Frogman - No. 8 Feb 1953

    After WWII, military comics became very successful.  Regular soldiers rather than supermen starred and most books dealt with the Marines or the Army.  This one from Hillman focused on a more unsung fighting man, whom we see here clearing a mine from the path of the ship in the background.
    The composition is brilliant.  Tightly contained, all attention is focused on the flaming Chinese warplane.  All lines seek to converge on it.  Nothing is superfluous.  That frogman on the left doesn’t really need to point out the impending and rather inevitable disaster to us, or his compatriots, but it serves to direct attention.  A helpless gesture, it’s passive in its alarm and with the equally passive boom of the warship, frames the wreckage to enclose us within that space.  Between them, instead of raising alarm and drawing us in, all similarly straight lines push back against the event.
    The point of the boom, apparently unimportant, is covered by the title, directing us straight to the hook holding the mine.  The end of the hook mimics the mine’s spikes, a second focal point for us.  In contrast to the frogman’s outstretched arm, the spikes are aggressively defensive, like razor wire.  All those that we can see are extended towards the plane.  Few point to the frogmen.  The warning, symbolically, is for the plane as if it were about to impale itself. 
    Conversely, the spikes are meant to create disaster, more dangerous to passing ships and a greater potential for detonation.  The frogmen are clustered around an object of dual identities: target and defensive weapon, which wouldn’t be so if the mine were left in its native environment.  Conflict is generated not solely through explosive power, but through fundamentally opposite characteristics.
    A lot of contrast draws the aircraft and the mine together in creating suspense.  The back of the plane is awash in fire, while the underside of the mine is green with seawater.  Bright colours highlight the plane, actively detonating, while dark greens and blacks lock away the mine’s potential, rising metaphorically, evinced in the reflection of the fire on the mine’s face.
    If, instead of a plane, a second boat sped towards the mine in flames, would the effect be as great?  Since mines are meant to destroy ships, it would remain a waiting bomb.  Incongruity, however, confronts it with change, and through it the mine exerts the will of the frogmen to defend against the inescapable.  True opposites are converging here, and so great are the elements of their opposition that the imagined reaction is much more tragic and more real.  Closing the distance via scale heightens tension.
    Feebly, the ship is firing back.  Dwarfed by the fire of the plane, the muzzle flash from the boat’s guns nonetheless adds some action.  Every bit of logical space is composed towards the plane.  Nothing active extends above its disintegrating left wing, which is an interesting feature.  Not only does it suggest just how compromised the aircraft is, it creates balance between itself, the mine and the ship.  The mine is nicely centered.  The ship lists to the left towards it and the plane.  If the plane’s left wing were extended the detail around the hook would be too busy.  Some of the tension would be lost.  This way the action is kept nicely taut.  An invisible line swoops down from the end of the G to the highest point of water on the left.  Behind it, the frogmen are all connected, touching or overlapping in some way.  They have their space and the plane has its space.  Only the furthest points of each are about to meet:  the spike just beneath that patch of yellow on the mine, and the plane’s propeller.
    Beautiful sky in the background, isn’t it?  Where other books might have a single expanse of colour, some extra effort was made here to subtly render the sky with clouds.  Not storm clouds or large thunderheads, but nimbus in watercolour or airbrush offsetting the drama of the foreground.  A practical choice of counterpoint.  None of the expected tragedy is overwrought.  It also segues comfortably into the green of the banner, itself complimented by the sea.
    The water is well rendered, partially obscuring the men within it, and eerily nuanced with bubble trails and stark contrasts between shades of green.  The frogmen are also well nuanced, completely composed within their suits, nothing else of them showing; their suits completely composed of one shade of green or another, giving a hard realism through an abundance of thick and thin lines.  Duty and danger are emphasized, rather than humanity and emotion.
    We are, by the way, the fourth frogman.  The water curves around our mask.  Some of those bubbles in the center are ours.  And, by the way, we’re dead.  There’s no way that plane will miss the mine.  The ship won’t be any help.  Look how flatly detailed it is.  A lack of contrast suggests weakness.  If it were meant to be significant, it would cast longer shadows.  More than likely it shot the plane down.
    The garish title and ridiculous tag promising the “watery world of the seas!!” are sensational counterbalances to the realism and suspense of the rest of the cover, perfect for comics.  I don’t consider comics a marriage of art and literature, like some do.  I consider them graffiti.  That’s where their vitality lies, on a line between sensationalism and taste.
    A great piece from a title that only ran eleven issues.  From what I’ve seen, this was the best.

