Return to the Wonderful WAGS of Oz

One thing I've learned in life is that you never stop learning.

No sooner had I put up my earlier post about the WAGS tabloid of Australia, when I received an email from Peter Hansen. Peter, a British comic historian transplanted to Canada, related to me his similar interest in WAGS and better yet, he had an extensive collection of that title. Even better, he had researched the background of WAGS publication. Rather than keep his insights for myself, with Peter's kind agreement, I'd like to share his research with you all.

"Wags really started in Buenos Aires in 1933 when Joshua B. Powers worked with Thomas Volney Boardman for the wire service United Press International, a kind of an American version of Reuters.

Powers quit and went back to the US to start up Editors Press Service selling US comic strips to South American papers and Boardman headed to Britain to work for Editors Press Service trying to sell US strips to British newspapers. American newspaper strips hadn't really made it to the UK at the time with the exception of "Mickey Mouse", but in 1936 a familiar sounding comic called OKAY COMICS went on sale in Woolworths stores and on market stalls around the UK.

The comic was made up of recycled US Sunday newspaper supplements with a new wraparound cover. Boardman & Powers? Don't know that we will ever know but it does sound like a hell of a coincidence. Maybe the comic didn't sell as the US comic supplements were full newspaper size and British comics of the day were half the size. Perhaps Powers decided to change the format and try again with a comic that matched the English comic size and a uniquely English sounding name WAGS which is the English vernacular for a bunch of Jokers.

However WAGS came about the British WAGS appeared on January 1, 1937 with 32 pages and ran every week until November 4, 1938 shrinking to 16 pages along the way for a total of 88 issues. Originally printed in the US with the J.B. Powers United Press imprint for export to the UK until issue #31 when it began carrying the imprint of TV Boardman. Eisner strips appeared in the British version from #16 (April 16, 1937).

Eventually the following strips made their debut over the time of the series:

Peter Pupp - Bob Kane (Issue #16)


Peter Pupp cover
WAGS vol. 2, #16
[image courtesy of Peter Hansen]
Tom Sherrill - Don De Conn
Hunchback of Notre Dame - Dick Briefer (issue #17)
The Clock Strikes - George Brenner (Issue #38) also Ed Cronin


The Clock Strikes
WAGS vol. 2, #36

Spencer Steel - "Dennis Colebrook" scripts and art, sometimes art by Bob Powell (Issue #24?)
Scrappy - Eisner (issue #39)
Sheena - Eisner/Powell (issue #46 November 1937) non de plume "Morgan Thomas". Mort Meskin soon takes over with later issues by Bob Powell from February 1939 (Volume 2 #38 in Australia).


The first appearance of Sheena
WAGS vol. 2, #38
[image courtesy of Peter Hansen]

Note the resemblance between the character in the above panel and a young Will Eisner!
Hawks of the Seas - Will Eisner as "Willis Rensie" (issue #16)
Count of Monte Cristo - Early issues Jack Kirby (from issue #64) as "Jack Curtiss", but most by Lou Fine as "Jack Cortez" from September 1938.


The Count of Monte Cristo
as reprinted in JUMBO #4 (Dec. 1938)
by Lou Fine
Yarko the Great - Eisner
Gallant Knight - Vernon Henkel


Gallant Knight
WAGS vol. 4, #16

(Modern) 'Planes - Les Marshall

A number of people have hinted that there was a falling out between Powers and Boardman but this isn't the case. T.V. Boardman's imprint came into force in WAGS on July 9th 1937 and OKAY COMICS WEEKLY (there's that name again) his own imprint hit the newsstands on October 16, 1937 and ran every Wednesday until February 26, 1938 for approximately 20 issues.


OKAY COMICS WEEKLY vol. 1 #1 (Oct. 16, 1937)
as reprinted in THE INTERNATIONAL BOOK OF COMICS
by Denis Gifford

OKAY COMICS WEEKLY was the first British reprint of original American comics including "Terry and the Pirates" whose publishing rights were owned by Powers.

Both used the Eisner/Iger shop and the WAGS pages ran as continuing weekly strips the same as the British comics. Finally J.B. Powers was a senior Director of T.V. Boardman Ltd. until his death in the early 1950's [note: Powers actually died in 1989], and Boardman and his family spent the whole of the war in Buenos Aires where he first worked with Powers, leaving a Tasmanian woman who had been with him since before the war called Dorothy Weir in charge while he was away. Boardman continued publishing until 1967.

