A top tier, early entry in the legendary, lengthy comic book career of Mad Magazine maestro, Dave Berg can be found in today's Death Patrol tale from the January 1942 issue of Military Comics #6. After taking over the series from Jack Cole just a few issues prior, Berg injected a dynamic dose of unique cartooning to this group of lovable ex-con squadron aviators on their endless suicide missions against the nasty ass nazis-- and even better, as in todays example where they face an oddly beautiful array of sinister, sexy spies! While only six pages long, this awesome little adventure is seriously packed to the gills with great moments, and if the lurid painted ladies don't take your breath away, that cross-section building beat-down surely will!
4 comments:
Another zany, wild one from the forties, wild but fun!
Its a refreshing change to see one character (King Hotintot) speaking proper English instead of stereotypical Pidgin English, though Boris and Chief Chuckalug weren't so lucky.
Using femme fatales as spies was used in a Hogans Heroes episode.
Death Patrol has such a weird tone. I mean, it's clearly a wry spoof of the usual "group of regional types go to war" scenario, seen from the Blackhawks to the Howling Commandos, but beyond its occasionally wacky humor it serves just as often as an example of that subgenre as it does some kind of commentary on it. And that's pretty neat. The gimmick that one of the characters dies in each story strikes me as one-upping the competition, though, even as it meant the creators got to get extra zany elaborating their lengthening roster of those "regional types." Note, after Gramps is killed in this one, there were only two of the original six patrolmen left for the next story.
I didn't know Dave Berg worked on this series. He's really delightful working in Jack Cole mode (and what choice did he have with those stripey prison uniforms?), and as you say, page four is an absolute stunner. The drag reveal at the end tops it for me, though. That line-up of grotesques feels like a Ralph Bakshi fever dream.
This is great! It's full of fun jokes and wild (and sometimes wildly) inappropriate characters. I love how each of them has a reason to brush off the spies, and I love every bit of the art. The dark eyed snake like women; the cartoonish death squad (poor gramps!) the torture cut out, the silly ending. It's all aces.
And what is amazing about this is never in a million years would I have guessed this is Dave Berg who I only knew from his work at MAD, which, to me, was one of the more static and less crazy artist.
... but he's incredible here. Is he trying to ape Cole? From the slinky women, to the crazy men and war machines, this is incredibly funny and rubbery art, it's miles away from his very clean and, sorry, frankly a little boring, style in MAD.
It's nuts. I'm really stunned.
"But we have so much in common!" "Ugh! Only the war paint, Squaw!" Again, stunned. No idea Berg could do this.
Golden era Berg has been no stranger to both of my blogs, if you need more here’s a couple spookers for ya:
https://thehorrorsofitall.blogspot.com/2024/03/the-ghost-of-bob-james.html?m=0
https://andeverythingelsetoo.blogspot.com/2021/11/spooks.html?m=0
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