CMRO 4- Funny Pages (1936) #3 [P Story]

Story title: "Shark"

Cover Date: November 1937

By: Norman Daniels and Fred Guardineer

CMRO Entry

We now finish this back and forth between numbers 2 and 3 with number 3s comic, so let's go!

Hmmm... I wonder what this story is about... I wanna say pirates...

Anyway, Dave and Shorty are out there making some "easy" money out of shark fishing.

Surprisingly enough, this isn't comic-book bullshit. That IS how you knock a shark out.

The fishing is going well, but their day is unknowingly ruined when they spot another ship, and by the dialogue of its passengers, it seems to be down to some fishy (pun absolutely intended) business. And Dave seems to think so too.

Sure, Shory, because rich people are NEVER evil.

Then the fishy "fishers" start bossing Dave around.

Hell yeah, stick it to the man Dave. Although, if you want to be taken seriously, I would mention a different body part... Something more... down south.

The intruders eventually go back to their ship, but they start shooting at Dave and Shorty as soon as they get on it. 

The unarmed sailors are forced to run away. 

Sure, but I mean, it doesn't exactly take a sage to realize you should probably try to avoid being shot. 

Dave and Shorty realize its smugglers they're dealing with, and, at night, they sneak up on them.

Also, as Shorty points out, this story is actually about human "sharks".

That... Is actually a decent twist.

Then, the smugglers pull out a bigger gun, and also, the paneling continues to be weird. Dave and Shorty are given a choice between being shot or getting eaten by sharks, and since they know they pretty much already captured every shark in the area, they choose the latter.

They manage to get back to their boat.

"ThEm ShArKs WeRe ClOsE!" WHEN? We haven't seen a single shark since the opening sequence!

Dave sabotages the engine of the yacht and then they call the Coast Guard to inform them of the stranded smugglers, who are brought to justice.

Okay but replace "Sharks only eat when they're hungry" with "We killed ALL of the sharks hurr hurr hurr" for an immediate improvement to this ending.

There you go! 

You can read this story here.

Let's see the ratings:

Quality/Enjoyment: 2/5

Very uninteresting story. I would've much rathered seen Dave duke it out against some big-ass shark than this. At least there's some subversion of expectations with the title. But you know, unless we're talking about comedy "subversion of expectations" can easily turn into "disappointment" if the expectation is more interesting than reality.

Historical/Cultural/Narrative Significance: 1/5

That is it for now! Only two more Dave Dean entries, and then we're going back to DC. They're two parts of a text story, so it'll probably take a while for me to get to them... Anyway, thanks for reading, and have a nice rest of your day!

CMRO 3- Funny Pages (1936) #2 [T Story]

Story title: "Dangerous Seas"

Cover Date: October 1937

By: Norman Daniels and Fred Guardineer

CMRO Entry

We're back to Funny Pages #2 for another Dave Dean story, this time (finally) in comic format, so let's get going.

Dave and Shorty are sailing the high seas, transporting a Russian guy this time. He's paid them well to Siberia, where his friends are waiting for him, however, Dave doesn't trust him! I mean, of course not, 'Muricans don't like Russians...

Actually, forget that, I don't trust him either. He's rocking that villain look tho.

The Russian guy is rushing (pun not intended) Dave, but his ship can only go so fast.

I agree, this is all very laughable.

They eventually reach their destination and all of these weirdoes are waiting for them.

The Russian even calls the woman his love, but she doesn't seem very happy to see him.

Then, Dave says he'll need two trips to get everyone to the ship, but Mr. Glasseye (by the way, didn't one of the villains from the previous story also have a glass eye?) here doesn't want to wait.

Seriously tho, you could've waited a little more to reveal your evilness.

Then, some Cossacks are seen aiming at the ship from an island, but more interestingly, look at this weird paneling. 

The whole story is divided into six square panels per page, so some of the larger illustrations are weirdly cut in half. I guess it must've cost more to do custom paneling or something. Although "paneling" might be a generous term for most of the stuff we've seen from the time. Anyway, it's understandable, the medium was still in diapers after all.