Captain Midnight - No. 64 June 1948

    I love the whimsy here, something missing from most modern comics.  The seriousness and playfulness mix nicely together, for there’s grave danger in Xog’s eyes but he is still Xog, Ruler of Saturn! with giant buck teeth and smoke erupting from his volcanic head.  It even goes so far to crown him with a Saturnine ring (just look at the gloomy brow beneath).  He’s ridiculously literal, not only ruling the planet but part of its landscape, an extension of its ring system and, presumably, its cloud cover.  How can Captain Midnight possibly take him seriously?  Very possibly.  Xog’s silliness lends well to his graver details resulting in a surreal viciousness that is believable on a first glance.
    Primarily, Xog is an Homunculus.  His exaggerated features give an idea of the power within him and where it is situated strongest.  The round eyes, nose and mouth -- all as big if not bigger than our poor, dear Captain’s head – are indicative of appetite, a ruling feature of his character.  A great appetite further exaggerated by his ridiculous teeth and most of all, his protruding, red tongue.  A shade darker than the red of Capt Midnight’s costume, that tongue implies a deeper, quicker temper than our hero’s, indicated as well by the erupting smoke.
    Xog’s appetite feeds his anger.  No room for a stomach, not that we can see, all that he takes in goes to his head, a mind quite literally on fire, the seat of irrationality.  His output is great, his appetite for anger the reason he’s king, since we can assume from his minion that only Xog was great enough to blow his top.
    He is not ravenous, however.  His tongue does not slather, he is grotesque in many ways save that.  It is a tongue for speech.  Clearly he’s gesturing, casting some order as to the fate of Captain Midnight.  But such is his anger that we can well imagine most of his words are lost to rage.  So much more savage to lose the command of language than to have never had it all and retain a clear, predatory mind.
    Xog is further diminished by his teeth.  Instead of incisors or fangs, canid sabers, they’re rodent-like, casting him among classes of vermin rather than more severe threats.  He also looks like a sickly potato, a clod of dirt or clod of something else if you’re inclined towards such imagery.  It seems the good old Captain could just roll him off his seat and down the hill, if not for those muscles in Xog’s legs or those claws meant for nothing but ripping and slicing.
    The colour scheme, if not for this being Captain Midnight’s book and no one else’s, points towards the captain’s eventual victory and salvation.  Xog is constantly venting.  The brightest colour on him comes from his eyes, tongue, crowning ring and trailing smoke.  The eyes are mostly black, only highlighted in yellow; his tongue is enslaved to his teeth and the void of his mouth; the ring is an affectation; and the smoke, most importantly, forever leaves him.  He is as drab as the earth, lifeless or nearly so, and must force vibrancy to offset this, further seen in his throne.  An ultimately weak creature despite his form.
    Captain Midnight, on the other hand, is completely self-contained.  He keeps a cool head under that blue cowl, and a golden heart encased in fiery pride (look at him, thrusting his chest out).  His hands are equally as cool, and also quick, blue a sign of swiftness as much as reserved strength.  His legs, evolutionarily fundamental to our survival and prosperity, have a mixture of the virtues found in both the red and the blue.
    His boots are a comic cliché.  They’re jack-boots or riding boots.  Both heroes and villains wear calf-length black boots, but here they add a solidness, balancing out the flightiness or aggression of the blues and reds in an effort to make him seem well-grounded.
    Starkly different than Xog and his minion.  They are naked, a colonial put-down to deny them the virtues of civilization.  We can only assume the action of the cover, if not the story itself, takes place on Saturn.  To where Captain Midnight is a visitor and the ultimate colonialist, being a master of technology.  All Xog can make is his chair and possibly his silly ring.  Even the possibility of clothes is beyond him because of his anatomy.  He and his people, in this light, cannot overcome their native hostility.
    All that Captain Midnight bares is his face.  (He too is an homunculus but less so because of his truer-to-life proportions.)  This sets a theme: the truth goes bare-faced.  He can take in the universe without any filter or shield.  Any opposite of that is deception.  Xog and his minion, despite their nakedness, mask truer identities.  Less human and less alive, they make the captain more human, more alive ergo more virtuous.  Xog looks fake not despite his nakedness but because of it.  If Xog were able to wear clothing that bared his face, there would be parity between him and the captain, making the division between hero and villain less obvious.  Why else make him such a complete monster?  Villains of other sci-fi books are human but no less alien.
    Of course, they are both facades, being illustrations, Captain Midnight lacking human failure as much as Xog lacks human restraint.  All human failure has been removed to the villain, leaving the captain’s face stony and less detailed.  We project ourselves into it for pride at the cost of arrogance, significant in 1948 considering the costs of the post-war years.
    Overall, though, a fun cover with great banner art.  Bold colours with bold printing and good straight lines rising from left to right, well-attuned to Western modes of right and wrong, topped off by a speeding, single-prop airplane, a symbol of pride during and after WWII.
    Childish in its absurdity, a certain maturity is offered in marrying the silly with the savage, the garish maturity of the grotesque.  We have to laugh and that's the point.  Incidentally, this was a Fawcett publication, also the publisher of Captain Marvel, a company that had, bar none, the highest standards for cover art, start to finish.

