Pulp Action from the Wild West through the Dirty 30s and More.
Back in the 1990s, before Funko marketed their popular POP! line, they made Wacky Wobblers. As the name implies they are bobble-head characters. Here’s one I just added to my collection… Dick Tracy!
Continue reading “Dick Tracy Wacky Wobbler”
The Lost Squadron is about three World War I pilots who find jobs after the war as Hollywood stunt fliers.
Showman’s Synopsis of the 12-part 1943 serial The Masked Marvel, from the Motion Picture Herald (Sep-Oct 1943)
(reformatted article to add photo of Lloyd Gough)
SACRAMENTO (UPI) —State crime sleuths today folded up their comic pages and gave up hope of finding clues to the riddle of San Francisco’s Zodiac killer in the Dick Tracy cartoon series.
Agents of the State Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation began checking two months worth of Tracy comics on the theory they might find some parallels between the San Francisco killer of five persons and the “Scorpio” leader of the “Zodiac Gang ” being hunted down by Tracy.
“We gave the whole thing up,” Earl Bauer, senior analyst in the crime laboratory, said today. “We didn’t find any-thing that tied it up at all. We gave it up.”
“They’re just in two different worlds,” Bauer said of the real and fictitious Zodiacs.
He said the killer began using the Zodiac symbol before it appeared in the comic strip. Aug 17.
Zodiac, who has bragged of his crimes in cryptic notes to police and newspapers, shot a young couple to death in a lovers lane near Vallejo last Dec. 20, killed another girl and wounded her companion near Vallejo July 5, stabbed Hartnell and killed his coed companion Sept. 27, and shot a San Francisco cab driver to death Oct. 11.
It did not take long for some entrepreneurs to try and cash in on the phenomenon that was KING KONG
(King Kong’s Lair, Kansas City, November 4th, 1934)
Saw pathetic case of Earth-being overcome by sudden drop in temperature ~~~ Entire body rigid and covered with congealed moisture ~~~ was evidently en-route for home ~~~ Eyes and node turned into vegetable matter
The Cain’s Dancing Academy building is a rectangular, sandstone and brick, commercial building with a pitched roof. The building is classified as an American Movement of the Late 19th and Early 20th Century. There are reports that it was built for use as a garage but it never operated as such.
The “Cain’s” features a ballroom that measure 79 feet by 90 feet. The highlight of the ballroom is the historic, spring-loaded, curly maple dance floor that is laid in a “log cabin” or concentric square pattern. The historic, painted, white, drop ceiling is ornamented with painted red diamonds. Lighting the dance floor is a four foot, blue and red neon star which was likely added circa 1950 when other changes were made including the addition of photographs of noted musical artists that line the walls. These photographs include Bob Wills, Johnnie Lee Wills, Ernest Tubb, Ted Williams, Kay Starr and Tennessee Ernie Ford.
The “Cain’s” was known for its association with Bob Wills who was known as the “King of Western Swing.” Wills made a significant contribution to American music from the 1930s through the 1960s. He has been inducted into both the Country Music Hall of Fame (1968) and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1999).
Cain’s Dancing Academy was listed in the National Register on September 4, 2003. It was listed under Criteria B and its NRIS number is 03000874. (From archived post from the Tulsa Preservation Commission)
Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys in front to the Cains
A collection of various art from newspaper advertisements promoting King Kong in 1933. Most of the illustrations were variations of King Kong upon the top to the Empire State building.
Continue reading “King Kong Newspaper Art”