It's revealed then that the bad guys of the story are prison escapees who have taken the director's daughter hostage. I say "It's revealed" but really Dave just pulls the reveal out of thin air (I'm trying to be graceful here, but it's an asspull).

Then this guy who looks like he was born and raised in Springfield grabs the girl.

I don't know, you tell me!

This doesn't sit well with Dave and Shorty, so fighting ensues.

After this, to prevent further setbacks, the gang leader ties Shorty to a mast and starts whipping him.

Guys, this is hardly the time to play happy couple.

Let's get some names in because the way they're revealed is weird and I'm tired of coming up with nicknames.

The yellow giant is Ivan (he was very clear about it).

The leader is Kamroff.

The girl is Natalie.

At night, Natalie gives Dave a clue: there's a bag of jewels that the Russians are fighting over, so Dave just has to push them a little.

Seriously tho, not the time.

Dave gets on his yellow suit for just one panel and heads to free Shorty.

After Dave questions Shorty's intelligence by apparently overexplaining the plan, they put it in motion.

It's quite simple, really. Everyone knows sailors, prisoners, and hooligans will fight over anything, so they just have to "turn off the lights".

They run upstairs with the jewels and they rush to get Shorty tied up again. When the Russians come in, for some reason they suspect Shorty (who doesn't have the jewels) and trust Dave (who tells them that the guard probably took them.

Very "devil-whispering-over-your-shouldery".

So, Kamroff kills the guard who "stole the jewels", but then Ivan goes nuts.

Can't blame him, must be the hepatitis messing with his head.

When both men are weakened from the fighting, Dave and Shorty swoop in like the kill-stealers they are and easily subdue them.

And that's the end...

Oh no! But what about the S.S. Happy-Go-Lucky... Actually, yeah, replace that shit.

Kind of an anti-climactic ending, but it does its job.

You can read this story here.

Let's see the ratings!

Quality/Enjoyment: 2/5

We've definitely seen worse storytelling, but this is just boring and also pretty uninteresting. I guess I could praise the setting (I do enjoy the high seas), but it's not enough to lift the whole thing up. Also, the generic paneling doesn't help either, especially when considering some of the stuff from Federal Men from around the same period. 

Historical/Cultural/Narrative Significance: 1/5

That's it then. For next time there's another Dave Dean story, in comic form thankfully, so I'll see you then. Thank you for reading and have a nice rest of your day!

CMRO 2- Funny Pages (1936) #3 [O Story]

Story title: "Loot of the Bengal Sea, Part II"

Cover Date: November 1937

By: Norman Daniels and Fred Guardineer

CMRO Entry

Welcome to part 2 of this story! Will the mystery be solved? Let's find out!

At least the first page is available this time but, man the scan is pretty bad. Look at this summary:

Almost unreadable. I mean, I don't need to read it but still.

Anyway, the printing here is even worse than last time: It's not just two paragraphs that are out of order, but the whole thing! I'm not even gonna try to explain how to read it, so here are the notes from CMRO, thanks to whoever posted them!

1) The first 7 paragraphs of Page 3 (through "...informed the captain").

2) All of Page 2.

3) The last paragraph of Page 4 through all of Page 5.

4) Paragraph 8 on Page 3 ("Then a calm steady voice...") to the end of Paragraph 12 on Page 4 (" 'But what is it all about?' Shorty asked.")

5) All of Page 6 through to the end.

As you can see, it's an absolute mess, so let's get into it! Oh, and this is also a text story.

We get started with Dave back on the ship and trying to piece together the mystery from last time. He has a quick conversation with one of the passengers and figures he should investigate the Hindu priest who's also traveling inside the ship (because of course he suspects HIM). He then notices a diving suit and an oxygen tank (I guess this is a clue?) and, gun in hand (but hidden), heads to the priest's room.

