'Toole stories as "Bud Thomas".
  • George Brenner signed his Clip Chance stories as "Scott Sheridan".


See Also


Links and References

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