When Eisner began printing his WAGS material in the US comics such as JUMBO COMICS whose first issue was completely WAGS material and to do this he bought the original WAGS plates back from Powers and printed the artwork for JUMBO the same size as WAGS to reduce costs, but it didn't catch on with US comic buyers and he gave up after 7 or 8 issues. Australians began printing American strips before the Brits with "Brick Bradford", "Mandrake the Magician" and "Buck Rogers" all making their debuts in 1935/36. So it made sense that the Herald & Weekly Times Group would approach Powers to print a weekly comic for the Australian market. Or perhaps they knew the Tasmanian woman working for Boardman?"

I would like to add a few comments and art attributions that didn't make Peter's list.

Both "The Diary of Dr. Hayward" and "Wilton of the West" likely first appeared in WAGS and briefly had Jack Kirby as their artist. And both features were doubly blessed as they were taken over from Kirby by the great Lou Fine.


The Diary of Dr. Hayward
by Jack Kirby
as reprinted in KIRBY: KING OF COMICS
by Mark Evanier

Another worthy strip premiering in WAGS was "Tex Maxon" drawn by longtime cartoonist/illustrator Munson Paddock.


Tex Maxon
WAGS vol. 4, #16

My sources generally agree that the "Dennis Colebrook" who drew "Spencer Steel" was an Eisner/Iger house name and not an actual artist. One artist thought to have worked under the pseudonym was Edwin Laughlin, who, in his short comic book career, is known to have worked on "Gilda Gay", a feature also drawn by Bernard Baily. "Gilda Gay" was a daily strip produced by Eisner/Iger for newspaper distribution and reprinted in JUMBO.

I'm not convinced that "Scrappy" was the work of Will Eisner. Both Jerry Iger and Bob Kane had already worked in a style similar to "Scrappy" and I'm inclined to believe one or the other drew it.


Bobby
as reprinted in JUMBO #4 (Dec. 1938)
by S. M. "Jerry" Iger
In a subsequent email, Peter explained the discrepancies between the British and Australian versions:

"Boardman and Powers start up WAGS on September 8, 1936 in Australia with 16 pages per issue. After 16 issues in Australia they start up WAGS in the UK with 32 pages per issue. After 15 issues of WAGS they replace some of the strips with Eisner/Iger material in issue #16 (8 pages B&W). So lets assume one of the syndicates dump Powers forcing him to go to Eisner/Iger. I know that the Eisner material in the Australian WAGS Vol 2 # 15 is the same as the UK WAGS Vol 1 #28. Chronologically the Australian issue would have hit the news stands approximately January 8, 1938 and the UK version of the same Eisner/Iger material would have hit the news stands in the UK on about July 16, 1937. So I now know there is about a five and a half month (24 weeks) lag in the Eisner/Iger material from the UK versus the Australian Eisner/Iger material.

Suddenly this all works!!!!

The UK WAGS initially printed 32 pages while the Australian issue initially printed only 16 pages. Looking at the copies I have here both of the identical issues of the Australian & UK comics have 24 pages, not 16, not 32. So it would seem that Powers lost 16 pages of syndicated material and was only able to supplement his comics with 8 pages of B&W material to make WAGS up to 24 pages. So if the WAGS in Australia carried on printing 16 pages of American reprints it would always be 12 weeks ahead for every UK issue printed. The Australian issue ended on June 7, 1940 after 197 issues.

If I look strictly at the page difference between what the UK WAGS would have pumped out in 1937 and what the Australian WAGS would have pumped out in 1937 the UK WAGS would have pumped out 1376 pages while the Australian WAGS would have pumped out 832 pages. Deduct one from the other and you end up at 22 weeks of 24 page issues which is five and a half months. The British version finished on November 4, 1938 only weeks after JUMBO #1 hit the stands in the US, and the Australian WAGS finished on June 7, 1940, so even if they went back to 16 pages in Australia after the UK WAGS folded they would only have about 45 weeks of reprint material available for the Australian issue which would have carried it to maybe October 1939 with their Eisner material in it. So the dates suggest to me that sometime in June or July 1938 Eisner/Iger bought the printing plates back from Powers and stopped supplying him and Powers used up his back stock up until November 4, 1938 then folded. I assume that Powers carried on with US reprints in Australia which had always been well established in Australia as opposed to the UK until the war act stopped the importation of paper into Australia in 1940.

