Tarzan Comic Strip debuts jan 7 1929

1929 was quite a strange year for kids. On the down side, the Great Depression was in it's first few months and would run for close to ten years. Families would have little extra money for simple things. Cheap entertainment like movies for a nickel or dime and the Sunday funnies would become a Depression kid's best escape from family struggle. Fortunately, both newspapers & movies knew their importance. Money may have been in short supply but imagination wasn't. Mickey Mouse was a only few months old and comic strips of both Buck Rogers & Tarzan started on the same January day.

Tarzan was the brainchild of writer Edgar J. Burroughs. Like Buck Rogers, he had started his literary life as a story in a pulp magazine. The character was introduced in 1912 and became instantly popular. He was an early subject of cinema with his first film in 1918.

Today when properties are simultaneously released as video games, collectible card games, trading cards, action figures, phone icons, Internet avatars & movies, it's hard to imagine it took Tarzan more than 15 years to appear in the popular medium of comic strips. With artwork by illustrator Hal Foster (Foster would go on to create Prince Valiant), I'm sure kids thought it was worth the wait.

Buck Rogers Comic Strip Debuts Jan 7 1929

When the Buck Rogers comic strip premiered in January of 1929, it was the first science fiction comic strip ...ever.

Buck had started his fictional life as coal miner Anthony Rogers who awakens from a mine cave-in 500 years in the futue. The story was written by Philip Nowlan and premiered in Amazing Stories Magazine in the August 1928 issue. Syndicate newspaper executive John F. Dille read the story and hired Nowlan & illustrator Frank R. Paul to adapt the story to comic strip form. Since cowboys were the big stars of the time, Dille asked that Anthony's name be changed to Buck.

Three years after the strip, Buck Rogers became a popular 15 minute radio show with an avalanche of send away radio premiums. Eventually, Buck got his own theatrical adventure serial with Buster Crabbe as Buck. Crabbe had previously played Flash Gordon in movies, another sci-fi guy of the times who had been developed after the success of Buck. In just a few years, Gordon would surpass Rogers in popularity, but for now, Buck Rogers was the world's greatest science fiction hero and the first taste of science fiction for millions of kids.

Charles Addams

He was one of a popular group of cartoonists that submitted to the New Yorker. His one panel cartoons were often silent & off the wall. Over time, some of his characters took on a life of their own and became a strange troupe with a love of the macabre. While less than a hundred of his gags included this 'Family', they became the core of his most popular gags and eventually became The Addams Family we all know and love.

The 60's TV show spawned a wealth of boomer toys including the Addams Family game, hand puppets, a model kit of their house and what 60's kid didn't want the Uncle Fester's Mystery Light Bulb or Thing bank?

Learn more about Chas Addams at his preservation site.

The awesome illustrations of Gomez & Morticia are from artist Aly Fell. Go see more of her work.

Campus Cuties

Starting in 1963, Marx toys brought out a line of plastic army men in a 6 in. size. The figures were released individually and originally sold for less than a dime. Like all soft plastic soldiers of the time, they had no articulation but the attention to detail set them apart. Faces showed emotion and you could see things like individual feathers in an Indian headdress. These new big figs towered over other plastic soldiers but they were to cool to pass up & kids began collecting these giants in plastic.

To get the girls as interested as the boys, Marx introduced "Campus Cuties" a series of "mod" female figures in fashion outfits and poses. The cuties were the same 6 in. size and sold individually like the soldiers, but the marketing behind the figures was a little different.

With Marx soldiers, you were lucky if they came with the Marx name or logo on the bottom but each of the cuties had the the name of the figures pose stamped in. In a time when toy companies were branding every doll with some cute individual name, it's interesting that Marx decided to ignore names and define the figures by their poses.

There were two only waves of cuties ever released and both were in 1964. There were eight figures in each wave with the names below.

Series 1

Dinner for Two
Lazy Afternoon
Lodge Party
Nitey Night
On The Beach
On The Town
Shopping Anyone?
Stormy Weather

Series 2

A Touch of Mink
Belle of the Ball
Bermuda Holiday
Day at the Races
Night at the Opera
Our Girl Friday
Saturday Afternoon
Twist Party

While the alliteration in the name is kinda clever, it is fun to point out that there is very little school activity going on. Not one of the figures is carrying a book, teaching, or learning in any way. They aren't playing a sport, cheer leading, or even pledging. If Marx had waited a few years, they could have had cuties with names like "Sit-in", "Bra Burning" or "Woodstock". Maybe someone could revive the series with "Campus Cuties Gone Wild". Sorry, that was the caffeine talking.

If you're interested in collecting cuties, you should know the first series is much easier to find than the second. There are also color variations. All the original figures were a sort of silly putty pink. In the 70's, Marx was sold to a faceless clueless multinational conglomerate who moved many of the molds to Mexico. Since then, the cuties have appeared in a light yellow and a cream color. The only reason any of this matters is economic. If you're paying more than 6-8 bucks each and they
aren't pink, keep looking.

