My advice to you Jake is to skip town, - lay low in your room for about an hour, there's a bus leaving about then --- why should you be left holdin' the bag -- 
- — The Clock, dba "Snowy Winters"
Feature Funnies #15 is an issue of the series Feature Funnies (Volume 1) with a cover date of December, 1938.
Synopsis for "Joe Palooka"
(newspaper strip reprints)
Appearing in "Joe Palooka"
Featured Characters:
- Joe Palooka
Supporting Characters:
- Knobby Walsh
Synopsis for Gallant Knight: "The Black Baron, Part 1"
(reprints from the British comic Wags)
Appearing in Gallant Knight: "The Black Baron, Part 1"
Featured Characters:
- Sir Tyrone Neville, the Gallant Knight
Antagonists:
- outlaw horde
Other Characters:
- Lady Galleyne
- her men at arms
- Lord Galleyne
- his troops
Locations:
- Europe
- Castle Galleyne
Era:
- Early 9th Century, Reign of Charlemagne
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 Reynolds of the Mounted: "John Barr, Escaped Convict"
Appearing in Reynolds of the Mounted: "John Barr, Escaped Convict"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- John Barr
Other Characters:
- Dinnah, Chinook Chief
- Aku (Dies)
- Sitka
- Mosgah
- Fort Benson's Factor
Locations:
- Canada
- Chinook Valley
- Fort Benson (due north from Chinook Valley)
Synopsis for "Big Top"
(newspaper strip reprints)
Appearing in "Big Top"
- Appearances not yet listed
Synopsis for Archie O'Toole: "$3,478,602,412.02"
Appearing in Archie O'Toole: "$3,478,602,412.02"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Sneezheim
Other Characters:
- O'Toole's military commanders
- O'Toole's New York business manager
Locations:
- Pyromania
- New York City
Vehicles
- O'Toole's Hispodynic Transatlantic Airplane
Synopsis for "The Bungle Family"
(newspaper strip reprints)
Appearing in "The Bungle Family"
Featured Characters:
- Bungle Family
Synopsis for The Clock Strikes: "Framing the Clock"
Escaped museum robbers, Tony Malta and Jake, tried to frame The Clock for the murder of Stanford Pell the playboy. Not for the first time, fake copies of The Clock's calling cards were used.
The next day Jake made an unsolicited and detailed confession to his good friend "Snowy" Winters (secretly The Clock), who then gave Jake some bad advice, went home and changed clothes, returned to Jake's place in his tuxedo and mask, beat up Jake, tied up Jake, and visited Tony Malta. The Clock pulled out a gun and shot a knife out of Tony's hand, then put away his gun, and beat up Tony manually.
Appearing in The Clock Strikes: "Framing the Clock"
Featured Characters:
Antagonists:
- Tony Malta
- Jake
Locations:
Items:
- Clock's calling cards
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 Espionage Starring Black X: "Count Rokk"
Circa probably 1937-Nov: Black X's boss Major Murdock is personally assigned this next mission by FDR. A foreign so-called "pirate" submarine has sunk 3 U.S. ships (and later sinks a 4th and almost sinks a 5th), presumably in an attempt to draw the U.S. into the oncoming worldwide war, and the Espionage agency must discreetly settle this problem.
Black X dba Mr. Smith visits the NYC office of Joshua Hawkins at the Acme Export Co to urge him to suspend shipping operations to the war zone; Hawkins refuses, based on his rights as a U.S. citizen. Black X claims to recognize Hawkins as non-American-citizen Count Rokk, and to have met him in Singapore earlier, then jumps him and yanks off his wig and fake beard, and turns out to be right about that. Rokk pulls a gun, and they go for a walk, thru a secret panel to a stairway under the docks, where we meet Max, the captain of the "pirate" U-boat. Black X makes his move, Count Rokk is shot dead by Captain Max who is shot dead by Black X.
The bad guys have been sinking cargoless old scrap ships, after evacuating their hench-crews. Black X has worked out where their next strike (on the SS Rusitania) will be, flies there in a private airplane (a very NON-dive-bomber-looking private plane), bombs the sub and sinks it, presumably with all hands.
Appearing in Espionage Starring Black X: "Count Rokk"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Major Murdock (See Notes.)
Antagonists:
- Count Rokk (Dies)
- Captain Max (Dies)
- his pirate U-boat crew (Dies)
Other Characters:
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Cameo)
Locations:
- Washington, D.C.
- Espionage HQ
- Major Murdock's favorite restaurant
- New York City
- Acme Export Co.
Vehicles:
- pirate submarine (Destroyed)
- S.S. Rusitania
- Black X's private plane
Synopsis for "Slim and Tubby"
(newspaper strip reprints)
Appearing in "Slim and Tubby"
Featured Characters:
- Slim
- Tubby
Synopsis for "Dixie Dugan"
(newspaper strip reprints)
Appearing in "Dixie Dugan"
Featured Characters:
- Dixie Dugan
Synopsis for "Clip Chance at Cliffside"
Appearing in "Clip Chance at Cliffside"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Coach "Buzz" Barr
Antagonists:
- two robbers
Other Characters:
- Cliffside football team
- Colts football team
- Hal, reporter
- Bert Ball (reforms)
Locations:
- Cliffside College
Synopsis for "Mickey Finn"
(newspaper strip reprints)
Appearing in "Mickey Finn"
Featured Characters:
- Mickey Finn
Supporting Characters:
- Uncle Phil
Notes
- Published monthly by Comic Favorites, Inc.
- Archie O'Toole, page 2, panel 5: "... I smoke Hemp's Cigars, I smoke Weed's Cigarettes ..."
- The Clock's long-time habit of leaving calling cards and witty notes at crime scenes and on arrested suspects backfired on him at least four times in his career,[1][2][3][4] as various criminals simply had fake "Clock" calling cards printed up, and left them at assorted crime scenes. The late Silk Basso was the first to try this stunt, Tony and Jake here are the second.
- Espionage::
- In the first episode of this series, Feature #13, Black X's boss was named Major Gale; in the second episode, Feature #14, he was not named but only identified as Black X's superior officer; in this third episode, he's called Major Murdock. The guy looks exactly the same.
- There is no reliable way of estimating how many individual enemies and criminals have been killed by Black X, however this issue's episode is his first recorded submarine crew killed.
- Wrap-up conversation as usual takes place at a fashionable Washington cafe.
- Also featured in this issue of Feature Funnies were:
- Flossie, by Al Zere ("Toddy" and "Flossie" usually share their two pages, much like "Jane Arden" and "Lena Pry", but in this issue the bottom half of the first "Toddy" page is an advertisement.)
- 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 5 of his Joe Palooka pages.
- "Konar the Barbarian" (text story, continued next issue), by Robert M. Hyatt, illustration by Ed Cronin
- 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 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.
- Strange As It Seems: "Joshua Barney", by John Hix
- Strange As It Seems: "The Most Expensive Advice In History", by John Hix
- They're Still Talking: "... About How the Underdog Chewed the Mighty Gopher!", by Bob Zuppke & R.W. Depew
- Toddy, by George Marcoux ("Toddy" and "Flossie" usually share their two pages, but in this issue the bottom half of the first "Toddy" page is an advertisement.)
Trivia
- Mo Leff signed the Joe Palooka stories as "Ham Fisher".
- Will Eisner signed his Espionage stories as "Will Erwin" and his Archie O'Toole stories as "Bud Thomas".
See Also
Links and References
- ↑ Feature Funnies #11
- ↑ Feature Funnies #15
- ↑ Feature Comics #26
- ↑ Crack Comics #10