He proceeds to question the priest, who denies it all, but Dave quickly figures out that one of his men must've been on the water since he's soaked (not a particularly well-hidden clue, mind you). The priest, Randa, then pins Dave against the wall and points a knife at his throat.

Then the passenger from before comes in and reveals he was in on it too... Why tho? Dave has no reason to suspect him. He's white! Also, what happened to the hidden gun. Maybe it's a good time to pull it out? 

Anyway, I guess Dave wants to give time to Randa to confess for no reason like the generic bad guy he is. And check this out: "You ordered them (the diamonds) and now you're stealing them! It's a clever plan"... It is?!

We then get some background and it turns out that Dave has thwarted some of Randa's evil ventures in the past, so he made sure he would be here to get his revenge. This is classic dumbass villain. Instead of going against some half-witted random cop, you're going against the one guy you KNOW can beat you, all for petty revenge.

I think this image goes here? Why is there blood on the knife tho? Am I spoiling you? Anyway, the pages are all out of order, so I can't really tell, and this entry is starting to look a bit dry with all that text and no illustrations.

After some more idle chatter, Dave is thrown into the captain´s quarters, where Shorty awaits, also defeated. Randa makes Dave open the safe with the diamonds for him, but in his eagerness, he lowers his guard and a fight ensues.

Obviously, the good guy wins and ends up holding Randa hostage, not by pointing his gun at him mind you, but by grabbing his neck. The other bad guys (who are at least smart enough to use his guns) are too scared to accidentally hit Randa or, get this, that Dave might "carry out his threat even if riddled with lead first". I mean, c'mon, he's an action hero but he's no Steve Carson.

Things take a turn for the worse one another goon walks into the scene and threatens to have the entire crew shot down if Dave doesn't let Randa go... Just how many people are working for him?

Dave complies, so Randa grabs a knife and stabs him in the shoulder... Oh! That's where that image was from! Anyway... The diamonds are taken out of the safe and Randa and Muller have a bit of a lover´s spat. Muller wants to kill the dynamic duo right away, but Randa, being the big boss-man he is, also wants to do them himself. He then shows the heroes his preferred execution method: there's another ship nearby ready to sink this one.

Dave proceeds to explain Randa's plan to Shorty and the audience. He ordered the diamonds in the name of some Maharajah, and the shipment was supposedly given the green light by spies he planted. Weird that nobody asked for confirmation from the Maharajah himself but whatever. Then he stole the first shipment and made it look like an accident so the Diamond Syndicate would have to send another one so as not to lose the client. So, this is basically when you break a product yourself and still try to use the warranty but on an evil mastermind scale.

After that, Shorty opens the door (Why did no one bother to tie him up again?) and they rescue the few non-goon crew members. 

Then they start feeling the acid that was apparently used on the Mandora, which is apparently part of Randa's MO: Burn them with the acid so they jump into the sea willingly and are eaten by sharks.

Yeah, that was underwhelming. I thought something cool would finally happen when I saw this image, but it's only there to illustrate Dave's explanation.

Randa, Muller, and the rest of the crooks escape with the diving suits, leaving a bunch of punctured lifeboats behind. Dave, with no escape in sight, takes out a rifle and figures he might as well take a few shots at them.

With only one shot, Dave causes a big explosion and sinks the enemy ship. Turns out he had figured out the entire plan and turned it around by planting the bomb that was meant to blow him up in one of the diving suits. The shot was all he needed to set it off. Now, what kind of a bomb strong enough to blow up an entire ship is so easily hidden inside a diving suit? And what happened to the gas that was burning them before? Hell if I know! And hell if I care!

With that, we're finally done with this two-part text story and can finally move on to some more comics. Still starring Dave Dean, the nothing Sailor, I'm afraid. Oh, and you can read this story here. The scan is not great but it's readable.

Anyway, let's move to the ratings.