Yes the cuties do have a web presence and thank you for asking. Matt Hinrichs has a Campus Cuties webpage here. with pix of all the cuties & other cutie stuff.

B-52 Ball Turret Gun Remco 1961

There's a scene in Star Wars A new Hope where the Millenium Falcon is being pursued and Luke and Han man giant cannons mounted in glass bubbles. With a bit of beginners luck [and the force], Luke manages to shoot down a Tie fighter.

In his excitement, Luke turns to Han Solo and says:

"Got 'im, I got 'im!

And Han in his kind and nuturing way says:

"Great kid, Don't get cocky!

The Millenium Falcon's, cannons were based on actual gun turrets from WW II. Unlike the big padded chairs they had in Star Wars, the real turrets were tiny & cramped. Some were so small, there wasn't enough space for the gunner to wear a parachute. If you're strapped in a fishbowl and engaged in a dogfight, I'm guessing a parachute is the least of your problems.

Remco introduced it's B-52 Ball Turret Gun in 1961. The B-52 bomber was a huge workhorse during the second World War. It also had the distinction of being the plane that dropped America's nukes on Japan. Looking back this seems like a very strange choice for a toy but the kids of my generation thought nothing of it and obviously neither did Remco.

Action Jackson

If you were to judge a products popularity by it's TV commercials, you would think Mego's Action Jackson had sold like Beanie Babies. The commercials were crammed with testosterone and produced with character animation & a manly theme song ("Think of what you want to be and count on meeeeee."). Watching the commercials today makes me want to start an instant Ebay collection, but in his time, Jackson wasn't a runaway hit.

Action Jackson was Mego's entrance into the action figure market in the US. Like GI Joe, Action Jackson was a fully articulated figure with outfits, accessories, cool vehicles and a strong TV campaign. Also like GI Joe, Mego's man of action had spent some time abroad in some undisclosed quasi-military capacity. Now semi-retired, he split his time between thrill seeking, treasure hunting and his volunteer work as park ranger & fire fighter.




The biggest difference between Jackson and all the other figures of the time was his size. Action Jackson was the first 8 in figure (Big Jim was released by Mattel in 1972) making him about 3/4 the size of GI Joe. The new size was cost effective for Mego and it also made AJ cheaper. In the world of kids on a small allowance, cheaper meant more bang for your buck and that gave the new figure enough traction to stay on the pegs for three or four years.

While Action Jackson was never a huge hit, he got Mego into the action figure market. An American hero to the end, Jackson's last act was to donate his body to "The World's Greatest Super Hero" series of action figures which helped make Mego one of the largest toy companies of the mid 70's & 80's. It's rumored AJ's original scary head without a beard is in a cryogenic freeze waiting for butt ugly sculpting to make a comeback.



Looking for Action Jackson info? Try the Mego Museum or the 3 aMego's

want to see a few commercials? Try these at YouTube:

Jeep & parachute ad

6 of AJ's outfits (I especially like the ever so macho voice whispering "Action Jackson" in the background)

AJ's motor scooter, fire rescue copter and what may be the funniest 'vehicle' any figure ever had, the "bucking bronco".

The jungle house [not to be confused with the Elvis jungle room at Graceland]

Jeep & personal helicopter

Happy 85th Stan Lee

Stan Lee is probably the worlds most well known comic book professional and if you don't believe it, ask anyone who doesn't read comics on a regular basis to name someone in the profession. (Okay, Charles Schulz and Walt Disney might be the first names you hear because people who don't know anything about comic books really don't know anything about comic books, but that's a technicality that can't be helped.)

He was a 40 something comic book editor sick of his job and ready to quit when he came up with the Fantastic Four. The comic was successful and so he stayed and created Spiderman, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, Daredevil & a host of other demi-gods that populate the world of modern American mythology.

Stan, like Walt Disney was one of the few creators smart enough to establish a bond with his audience. On Sunday evenings Uncle Walt would visit your living room personally introducing you to his characters & theme park . "Stan the Man" did the same thing monthly in the Marvel letters column. With nicknames for the Marvel Staff (known to regular readers as the Marvel Bullpen), and gimmicks like The Merry Marvel Marching Society & the Marvel No-prize, Lee had a way of making you feel you were a part of something cool and you didn't have to take it seriously.

For me, Stan was the Dave Letterman of comic books. It was his sense of humor that made him one of my childhood idols. He made reading comics fun. I wanted to be Stan Lee or at the very least, have a job at Marvel. Reading the monthly antics of the Marvel Bullpen and realizing that this was how some adults actually made a living made me envious. I could hardly wait to grow up, move to New York and write Iron Man stories for a living and if you knew just how much I hate cold weather you would see just how powerful Stan's monthly brainwashing really was.

Happy Birthday Stan. Thanks for populating my childhood with stories of amazing heroes overcoming impossible odds and thanks for the laughs. Until the Hulk wears a tutu and sings "I'm A Little Teapot", make mine Stan Lee.

Wood Shavings!!!