Recently, while researching an upcoming blog post in this Comics Supplement series, I came across this second appearance of a villain called The Minstrel, a banjo-picking criminal. Unfortunately, when I looked The Minstrel up in the Grand Comics Database, I read the data wrong, and looked in the wrong place for the first Minstrel tale, so we'll look today at his second and final battle with Doll Man; perhaps I'll track down the first story someday. As soon as I saw a cover with a looming banjo-clad bad guy I thought it might make a good feature for a future blog.
The Doll Man was created in 1939 by the powerful team of Everett M. "Busy" Arnold and Will Eisner and he ran for 14 years in Feature Comics and then his own book. This particular story, late in his career, comes from Feature # 138, and is written by prolific comic book scribe William Woolfolk and possibly drawn by Bill Ward.
"Ohh, I'm a singin' minstrel man ... I sing and rob wherever I can!" Sound like my kinda musician! Let's join this concert of crime right after the jump!
UPDATE to this post: I just located the FIRST appearance of The Minstrel character (in Doll Man # 23) and I'll be posting it here in B.O.T.B. in my next installment, on August 17th.
"Harry Hurl" ! What a character name!
"The key of F stands for flame!" It is unusual for an artist to paste-up actual newspaper text when creating an image of a newspaper page. Nice.
Ouch! Blasted with the sawed-off shottie hidden in the banjo!
How he managed to survive without being blown to pieces after getting shot at point-blank range like that is not just lucky, but miraculous. Well, it puts him in bed for a page anyway. Like the Doc says - "He has a remarkably strong little body!"
What a pleasant fellow! Well, before we go, here's a look at a nice 1949 coaster brake ad from Bendix Aviation Corporation.
I love old bicycle advertisements and this one I have to include because it refers so pointedly to Elmira, New York, and its "high and steep" hills.
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