Quality/Enjoyment: 2/5

Honestly, the first part of the story was a lot better. The setup of the mystery was so much more interesting than its resolution, and while this part had some cool action, the pacing was all over the place. It also doesn't help that this isn't a comic book and that I don't really care about any of these characters in the first place.

Historical/Cultural/Narrative Significance: 1/5

That's it for today! Next time, more of the same but at least in comic book form. We're basically going through the entire (but admittedly short) run of Dave Dean before moving on to more relevant stuff. Thank you for reading and have a nice rest of your day!            

CMRO 1- Funny Pages (1936) #2 [S Story]

Story title: "Loot of the Bengal Sea, Part I"

Cover Date: October 1937

By: Norman Daniels and Fred Guardineer

CMRO Entry

Alright, here it is! The start of the CMRO! And who's the first to debut? Spider-man? The Avengers? An X-man, perhaps? No, silly! It's Dave Dean! What's that? You don't know who Dave Dean is? Well, me neither!

If you've been following the DCRO you might've noticed something by now: Doesn't the title "Funny Pages" ring any bells? That's right! The Clock appeared in a couple of earlier issues. This kind of intersection is really weird by today's standards, but keep in mind that this magazine wasn't published by either Marvel or DC and featured a wide arrange of characters that later changed hands many times. The Clock and Dave Dean are such characters. We still don't really know how The Clock ended up in DC, but Dave's case is fairly simple: He had about seven appearances in Funny Pages, and one of those appearances was reprinted in one of the many anthological magazines Timely Comics (now Marvel) published at the time, which was, in turn, enough to grant him a mention in a handbook that stated that he exists (or existed) somewhere in the 616 universe (the main one). Funnily enough, that story was his first appearance, (in Funny Pages (1936) #1) and not this one, but since we're reading the Timely reprint, the order starts here. Not that the character has any continuity besides the multi-parters, anyway. 

Right off the bat, there are two big surprises. First, this isn't really a comic book. It's a text story. Whether that's a good or a bad thing is up to you (Personally, I'm not too big on it. I do read regular books, but in this case, it ends up taking a lot more time to finish for not too much extra quality or depth.) The second one, though, objectively sucks: The first page of the story is missing. Not even from the scan, it's basically lost media. Unless you have another original copy, there's no way to read it. It's not a huge deal, but it kinda sucks, especially because it's the very first page of the (expanded) order. Anyway, it's not all bad, the CMRO notes for the entry contain a summary of the page in the comments. No idea where they got it, but here it is if you're interested: 

'Dave Dean, accompanied by his friend Shorty, is captaining a freighter that carries (in addition to the crew, scientists and a Hindu priest), a million and a half dollars worth of uncut diamonds for the Maharajah of Nechal. Dave's ship gets an S.O.S. from the Mandora, a ship that had disappeared mysteriously with a like shipment of gems. They find the Mandora drifting aimlessly and Dave, Shorty and a few men head out in a small launch for the helpless vessel...'

The few illustrations that this thing does have are admittedly pretty good.

So there you go, Dave is a sort of sea captain kind of person. That's cool, the sea is a good setting, but I'm kind of worried about how many "Pirate Attack" stories they can come up with before the whole thing gets stale.

Anyway, after that, they get on the abandoned ship and find a somber atmosphere awaiting them. Dave leaves his allies behind (for safety reasons) and heads to the radio room alone, like the macho man he is. He finds it in complete shambles (like most of the ship) and figures the operator must be dead, given the blood splattered on the floor. I gotta say, the atmosphere throughout all this is pretty decent. It almost feels like horror. And I love horror!

Now, if the missing page wasn't bad enough, there's some incorrectly ordered text here. The first paragraph of the first column of page 2 should go after the rest of the column, but it's at the top. Anyway, again, the CMRO notes save the day.

Anyway, continuing his exploration of the ship, resident skipper Dave Dean finds the whole place covered with some kind of acid. His partner Shorty arrives and they discuss the situation.