I also suspect that the 16 issues of OKAY COMICS WEEKLY used up the back stock of the original US strips that appeared in the first 16 Australian WAGS issues, supplemented by Eisner covers and a British strip by Harry Parlet called "Larry the Lamb". I say this because OKAY COMICS WEEKLY came out on October 16, 1938, whereas Eisner/Iger came on board on April 23, 1938.

It doesn't make sense that Boardman would steal 16 pages of strips from Powers and then wait six months to run his comic. It seems more likely that they were partners all along and OKAY COMICS just reprinted the previously printed initial versions of the Australian WAGS issues.

If these things were not as rare as hens teeth and we had all of these issues we could prove this so it is just a theory right now. Oh well, maybe some day.”

Me again. This is GREAT information! Not only has Peter provided a detailed backstory of WAGS publishing history, he has also confirmed my guesses about the lag time between the British and Aussie versions and narrowed it down even more. The only fly in the ointment is that not every issue of the Aussie WAGS contained 8 pages of Eisner/Iger content. Of the three issues in my possession, two contain 7 pages and one issue has only 6 pages of their shop's material. This could alter Peter's timeline somewhat, but nonetheless, his thought process works in every other instance.

There is still more to be known about the features and creators that appeared in WAGS. Peter Hansen has provided a fantastic framework for that research and I welcome any other additions or corrections.

Uncovering and documenting the contents of this seminal comic is critical to comic book history. Not only was WAGS a wellspring of legendary talent and the original source of equally legendary features, but it expands the narrow focus of American comic book fandom to include a publication that bridged continents. The development of modern comic books were not exclusive to the U.S. and WAGS is key to understanding that concept.

Thank you Peter Hansen! Not only do you get a tip of the Comics Detective's deerstalker cap, but I do dub thee Peter the Great!

Origin of the Origin of the Fantastic Four?

How do you determine the germ of an idea?

There has been much gnashing of teeth, vituperative prose and verbal bloodshed over who should get credit for the creation of the Fantastic Four.

Jack Kirby fans are steadfast in their belief that their man brought the concept to Stan. Kirby had, after all, just finished a run on the CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN for DC. In their eyes, Ace, Prof, Rocky and Red had just been reimagined as Ben, Reed, Johnny and Sue.

Stan Lee, however, saw it differently. The story goes that publisher Martin Goodman had noticed that National's (DC) JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA comic was selling particularly well. He then ordered Stan to create a super team to headline a new comic for their company.

"I would create a team of superheroes if that was what the marketplace required," Lee wrote in ORIGINS OF MARVEL COMICS,"But it would be a team such as comicdom had never known. For just this once, I would do the type of story I myself would enjoy reading if I were a comic-book reader."*

Lee's words are red meat to Kirby fans. Personal biases aside, perhaps there is some truth to both versions.

And perhaps there is a third person deserving of credit as well.

John L. Chapman.

"If momentary exposure to the cosmic rays beyond the Heaviside Layer made a super-man of an ordinary mortal--what fabulous titan of strength and intelligence might the human become who'd spend hours under such forces!"

So reads the blurb accompanying the short story, "Cycle", by the above mentioned Mr. Chapman in MARVEL STORIES vol. 2 #2 dated Nov. 1940.



MARVEL STORIES vol. 2 #2 (Nov. 1940)
Chapman was an early science fiction fan from Minneapolis who had made it into the professional ranks by the Forties. His rather unremarkable career as a writer likely wouldn't even be under consideration if it were not for this barely six-page effort that bears some interesting similarities to the origin of an iconic comic book team some 20 years hence.

"Cycle" was the story of a man named Drake, who had been sent in a rocket on a trip to the moon, the "first man to leave the earth's atmosphere." Suddenly,the "jets" on his ship misfired, "in the vicinity of the Heaviside Layer," and he began plummeting back toward the ground. (note: the Heaviside Layer is one of several layers making up the ionosphere.)

