Mandrake's Idea of Feminism

As much as I love vintage Mandrake, and enjoying entertainment of the past in general, it can get a little frustrating at times.  I've spoken before about how the reader has to approach the material understanding when it was created and the different mindsets of our  culture back then.  Historical criticism, if you will. 

But even then, it gets frustrating every now and then.  In Mandrake's case, it's usually the depiction of Lothar that really gets me.  However, despite the ridiculous ways in which Lothar is depicted, Mandrake treats him like an equal.  And that's the saving grace of the strip.

However, sometimes I can get caught off guard.  So wary am I about the portrayal of Lothar, I didn't see this one coming.

From a series of Sunday strips out of December, 1940.

Mandrake fixes a tribe of strong Amazon warriors by restoring the men to power and the women to cooking and cleaning.

Sigh.  Oh Mandrake.  What fool you are.

Come to think of it, Captain Kirk might have done the same thing.

Thanks,

DCD

Mandrake Knock-Offs of the 1940's

I've talked before about my love of vintage strips of Mandrake the Magician. But I just can't shake the feeling that you don't believe me. I feel that you don't believe a newspaper comic strip about a traditional tuxedo magician fighting crime could possibly be that popular.

Thankfully, we have the help of 1940's comic books to prove my point.

In today's entertainment, everyone's striving to find the next big breakthrough character while still keeping us placated with old favorites that we grew up with. Back in the forties, if something sold well, imitators popped up by the boatload. DC famously sued Fawcett comics because Captain Marvel was too similar to Superman, but this is a rare case of the publisher actually doing anything about the competition trying to ape the elements of a character that made it popular.

Here are a few examples of Mandrake knock-offs found in comic books. ALL of these examples came from comics from December of 1941. Please notice the amount of crime fighters choosing to practice their craft in a tuxedo or three piece suit as befits magician's of there era.

Action Comics #43 from DC had Zatara the Magician. This is probably the most well known of the knock off magicians, as his DC Comics heritage lasts into the present day with his daughter, DC comics character Zatanna. Zatara had the unique method of making magical things happen by speaking phrases backwards.


Whiz Comics #25 from Fawcett had Ibis the Invincible. Using his Ibis Stick, he could make just about anything happen.


All-American Comics #33 from DC had Sargon the Sorcerer. Thanks to the ruby in his turban, anything Sargon touched was completely under his control.


World's Finest Comics #4 from DC had Lando, Man of Magic. He didn't seem to have any constraints on his powers at all. But he did sport the standard turban-tux-cape combo of justice.








Top-Notch Comics #22 from MLJ had Kardak, the Mystic Magician. He was a master of illusion just like Mandrake. Again with the turban!





Wonderworld Comics #32 from Fox had Yarko, Master of Magic. Yarko made his magic not by using Zatara's speaking backwards method, but by employing pig latin.


Zip Comics #21 from MLJ had Zambini the Miracle Man. He could pretty much do anything.





National Comics #18 from Quality Comics had Merlin the Magician. This dude seemed to copy Zatara's schtick of making magic by speaking backwards.





Uncle Sam #2 from Quality Comics bucked the male-dominated trend and offered Margo the Magician. She didn't sport Mandrake's trademark tuxedo, but she did have his illusion casting powers down pat.


This is not even counting the characters popping up in More Fun Comics, All-Star Comics, Blue Ribbon Comics, Jackpot Comics, Shield-Wizard Comics and Jungle Comics which were magic based but not immediately recognizable as Mandrake knock-offs. Characters such as Dr. Fate, Spectre, Mr. Justice, Wizard, and even Tabu - Wizard of the Jungle.





Oddly enough, Mystic Comics #8 from Timely Comics didn't have any magicians. Plenty of supernatural themed stories, but just no turbans or top hats.

And Mandrake himself could be found in the pages of comic books. The December 1941 issue of King Comics published by David McKay Company, had Popeye on the cover and four pages of Mandrake reprints from his newspaper material.


I could be wrong about the source of the magician craze. Mandrake dominated the comics newspaper page and his strip began in 1934. But Blackstone the Magic Detective was a 1948 radio show based on popular stage magician Harry Blackstone, who began his career in the early twentieth century and was quite popular throughout World War II. Obviously Mandrake took a que from Blackstone and other stage magicians of the day. But I imagine very few of those actually fought crime.


Knock-offs and theme characters fill the pages of Golden Age comics. It's to the point where I can flip through one of these comics and say "Oh there's the patriotic hero, and here's the magician, and here's the fire-guy, and here's the super speed guy, and here's the aviator, and here's the army dude." The trick is enjoying the material for what it's worth. Which back then was ten cents for about ten stories and some humor pages. So... maybe it was about getting the most for your money? Anyways, one thing is for sure. There's nothing like it today.

