Sally the Sleuth Returns Part 2

The Sally the Sleuth strip was part of an overhaul that the Spicy/Culture publications line was undergoing at the time. In the late 1930s Culture was the target of a New York City municipal injunction (for selling torture porn) that forced the firm to change its name. This happened at about the same time as their DC Comics unit was first issuing Superman and Batman. Thanks to the comic book money, the firm was able to change its name and move its shop. They then started issuing pulp magazines under the Speed imprint. All of the titles which had been named Spicy, such as Spicy Detective or Spicy Adventure or Spicy Romance, became Speed Detective, Speed Romance or Speed Whatever.



In any case, the Speed imprint started to whither on the vine. This may have been due to the fact that their comic book line was constantly expanding. Superman was soon in three comic books. Batman was also soon in two comic books. And more comic books about such characters as the Flash and Wonder Woman were being added by the day. From that point on, the Speed pulp line started to subtract titles.



Culture/Speed actually only owned half of the DC Comics line. Both Culture and another firm (M.C. Gaines or All American Comics) shared the DC Comics imprint. Originally there was a division between the two firms. However, once Superman and then Batman became such big hits, the two firms started scrambling just to get the material out. It was raining money, so the two firms didn’t really care that much about who owned what.



Eventually, they weren’t so chummy. In 1944 All American demanded a buy out. MC Gaines wanted to retire. The situation degenerated to the point that All American walked out, taking Wonder Woman, The Flash, Green Lantern and some others with them—and making noises about who actually owned Superman. At the time Superman was up for its third movie treatment, had a hit radio program, a nationwide newspaper syndicate deal and there was talk of a television show. All American’s defection might have also had an impact on the ongoing suit against Fawcett for infringement on the Superman trademark. Making matters worse is that there was no clear way to divide the sheets in this divorce. Besides the dispute on Superman, several characters such as Aquaman and Green Arrow probably belonged to both firms—and the two firms had murky interests in two other stand alone comic book companies, Educational Comics and American Comics Group. (There may have been a few other companies involved.)



In 1946 DC’s owner forked over the cash to Gaines. Gaines largely retired, although he took what became EC Comics (later the publisher of Mad Magazine) with him. How the rest of the splits went is a little unclear. DC seems to have maintained ownership over both its core DC Comics line as well as the Trojan/Culture/Speed line. For various reasons (such as being a smut publisher), Trojan had always operated somewhat separate from DC. Trojan shared the same printer and distribution company with the comics lines and all were owned by Harry Donnenfeld and Jack Leibowitz. Post 1946 some effort seems to have been expended in reconfiguring their operations further with the DC Superman and Batman shops running completely under the same roof as the All American Wonder Woman/Flash shops and everything that wasn’t a children’s comic line running under Trojan. My thinking was that Trojan was also nominally in charge of the shop which had packaged for Pines (Thrilling Group) and had produced a few titles on its own as the American Comics Group.

Per the Grand Comics Database: “The American Comics Group, from 1946 to 1953, was co-owned by Fred Iger who also owned part of National Periodical Publications (DC Comics). Iger was sole owner from 1953 to the early 1960s, when Harry Donenfeld became co-owner. They were distributed by Independent News Co., which was a sister company to DC Comics.”

Iger, Leibowitz and Donnenfeld are fairly thick as thieves . Post 1946, the entire idea seems to be to keep the DC line strictly family friendly and do everything that might raise a few eyebrows under Trojan. As of 1949 ACG only had a few comics titles:

Giggle Comics, Ha Ha Comics, Funny Films and Hi-Jinx: all unlicensed funny animal comics, very similar to DC’s own Fox and the Crow. This is really where ACG got its start.

Cookie, an Archie type comics for the tweenagers and The Kilroys, a flat out Archie/Blondie rip off

Blazing West and Spy Hunters, two male-oriented genre comics

Adventures into The Unknown, perhaps the earliest horror comic and the only real winner in the group.

Lovelorn and Romantic Adventures, two tear jerkers.



Lovelorn and Romantic Adventures would have dovetailed perfectly into Trojan’s pulp line, the only post Superman expansion of which was in love magazines, similar to True Confessions. In fact, there was a bit of a mini explosion in both love comics and true confessions magazines going on at the time.



Eventually Trojan itself put out its own comic line—although it is somewhat unclear if it is any different than the American Comics Group’s line. Trojan was the publisher of record for Western Crime Busters, Crime Smashers, Crime Mysteries, Beware and Attack. None of these publications carried any publisher’s identification on the covers, which was somewhat unusual. Beware was a horror comic, similar to Adventures into the Unknown but much more graphic. Attack was a war comic. The others were True Crime comics, something neither DC nor ACG wanted to get their fingers dirty issuing. The big hitter in the field, Lev Gleason’s Crime Does Not Pay sold 20 million copies an issue, so there was motive to jump on the band wagon.