Apparently, upon reaching this point, Drake was exposed to cosmic radiation.

"At first he thought it was the weightlessness of deceleration. But as the minutes fled by, and the ship's velocity decreased steadily, the certainty of a change became more prominent in Drake's mind."

Drake survives the crash and is subsequently brought to the World Tower (!) and into the presence of the Western Hemisphere's dictator (!!), Michael Gurth.

"The body and build was (sic) perfect. A wide chest tapered from broad shoulders. The hands were huge and strong. The legs were long and muscular. The hair looked as though it might have been dark at one time. Now it possessed a golden luster, matching the slitted gray eyes whose piercing gaze sent a chill down Tinsley's spine. Never before had the little scientist seen such masculine beauty."

Overlooking the homoerotic and Master Race implications (and poor writing), what Chapman was describing was Drake's transformation into a super human.



"Cycle" illustration
by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby
"Drake was the first man to pass the Heaviside Layer, the first human being to meet with the utter unknown. He was exposed to the natural cosmic ray forces,the same forces that the Heaviside Layer prevents from reaching the earth. You recall, Dr. Tinsley, an age-old theory of evolution concerning cosmic rays? The life forces they were called, the origin of the animate impulses. Yes--you begin to comprehend, don't you? You understand now what has happened to Drake.He was been exposed to naked cosmic rays, and as a result he was super-evolved."

This long-winded and scientifically goofy explanation** sets the stage for the dictator's own trip into space to be exposed to the cosmic radiation himself in order to, "...be gifted with unlimited power and military prowess that would enable me to dwarf the Eastern Hemisphere in a matter of weeks!"

I won't spoil the ending in case you wish to seek out this story, but needless to say, it doesn't work out as the dictator Gurth imagines.

So how does this all tie into the Fantastic Four's origin?

If somehow you don't know the story, Dr. Reed Richards is planning a rocket trip into space, but his pal, pilot Ben Grimm, angrily confronts Reed with his concerns about space travel:



FANTASTIC FOUR #1 (Nov. 1961), pg. 9
(as reprinted in ORIGINS OF MARVEL COMICS)
Nothing like the girl you have a crush on shaming you into doing something you know is dangerous!



FANTASTIC FOUR #1 (Nov. 1961), pg. 10
(as reprinted in ORIGINS OF MARVEL COMICS)
Coincidence? Maybe, but consider this: Both creators of the Fantastic Four were around and likely aware of Chapman's "Cycle" story.

Stanley Lieber (Lee) was on the premises at Timely in 1940, "assisting". It is a fair assumption that he read that issue of MARVEL STORIES when it came out and perhaps it was a latent memory of it that he grafted onto Kirby's Challengers concept. It's even possible that Lee pulled copies of the Goodman pulps upon occasion for "inspiration".

And Kirby? Just look to the bottom of the MARVEL STORIES contents page: "INSIDE STORY ILLUSTRATIONS...by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby"

Although the illustration looks more Simon than Kirby, he probably had a hand in it. And though the "cosmic radiation" twist was probably Lee's contribution (consider the role of radiation in other Marvel heroes origins--be it cosmic, gamma or spider-borne), Kirby may have read "Cycle", too.

All that I've proposed is conjecture, obviously. What Kirby and Lee were creating in 1961 was "just" a comic book--not a cultural icon. They were looking at producing a saleable comic and the hook they came up with--cosmic radiation created superheroes--may have just been plucked from out of thin air.

Then again, they had the means, motive and opportunity, and that usually is enough to convict.

BONUS!

Among comic book fans, this issue of MARVEL STORIES is known (if they know it at all) for having an early house ad for MARVEL (MYSTERY) COMICS featuring the Human Torch. Though it's been reprinted elsewhere, here it is for your viewing:



Human Torch house ad
________________________________________________________
* ORIGINS OF MARVEL COMICS, pg. 17

**Perhaps not so goofy according to the science of the era! In an article entitled, "Secret of Life Sought" that appeared in the Oct. 1930 issue of POPULAR MECHANICS, "...as the evidence piles up, the daring theory is being advanced that X-rays, radium rays and cosmic rays are among the primary causes of evolution--if they do not happen to be the sole cause."