FORGOTTEN BOOKS: Forgotten Comics and the Forgotten Record they Spawned

Classics Illustrated comics, I was surprised to discover, have made a comeback. The four issues shown here are now available both in paperback and for kindle. Are all CI comics back in print? I don't know, but I think it's pretty cool. 

Meanwhile, I recently picked up a $35 turntable that plugs into my computer to convert records into wav files. So I've been merrily playing some of my old platters and sharing them on YouTube. WESTERN PLAYHOUSE is one of those. It was issued in Canada in 1959, and claims to be adapted from Classics Illustrated. Actually, that's possible with only the issues shown here (and on the album cover). CI never got around to featuring Jim Bowie, Bat Masterson or Wyatt Earp. But you'll find their stories here too, with cheesy renditions of classic cowboy tunes between each tale. 

The narrated stories, too, are pretty lame, but they have redeeming historical and pop culture value. Try them and see. There are worse things you could be listening to. I think.

ROY ROGERS meets David Letterman (1983)

The Adventures of TOM MIX (1919)

G-MEN and Heroes of the Law Gum Cards (1936)

Pulp Gallery: .44 WESTERN Magazine

1944

1947

1948

1953

MUTT & JEFF Go to the Movies (1918)

JOHNNY YUMA SINGS! The COMPLEAT Vocal Stylings of Mr. Nick Adams

Davy and I are proud to present, for what is likely the first and last time anywhere, the complete record catalog of Mr. Nick Adams. 

Nick's singing career began in January 1960 with the release of "Born a Rebel," backed with the tender ballad called "Bull Run."

"Johnny Yuma, the Rebel," with "The Ballad of Scatter Gun Hill" followed in March 1960. The Rebel theme, as you'll discover, was probably his best, because he wasn't trying too hard to sing.

Nick's final shot at the music biz came in September 1962, with "Tired and Lonely Rebel." On the flip side of that one was a silly non-Rebel entry that covers everything from the Garden of Eden to outer space. Both were written by Dorsey Burnette. Burnette, of course, could also write good songs, and proved it with such hits as "Tall Oak Tree" and "You're Sixteen."

Forgotten Books: THE SPY WHO WAS 3 FEET TALL by Peter Rabe

There's a good novelette in here somewhere. Trouble is, it's smothered in a lot of extra words meant to market it as a novel. That's what happened back in 1966, when it was published by Gold Medal, and it will be happening again this month in a Manny deWitt Omnibus from Stark House Press. 

When I read the first deWitt novel, Girl in a Big Brass Bed (discussed HERE), it took me a long time to settle in and appreciate Rabe's slow pace and odd sense of humor. This time I was ready for it, and the first thirty pages went pretty well. 

DeWitt is sent by his quirky international multi-industrialist boss, Hans Lobbe, to handle legal details for the building of a road in the fresh new African nation of Motana. But he soon learns there are people who don't want him to get there, let alone get that road built. And that's where, for me, the story bogged down in a lot of nicely written but pointless captures and escapes.

Bored, I had to start another book, Steward Edward White's The Long Rifle, which begins the saga of Andy Burnett (you'll hear more about that anon), and slog through this one a few pages at a time until it caught my interest again. 

That happened about forty pages from the end, when deWitt finally gets an inkling of what's going on, and who the real players are in the story. 

DeWitt stumbling around in the dark seems to be the point of this series. His boss, Lobbe, won't tell him why he's there, or who his enemies might be, or what the implications of his success or failure are. All this, I guess, is meant to be the mystery, as deWitt (and the hapless reader) struggle to figure it out. Near the end, things finally started popping, and came to a reasonably satisfying finish. But it was a rocky trip.

I was expecting good things, being there was a Spy in the title. But he was a letdown. Yeah, we meet an annoying little 3-foot Motanian, but he's not really a spy. He's just there for the occasional not-quite-funny joke, and to participate in some of the pointless captures and escapes. The book would have been better without him.  

The novelette I referred to reminded me of one of the wartime stories Richard Sale wrote for The Saturday Evening Post. And Rabe's cockeyed portrayal of corrupt Motana reminded me of Norbert Davis's Mexico in The Mouse in the Mountain. But Sale was more compelling, and Davis much funnier.

I have it on reliable authority that the third and last Manny deWitt novel, Code Name Gadget, goes easy on the attempted humor and gets down to business. I'm hoping that's so.