Shorty wants to bring more people in to investigate, but Dave has a "bad feeling" (dude, just say you don't know what's going on) and doesn't want to put them in danger.

Alone again, Dave goes below deck and finds more destruction and two rotten bodies, so he figures the slaughter can't be recent. 

Also, what's with the rats? And the big-ass spider?

Did it swim to the ship? Are we close to Australia?

Heading to the engine room, Dave hears (and sees!) the prelude to an explosion in the form of a hissing sound and a flickering light, so he runs upstairs and commands everyone to jump into the water. 

How long was that wick? It gave time for everyone to be safe on the water by the time the explosion happened, including the people who were inside the ship, and not just standing on deck! Anyway, back on the launch, Shorty reckons the person who triggered the explosion must've gone down with the ship. Not quite tho. Apparently, the bomb was already planted and was set off by an already-lit candle. I guess they knew exactly when Dave and the others would be there. Or maybe they just wanted to destroy evidence. At any rate, we finish the story with a nice mystery and a list of suspects: The passengers of the ship. Apparently, one of them wants to steal the diamonds and kill everyone in the process. 

In case you haven't caught on by now, this is a two-parter, and you can read it here. Part two is on the next issue.

Let's move on to the ratings:

Quality/Enjoyment: 3/5

I was going to give it a lower rating for the sin of not being even a comic book, but this was actually pretty good! I enjoyed the mystery and the atmosphere throughout, and it wasn't even that long a read.

Still, I would've preferred this in comic-book format, and the missing page and poorly arranged text lowers the overall quality of the whole thing.

Historical/Cultural/Narrative Significance: 2/5

Dave Dean couldn't be farther away from being a relevant character: He has like six appearances with no crossovers and only one of them was even published by Marvel (On a reprint!). However, as small as his significance is, I do believe that being the oldest 616 character deserves some merit.

And that's it! Boy was this long. Probably my longest entry yet. Next time, part two of this story. That one's also text so the next entry might take a little while too (bear with me, this blog is the "on-the-side" of my already on-the-side stuff). So thanks for reading and have a nice rest of your day!

DCRO 49- The Funnies (1936) #6 [AD Story]

Story title: "Why Big Brothers Leave Home" (V)

Cover Date: March 1937

By: Sheldon Mayer

DCRO Entry

Here we go! Final one! Let's do this!

So, in this one Scribbly and  Beelzebub (That's what I'm calling the little brother for now), are playing together in the snow.

Beelzebub asks his brother to build him a snow fort, and he says yes! Pretty commendable if you ask me, that he still wants to be nice to him after all that happened. So he builds a pretty decent fort:

But just when you thought that some fraternal love was starting to grow on Beelzebub's tiny, shriveled-up heart, he asks Scribbly to enter the fort.

Dude! It's a trap! Don't do it!

Alas, the fort comes crumbling down, leaving Scribbly buried and confused.

I swear, the Tsk Tsk is by far the worst part of the character, and that's a lot. He kind of reminds me of Manny from the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, if you guys ever read that (same asshole little brother trope dialed up to a hundred). In retrospect, there was something kinda wrong with Greg, but Manny was a full-blown psycho. Rodrick was really the only normal one in the family. Don't get me wrong, he was still an asshole, but I mean... He was a teenager, so nothing really out of place there.

And that's it! Read this here, blah blah whatever. Let's see the ratings!

Quality/Enjoyment: 1/5

Just some more unnecessarily mean badness (and when Scribbly was trying to be a good big bro despite it too!), not much more to say.

Historical/Cultural/Narrative Significance: 1/5

I'm gonna pause the DCRO for a little while and hope the new series is added while I'm gone. Meanwhile, let's start the CMRO! (We'll be reading only about five entries for now tho). Some of you may be wondering if I'm starting with Marvel Comics #1 or Fantastic Four #1. Well, the answer is neither, I hope you like Dave Dean because I surely don't! Anyway, we'll be reading the expanded one, obviously. For now, thanks for reading and have a nice rest of your day!