Monday, December 30, 2013

Captain Marvel Jr. #40 (July 1946 Faces a Grave Situation)

Capt. Marvel, Jr Faces a Grave Situation

This story seems to be out of sequence. In the previous story we see that Freddy is head of the newsboy club and in this story he is just being induced into the club. This story is an important one as it seems to prefigure the horror comics of the later 1940s and early 1950s. While there were other  comic book strips at the same time and earlier that used horror themes it wasn't until Adventures into the Unknown #1 (Fall 1948) that a comic book title was devoted exclusively to horror and supernatural themes.

The creepy scene of Freddy having to walk through a cemetery at night and stumbling into an open grave was certainly not your typical Captain Marvel Jr. story.  The deep blue rendering of the night scenes expertly express this eerie atmosphere. The morbidly psychotic sculptor Bernardo seems to be a villain straight out of various B horror films of the period. This story sports some very impressive backgrounds (see page 2, panel 7, Page 5, panel 7 and page 7)
that add real suspense to the story.

Very likely Bob Rogers was response for these backgrounds as Bud Thompson did the overall art. This is one of the better CMJ stories of 1946.

(Note: Because I'm dealing with some serious health issues new postings will be limited for the near future.  We are not abandoning this blog but it is necessary to to this. To our regular reaaers thanks for your continued interest.)













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