What is known is that our pal Adolphe Barreaux was the editor in charge of all of Trojan’s comics. Whether he held the same position at ACG is unknown. Like Jack Leibowitz, Barreaux was an enterprise-wide employee, working in whatever business unit he was needed most in. Post his first run with Sally the Sleuth, he contributed several features which wound up running in various early DC comics. He then seems to have strayed into the team which packaged comics for Ned Pines. That group became the core of ACG. Barreaux was primarily a blocker, a lay out artist—the person who translates the script into rough comic layouts and then gives the artists directions for finishing. This is very much an editorial management position. By 1949 he is the head of art direction for the entire Trojan group.



By this point, not much remained of the old Spicy line. Only Speed Romance and Private Detective survived from the 1930s. That was not to say that Trojan was doing poorly, however. The love magazine boom had filled out the old pulp house’s ranks. Private Detective, which had started as the tamer companion to now cancelled Spicy Detective, was one of the pulps Barreaux attempted to redesign, perhaps In order to cash in on the Crime Does Not Pay trend in comics. Besides dusting off Sally the Sleuth, Barreaux introduced a new strip in Private Detective called Jerry Jasper.



Maybe. Perhaps “salvaged” is more the word. By context, it seems that most of the Jerry Jasper strips were intended for a color comic book. (Ned Pines did get out of comic book business very abruptly.) As you will see, it’s rather uneven. My thinking is that it was commissioned for Pines and then rejected by both DC and ACG. At some point parts of it were either not quite finished or the script became separated from the art. (Sally the Sleuth also suffers from this.) When it finally was given the green light, it was finished in a hurry.



You can tell pretty much all you are going to need to know about this story's editorial quality from the first two frames. Men about town who hang around in clubs was a well used cliche at this point. In the real world, such clubs had been on the wane since the 1890s.



By the way, if you can figure out what the client's business is, you are a better man than I.



The text goes on to say that this woman just jumped from 14 stories up—at least 140 feet. Her fishnet stockings do not look like she has just jumped from 14 stories up at all.



One of Dr. Wertham’s complaints about comics is that the artists would often hide something salacious in their drawings. Check out the trophy (or whatever it is) in the right corner of the right frame.



It’s 14 stories up. The victim is smashed to pieces. And yet the maid is also sure it is Miss Stern. Does she have telescopic vision—with the special night vision option? Did Dumb and Dumber leave poor Margo’s body uncovered in the street?



As we will see, Jerry's only hobby seems to be coming up with amusing ways of telling the police he has found a dead body.



Not that the cops in comic book land are ever all that helpful, but Sergeant Irish sets a new low standard.



Comic books at the time were often put together by teams of specialist artists. Not all artists are equally good at doing everything. Some artists just do lay-outs, or inking or figures and then hand it off. I would say that our artist here is a specialist in putting in background detail.



Comic strips can be done in any number of ways. Usually the inking and words are the last parts to be completed. Sometimes the actual dialog was left up in the air until after the other art had been completed. That could be what is going on here. My guess, however, is that they just lost the script entirely and were guessing at what the story was about from the art.



Either our hero is the vindictive type, or these panels have been drawn in reverse order. First, he gets past her to go into the bedroom. Then, he whacks her. Again, this seems to be evidence of the script having been lost. Or some very weird art direction.



Because this comic is in black and white, it sheds no light on the subject. Hint: that’s supposed to be Lilly and her boss (our hero’s client). I guess that was a detail our club pal forgot to tell Jasper.



My other thought is that the strip is just as bad as it seems. Don't try the "Sorry I had to whack you" line at home kids. In most states this kiss stolen after the application of unwanted violence is called "Sexual Assault". Such fictional situations were the hallmark of the Trojan magazine line.



How many people live in this apartment?



The more I looked at the piece, the less like an ACG comic it seemed. The Iger shop was in transition at the time, so it is hard to tell who is doing what for whom. Although the page lay-outs are different, frame by frame this looks more like a product of Bob Kane's Batman shop. A lot of the over-done atmospherics are the same as in what came out of the Batman group.



It appears the police did not hear the maid being stabbed through the throat. We are obviously dealing with a super-speed silent killer.



No one has more fun calling for body bags than Jerry. Is it my imagination, or are the police already there? Calling for additional back up when you are not a police officer is just plain rude. Jerry must be very wealthy.



It appears Jerry even bosses around police brass. This man about town gig is getting better all the time.



Again, the figures aren't much, but the background details are Gotham City chic.








In comic book land there is no such thing as fingerprints, or dental records or… They lost the script. They just had to have lost the script.



These final frames below look like a Bill Elder composition from Mad in a lot of ways.



Both Jerry Jasper and Sally the Sleuth were continued in Private Detective for some time. It must have been fairly well received, since Barreaux was soon putting out an entire string of comic books largely along the same lines.