GRIND HOUSE COMIC BOOKS by Dave Goode

 

Matt Baker with publisher Archer St. John

 

 

I'm old enough to remember when comics covered every genre. And not just superheroes. There were detective comics, westerns, jungle adventures, horror, humor, romance, and space opera. Among others. The ones that I wasn't able to catch first hand were the "grind house" comic books from publisher Archer St. John and St.Johns Publications.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These were romance comics. But with a little extra kick to them. The stories were straight out of a grind house movie theater. They were about wild parties, ruined reputations, good girls led astray, and bad girls on the loose.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My own favorites were the ones that showed the darker side of show business. The stories were as old as Hollywood itself. Some small town girl with stars in her eyes is taken in by a smooth talking sharp-shooter.

 

 

 

 

The best of these tales were illustrated by Clarence Matthew Baker (1921- 1959). Matt Baker was one of the few African-American artists working in the industry during the Golden Age of Comics. And was an undisputed master of Good Girl Art.

The term Good Girl Art is generally defined as artwork featuring attractive women in comic books, comic strips, and pulp magazines. The term has nothing to do with the morality of the women themselves. Some of the "good girls" were quite bad. Femme Fatales, gun molls, teen delinquents, or whip wielding dragon ladies. And of course damsels in distress. One of Baker's most famous illustrations was of the Phantom Lady and used as an example of "headlight comics" in Dr. Wertham's book Seduction Of The Innocent.

Bettie Page...B-Movie Starlet by Dave Goode

Time for another excursion into that alternate universe that my mind sometimes populates. Where Johnny Weissmuller played Prince Namor in a Sub-Mariner movie and Esther Williams played Wonder Woman. Where Bernard Gorcey won an Academy Award portraying a burlesque club owner in a movie where George Reeves portrayed an investigative reporter minus glasses.And where Steve Holland played Steve Zodiac in a live-action Fireball XL-5 movie. This week's Goode Stuff blog looks at Bettie Page...B-Movie starlet.






Miss Bettie Mae Page of Tennessee went to Hume-Fogg High School where she was a member of the debate team and graduated salutatorian of her class. She would later graduate from George Peabody College with a Bachelor of Arts degree. Eventually she made her way to New York where she worked as a secretary while she looked for work as an actress. She was discovered in 1950 by NYC Police Officer Jerry Tibbs ,an amateur photographer. It was Tibbs who suggested to Page to adapt her now iconic bang.

Bettie would find work for a number of "camera clubs" during the 50s. But it was her work for Irving Klaw that would earn her cult status. From 1952 to 1957 she would appear in dozens of 8mm and 16mm "specialty films" for Klaw. In 1953 she appeared in the grindhouse movie STRIPORAMA for Jerald Intrator. In 1954 she appeared in the Irving Klaw produced VARIETEASE. And in 1955 , the same year she was Playboy's Miss January she appeared in TEASERAMA also produced and directed by Klaw.

Reportedly Bettie had a screen-test with 20th Century Fox. But nothing ever came of it. It was rumored that her Tennessee accent cost her a shot at stardom. But while re-watching the Johnny Weissmuller Jungle Jim movie VOODOO TIGER I started imagining Bettie as eye-candy in a number of B-Movies. Imagine Bettie as one of the Vesuvian soldiers in QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE or as one of the daughters of the 40 Thieves in the Howard Hughes produced THE SON OF SINBAD.

But as long as we're playing "just imagine", imagine Bettie as Fox Comics Rulah,
Jungle Goddess, one of the many Sheena imitations found in comics. Or imagine Bettie as Fox's cult comic book heroine the Phantom Lady. That would have been a natural.