If you just waltzed over today and are now wondering exactly what you're looking at below, click back to the Maskless Axeman post at THOIA HERE to get all the info! Yep, this is another great June Tarpé Mills illustrated entry in the silver screamy, "Fantastic Feature Films" series, --this one from the April 1940 issue of Target Comics V1#3. Highlighted by a risky assassination plot that turns into a Sally Rand-esque super burlesque, balloon dance of risqué death (whew, what a mouthful!), and for my money, this is one of the better FFF entries in the entire run. Enjoy! I'll be posting a few more of these throughout the month of May as well, so stay tuned to THOIA for those... COMING SOON!
Who would have accused her once the (unnamed) dictator was dead?
ReplyDeleteThat’s really all you took away from this story? Seriously…
ReplyDeleteThis was interesting, a plot from a poverty row studio turned into a comic.
ReplyDeleteI know, it is supposed to be a movie in comic form, but I find it interesting and well drawn.
I didn't know much about June Tarpé Mills, she was one of the many greats in the realm of comics who were often overlooked.
The concept of the ad, 'don't be left out' is still used by advertisers today, for beverages, clothes, cars, tech, etc. Some things never change.
The notional heroism here banks on the idea that I'll assume the baron is a member of a fifth column movement that has heroically unseated the previous despot. But it could easily be that he's some kind of villain who usurped the leadership of his country and now rules it with an iron fist. If that's the case, then Jeff's cavalier meddling will cause a lot of hardship.
ReplyDeleteAs it stands he still presumes an awful lot, makes decisions about other people's lives without any consultation, and generally acts as a churlish bully throughout the movie. I think she can do better.
These are neat. Tarpé Mills's is just the right kind of old fashioned for me: Formal, vampy, design oriented. The Baroness' outfit at the clandestine meeting is to die for. Looking forward to reading more.
This is actually really interesting, and Mr. Cavin already mentioned some of it. We are, in the way the story is written, supposed to see Jeff as the hero, but, at the same time, he's basically a bully that can't take no for an answer, angrily ruins Sally career, makes a whole lot of assumptions and basically changes a good deal of the world order by lumbering around like a wrecking ball.
ReplyDelete... and he's literally in about 10% of the story!
Lots of early art here, some weird camera choices, panel 5, page 5 looks like a scene from the prisoner, but Mills does a great job with the fan dance and with the female faces; I love the Baroness, she has a great femme fatale look.
I love reading these; I feel that some of the things I and others take away from this is because we are divorced from something that is closer to the time these were published. Like there's a shared, common language that doesn't get through.
So ersatz Hitler lives on, the Baroness and her co-plotters remain in danger and the lunkhead bully gets to marry the perfectly independent burlesque dancer. I am unsatisfied. However, I remain amazed at the wealth of creators and comics that there still are out there to be discovered.
ReplyDelete