Down With Crime - No. 1 Nov. 1952

    The level of detail here is exquisite.  First, let's start where we're intended, the foreground.  Presumably this is Desarro falling here from the fire escape.  Look at the way he is captured in the light.  Not is it enough that he is square center on the page, but his importance is literally highlighted by the police searchlights.  And not only is he framed by those lights but so is his destination below, creating an obvious visual flow downwards.  Suspense is heightened by capturing the moment just after he's lost his footing.
    The visual theme, therefore, is quite apparent.  Crime must be done away with, torn from our neighbourhoods, from the sides of our buildings; from the illicit height Desarro has attained, where people sleep and hang out their laundry.  But, our focus is him, not the police.  The usual trope of crime comics holds, that the criminal is more exciting.  It is exciting and would be less so seen from the ground up; the badge-eye view, if you will.
    Only Desarro shows emotion.  The police are too far away to read.  They are faceless and therefore heartless and implacable.  The thrill comes from Desarro's face and the detail of his body.  What hair he has is whipped about.  Nothing is forgotten in stasis, not his tie nor the wrinkles in the clothes, even the left collar of his shirt.
    The nuanced contrasting of light levels, from bright yellow at his back to the tans of his suit and the thick shadows on top give him a depth the rest lack.  The line work on the police is very fine.  A genius hand inked this cover, going so far as to add vents in the hoods of the police cars.  But the only subjects with life here are Desarro because of his depth of colour, and the light, because of its lack of contrast.  It is pure, a projection of the life residing within the police, who here are merely mechanical representations of order, as set in stone as the buildings and the street.
    They are, though, the reality, for despite our focus on Desarro it is they who have the ultimate authority here over life and death.  They have taken from Desarro his power, seen in the gun leaving his hand.  He is left without a foothold in the world, seen especially in the angle of his left foot, and can only surrender to the might of those who crave, if it's not going too far to say, purity.
      Notice that two of the police seem to be firing.  Notice too, that we cannot see what guns they carry. Their true weapon is the light crossing in the sky and covering the bottom half of the foreground.  At other times, light in comics is illustrated as partly transparent.  Here it is blinding out the pavement.  It overtakes the ordinary with extraordinary measures to return this neighbourhood to normalcy.  The all-encompassing fire of justice.  Above all, a moral judgment.
    However, we learn nothing from it about the horror of crime or the reason of law.  No moral lesson is even indicated by the title, an implied denial of what has captured our thought and focus.  While the circumstances around Desarro form a moral core, they - the police - are distant and iconically hostile.  We only look at him.  His heart, figuratively, beats with fear, and ours with excitement.
    While full of tension, the piece's emotional base is on a man who will soon feel nothing at all, let alone fear.  The life of that fear is quick, and the emotional through-line that we can imagine following from its death, is short.  No innocent bystander clutches a window, looking out.  There are no crowds, no focus on gunplay, no bullets or "Bang"s.  Ultimately, it's a quiet piece but the impact is deep.  So much so, that the title itself is upset, telling us that normal pace will be disrupted.  The gun, note that it's Desarro's gun, is dead center of the X from those spotlights, separated yet still potent.
    But all for the greater good.  The surrounding stillness, as again the action is held entirely by Desarro, says the pace will return, life will be alright.  And soon.  The light that blots the street will blot Desarro, his gun and all others to come.  Desarro, in all his contrast, is Crime, and light destroys shadow.  Desarro himself creates the shadows on him.  They do not come by the light.  For despite the brightness of those beams, no other shadow is cast as strongly.  The innocent can hang out their laundry and go to bed.   They can turn away from the corruption that has already consumed Desarro.
    It's valid to ask if that light blinds innocence to knowledge, for we know much about Desarro from his contrasting shadows, but little about the police and nothing of what their searchlights block out.  Such is the nature of this use of light.  As for us, we want that knowledge, enough to pay for it and are allowed to enjoy what thrills we can in the seconds it takes to discern Desarro's fate.  This piece, at heart, is at war with crime, forever enticing us with thrills it forever seeks to erase.