"Flung into a series of amazing adventures by his impetuous nature, and intense hatred of injustice, John Wallace finds himself the possessor of the wonderful Pipes of Death and becomes the Music Master, matching long forgotten secrets of the ancients against the marvels of modern science..."
So begins the nearly three year run of a character high on the list of "Most Oddball and Bizarre" comic book characters from the Golden Age, our pal the Music Master, who needs only a note of music, or at least a burst of sound approximating a musical note, to perform strange and fantastic feats. Even though studying weirdo comic book character ideas is a long-time obsession of mine, I had only recently learned about this fella while trolling through old issues of Famous Funnies, one of the early magazines published in the comic magazine format. In the later issues of FF they began to introduce original in-house characters (in addition to their standard fare of newspaper strip reprints), and also promote new ones from their sister magazine Reg'lar Fellers Heroic Comics. In one of these colorful in-house ads I noticed a new character being promoted named 'Music Master', who sounded like a shoe-in for a WFMU blog post, or at least worth a closer look. Luckily, these magazines are in public domain, so I downloaded the entire run of Music Man stories to study.
In his first yarn our protagonist is quickly stabbed in the chest and mortally wounded with a violin bow. Well, now, this had me going right off! I certainly haven't seen any comic book crooks deal out violence that way before. Thanks to the musical ministrations of Antonini the famed violin maker he is not only revived (using an 'ancient Egyptian instrument') but his body has become "...attuned to the frequency of musical sound waves, and that he can identify himself with any musical note so that his body will react and cling to the waves of sound, and he will be transported with the speed of sound to the source of the music.". As time passes the writer of the series, Stephen A. Douglas, also the editor of the magazine, develops many more unusual things to do with hero 'John Wallace's' audio-based powers, often venturing into surreal territory.
While not one of the most amazingly weird hero characters from the early 1940s (and there are a lot of VERY strange concepts that were tried), he has his moments, along with some lovely art here and there by various hands. Come along and join our long-haired composer/player/super-hero as he battles crime right after the jump!
Below, the cover for Heroic #12, by Bill Everett. Not a bad sendoff for a new guy!
I'm glad the cute doggie found a new home.
In the above story we see the first rather bizarre demonstration of one of the uses of the Pipes of Life / Death: paralysing the bad guy with music. A nice trick, but how does he know just what he can do with them anyway?
Next up, the July 1942 13th issue of Heroic Comics, and Music Master graces the cover once again (but why not give some cover space to Man O' Metal, the terrific Harry G. Peter strip also running in Heroic?). A very pretty piece of work, perhaps pencilled by Everett, but the exact credits are unknown. The story itself is attractively done, but also uncredited; however, theories on the identity of the artist for these early MM tales abound. The logo from the origin is reused and overall the layouts are pretty jaunty and kinetic, with the action cooking along nicely through this second story.
Next we roll on to number 14, September 1942 of this bi-monthly book. Cover art by Ben Thompson.
First, though, a nice single-page feature.
Above, notice the segue on the fourth page into a completely new storyline.
This kind of issue-to-issue continuity was unusual for the time, using not just cliff-hangers, but sequences woven through several months.
Oh yeah, I would really sit down in THAT fellas electric chair! What the hell are you thinking, Music Master?
Darn it! Wouldn't you know - in the last panel of the third story they warn us that in the next issue they're going to give MM a kid sidekick! Drat! I guess there must have been readers back then that enjoyed those nuisances, but I've never read letters from any kid praising the addition of a sidekick. They are only good at getting captured to use as leverage by the bad guys.
Next we see Heroic #15, from November of 1942, and an unusual 'painted' cover (by an unknown artist), which turns out to be a harbinger of the painted, pulp-style covers that begin with the next installment. This is the last time that MM appears on the front of a magazine. In fact, there are two Music Man pieces in this issue, the first a four-page special feature pushing War Bonds. Interestingly, on the fourth page the words 'War Bonds' have been rather badly pasted-up, although they don't seem hastily added in the other areas they appear. Somebody apparently goofed on the terminology, somehow. Below are shown some War Bonds and stamp books as examples. Then will follow the main MM story, now taking place in Gotham (!), where we learn about the "{E}pidemic of sound tone sickness known to the medical profession as Amusia!"
Apparently, the editor decided to dispense with MM carrying his pipes, which makes it tougher for him to get around. And here's his sidekick, just THERE all of a sudden.
No big buildup, he's just a pal of Wallace's who is pressed into (dangerous) service.
Our next issue, Heroic 16, from January 1943, shakes up the formula of the magazine by introducing stories of current, actual WW II heroes from the headlines as the lead features in the book. From here on also, they switch to fully painted covers depicting battle situations. This first one is by R. Webster. The art chores on the MM story are speculated to be by Art Seymour.