Thanks,
DCD

P.S. See any nicknames you'd like to adopt at work? Combinations? Vicki Dill, the Invicible Sorcerer of Magic? Steve Lietuvnikas, the Master Mystic Magician of Magic? I say go for it.

Mandrake the Magician

Sometimes I consider myself to have a foot in two worlds of entertainment. Modern day and the past. This offers a unique perspective, and sometimes an appreciation, of what I'm reading.

Reading Aquaman comics of today is a world of difference than how the character was presented in the 1950's. That's just one small example. Almost every character I can think of has changed drastically with each decade. Superman and Batman being the best examples.

Except the Peanuts strips. The Peanuts strips of the 1950's have very minor differences with later decades. Except for some reason they come off as more charming.



One of the more terribly painful examples of this concept is Mandrake the Magician.
Mandrake the Magician is a newspaper comic strip started in 1934 by Lee Falk, who also created the Phantom. Like the Phantom, Mandrake turned out to be enormously popular in the 1930's and 1940's and was even featured in movie serials. The character was a common household name in the days when an adventure strip could run successfully in the newspapers. Unlike today.

Unfortunately, Mandrake is still being published today. You might be surprised to find out how negative I am about that. The problem being how far the strip, and indeed the very medium of adventure strips in the newspapers, have fallen.

I subscribe to a website called DailyInk. The website is crappy and mismanaged and doesn't work consistently at all. The strips themselves won't pull up from my work computer, so I load them on my iPad for my morning reading before going to work. However, I don't belong to the website for how well it runs. It's the content I crave. They offer several modern day strips from popular cartoon syndicates. But, more importantly to me, they offer several vintage comic strips from days gone by.
Tragically, they offer both vintage Mandrake and modern day Mandrake. Enabling the reader to compare how far the medium and the magician have fallen since their heydays.


All the modern day adventure strips move at a frustrating snails pace and have very poor art. The Spider-Man strip in particular is extremely ridiculous. Mandrake is the worst of them all, though. With overly-simplistic story lines sometimes lasting for months on end, and even single confrontations stretching out over weeks. The art is messy, muddy, and a direct slap in the face to the clean, crisp lines of the Mandrake strips of the past. It's a rare case where I would rather see the strip fade away than be dragged through the mud as it is today.








But what makes this so painful is seeing what the strip used to be! Every day to be treated to the beautiful artwork, thrilling stories, and interesting characters that used to make the strip so popular. Storytelling was quick and exciting. And it's through this comparison that I know what the format of daily, three panel comic strips are capable of doing!


The only way in that the modern strip is better than the former strip is the treatment of Mandrake's right-hand man, Lothar. His depiction in older strips is a painful stereotype, but a record of our cultural thinking from those decades.


Ironically, one of the recent adventure strips that DID move along and tell a good story was Little Orphan Annie. My buddy Scott and I used to rave about how good the modern day strip was. Little Orphan Annie was finally cancelled in 2010. After running for 86 years. When it was cancelled, it was running in less than 20 newspapers. The New York Daily News carried the strip for it's entire run.

Two strips that are doing fairly are Flash Gordon and Prince Valiant. They are still a far cry from there 1930's heyday, but both strips still run on Sunday's, both are action packed and fast paced, both have good artwork, and both are offered through DailyInk. However, I don't consider either character to be a household name like they used to be.

One strip that bounced back from this degradation of the decades is Dick Tracy. Dick Tracy is another strip of immense popularity in it's first several decades. However the strip had fallen on hard times, terrible art, and achingly slow stories in recent years. I bailed on it, unable to continue reading it. However, in 2011 the strip was taken over by a new writer and by former DC Comics artist Joe Staton. Story and art improved by light years almost immediately. It's a must-read for me today.

It feels like I'm announcing the death of the daily comic strip format in this blog entry. However, I just don't feel that way. The truth is, the newspaper syndicates did their best to ignore the internet, changing trends, and the future for quite a long time. They are the ones responsible for the deaths of these strips. The habit of reading a daily comic strip is still very much alive, only now it's webcomics. Artists who were treated terribly or turned down by giant monolithic dinosaur comic newspaper syndicates turned to the web and found bigger audiences than they ever could in the freaking newspaper. So much so, that websites like DailyInk and GoComics that provide syndicated strips online were proved to have a place in the world. It's the webcomic creators that saved this particular medium.

That won't help poor Mandrake the Magician, though.


Thanks,
DCD