The Comics Magazine #1 (1936)

The Comics Magazine #1 [Grand Comics Database links: 1; Comic Book Database: 1]
(May 1936)
Comics Magazine Co., Inc.
(Version read: Supermen!: The First Wave of Comic Book Heroes 1936-1941 trade paperback edition (2009) [LibraryThing] [Amazon])

"Dr. Mystic" story
Credits:
Writer: Jerry ("Jerome") Siegel
Penciller: Joe Shuster
Inker: Joe Shuster

Interesting that the first story in this collection of "first wave" comic book... super hero stories would be by Siegel and Shuster (whose 1935 Popular Comics tryout material I was just reading last week in the Siegel and Shuster: Dateline 1930s mini-series published in the 80s by Eclipse Comics).

Here we have a simple two page story, but one that's actually pretty interesting. Not so much for the plot--a mysterious giant appears over a city, threatening to destroy it; the hero, Dr. Mystic, grows to giant size to confront him; the stranger turns out to be Mystic's old ally, Zator, pretending to be a menace in order to draw Mystic out; the two fly off to India to meet with "The Seven"; creatures of the nether world try to stop them, first by trying to scare them, then to deceive them with the illusion of a beautiful woman in dire distress; a man named Koth appears before them, offering them to join him against The Seven or to die; they refuse to join Koth and Koth turns his creatures loose on Mystic and Zator; to be continued--but as another look at the type of work Siegel and Shuster were doing just prior to creating Superman.

Dr. Mystic resembles Superman, while Zator is perhaps the earliest example of a caped flying superhero in comic books. The art is in black and white. I found Shuster's work here, while similar to his later work on Superman in some ways, to be quite different in others. Specifically, the creatures of the "nether world" (which indeed are quite freaky looking) and the beautiful woman in distress (drawn nude with only wisps of cloud or smoke to cover her). Both very different from what we'd see in Shuster's Superman work.

The notes in the back of Supermen! indicate that when two of Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson's managers at National Allied Publications (the company that would become DC Comics) left to form Comics Magazine Company, Inc., that they took a large amount of Nicholson's inventory with them. This Dr. Mystic story is one of them. According to the notes, Dr. Mystic had appeared earlier as "Dr. Occult" in the final issue of National Allied's New Fun series (October 1935). Dr. Mystic's storyline would continue on again as Dr. Occult ("the mystic detective") starting in More Fun Comics #14 (October 1936), again, by National Allied Publications.

Siegel and Shuster: Dateline 1930's #1-2 (1984-1985)

Siegel and Shuster: Dateline 1930's #1-2 [Grand Comics Database links 1, 2; Comic Book Database: 1]
(November 1984, [no month] 1985)
Eclipse Comics

Credits:
Writer: Jerry Siegel
Penciller: Joe Shuster
Inker: Joe Shuster

Here we have a collection of material created in 1935 by Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster for what was intended to be "a nationally distributed monthly comics tabloid" they titled Popular Comics (this was a year prior to Dell's series by that same name). As explained in the introduction written by Siegel here, a contract was signed with The Cleveland Shopping News. For whatever reason, however, the publisher changed his mind and the project went unpublished.

Flash forward to the mid-1980s and (now defunct) independent comics publisher, Eclipse Comics, puts out a two-issue limited series under the title, Siegel and Shuster: Dateline 1930's, publishing this material for the very first time.

This first issue includes, in color, the material Siegel and Shuster put together for that first intended issue of Popular Comics. There's 21 pages of one and one-half page newspaper style comic strips all by Siegel and Shuster. The strips themselves are pretty generic stuff: adventure, science fiction, and humor features emulating the strips you would find in the newspapers at that time but all with pretty derivative and forgettable characters. What's interesting is being able to observe the type of material Siegel and Shuster were working on in the years immediately prior to the debut of Superman in 1938. There are even two features (a 4-page feature titled "Interplanetary Police" and a 1-pager titled "Steve Walsh") which date back to when Siegel and Shuster first met back in 1931.

Some of the strips include brief comments regarding their origin by Jerry Siegel. Also in this issue is a three page interview titled "Remembering the 30's" with Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, and Joanne Siegel, conducted by Shel Dorf.

(#2) Funny. I've had issue number one of this for many years. May have even bought it when it first came out in fall of 1984. But I only just got around to buying issue number two a relatively short time ago. I'm just now reading both of them.

Surprisingly, there really isn't all that much *to* issue number two, content wise. They already had put everything from the aborted Popular Comics #1 in the first issue. What we have here in #2 (which is entirely in black and white; the first issue was in color) is a one page forward by Jerry Siegel, eighteen "episodes" of a daily humor strip by Siegel and Joe Shuster titled "Snoopy and Smiley", a science fiction centerfold section drawn by Shuster in 1931 when he was only 16 years old (which is what this issue's cover art is a part of), and eight pages of rough pencils ("a rough dummy") also drawn by Shuster for the proposed second issue of Popular Comics.

The"Snoopy and Smiley" strips are a step better than most of the humor strips included in issue #1. The pencils for Popular Comics #2 vary in clarity. Some, you can read and make out what's happening in the art just fine. Others are too rough to really make anything out. Again, like the previous issue, historically interesting (if a bit light on content this time), but pretty much just for period comic book/comic strip--and Siegel and Shuster--aficionados.