Here the continuity, such as it is, gets confusing: we were 'introduced' to Penrod, or 'Downbeat', in the last issue, and they worked together right off the bat as if it was expected, and yet here in the next issue, they meet for the FIRST time, and by the end of the tale Downbeat asks if he can formally team up with Music Master. I'm guessing that this story was written first, but for whatever reason they were published out of sequence. Who knew? Who cared? - But let's move on ...
Our hero MM was right behind Penrod, and then conveniently disappears for a moment...Only to save the day a few panels later.
Next we see issue #17 from March 1943, cover art by R. Webster; no art credit known for our MM story, which takes place around Monday, May 17th, 1942, according to the nespaper headline on the splash page.
As we see above right on page six, it is definitely established now that ANY hunk of sound will do for MM to be able to use his music-based powers, even the sound of a paddle stroking water. Below, even though he could have used his powers to save the drowning yegg he goes after the ringleader instead. Batman and Superman didn't get to just let the baddies die.
Not much plot wasted on that MM adventure! Here are a couple of ads from that issue and then we move on...
And here comes Heroic #18, May 1943, cover by R. Webster. And again, no artist credit confirmed for MM. We lead off with a rather striking single page Citizens Service Corps ad. Then we find our heroes driving home from last issues adventure.
Above right, the cover to Heroic # 19 by H. C. Kiefer. The art for Music Master (below) is credited to Ben Thompson. Again, we are picking up where the last story left off.
ABOVE, a rather grim house ad from number 19. BELOW, here comes number 20, from September 1943. Cover painting again by Keifer, with the MM story by unknown artist. Oddly, this story features MM all by himself, with no Downbeat. It also uses a different letterer than the last tale. There are some rough paste-up on page three, panels two and six, where the identity of the crook seems to have been altered.
Here we go with Heroic 21, cover again by H. C. Kiefer, but now, however, we have a new artist on Music Master, and a great one - Jimmy Thompson. Famed for his work at Timely and DC, in particular his run on Robotman (examples below, a 1943 and a 1945 page), and often compared to Jack Cole and Will Eisner, which his stories do resemble in style and quality. Ironically, Thompson also worked on the character Sub-Mariner, over at Timely Comics, which, like Music Master, was first drawn by (and created by, in Subby's case) Bill Everett. He gives a nice new and fresh look to the MM, although sadly only drawing this issue and two more, it is a welcome uplift to the stories. Thompson also changes Downbeat's HAIR style and color, from its strange-looking original light-blue-rinse pouf, to a more normal comic book blue-black do.
Gosh darn it! Paint on the records - that's just going TOO far!
And it just ends there - with the fellow (and the reader) hanging in mid-air.
And on we go into number 22, January 1944, with another Kiefer cover and Jimmy Thompson again drawing our hero MM. We'll begin with an ad page and an example of a one-page 'true-life war hero' spotlight. I usually ignore body-building ads, as there are so many types and they are often seen, but this one has such terrible art that I can't help but share it. It would have been more effective if they had gotten an artist who could draw a muscleman who doesn't look like a sack of potatoes! On a technical note, I was suspicious in the last issue that the letterer or artist was using 'machine lettering', in other words typeset text, pasted into the balloons and caption blocks, and in this issue there are a lot of obvious paste-up problems and gaffes, which is odd, considering that Jimmy Thompson is noted for his fine graphic work and lettering. He appears to have done some hand-lettering in these stories, but perhaps didn't have time to letter the whole piece, as he would have normally done.
I like the two-page Joe Bonomo ad because, for one thing, it was obviously produced over at the Beck / Binder shop where the Captain Marvel comics were made, and it also has a couple of glaring paste-ups, notably on the second page, first panel.
And how about this suspicious-looking character hawking piano lessons from the next ad? He's a cutie, alright! What a mug shot!
Now we skip ahead to March 1944 and the 23rd issue, with an uncredited cover and another Jimmy Thompson illustrated MM story, as always written be Stephen A. Douglas. There's also a bonus scrap drive page at the end of the story, sadly ironic given that a lot of wartime comics were lost to us due to paper scrap drives. They beat the Axis, though...
Now we head into May 1944 and issue # 24, cover painting by H. C. Kiefer. We find a new artist on MM, their identity in question. A good one, though. It is in this issue that the MM stories shrink down to six pages instead of ten, a sign of the shrinking role of super-heroes in this magazine - they are about to get utterly squeezed out.
I love the use of 'Will Eisner Windows' by this artist, as seen below:
"Once more the chords of justice tighten..."
Here comes issue #25, with an H. K. Fuller cover and the MM story possible illustrated by Jimmy Thompson (at least one of the faces looks like it was by him) and perhaps Allen Ulmer. Enjoy this weird yarn involving "diabolical torture gongs"!
I'll be back with the dramatic conclusion of the saga in the next WFMU Comic Supplement post!
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