I'm Not Supposed to Leave the Punch Bowl... But You Look So Pretty!

Going back to Pep Comics #9, I thought I'd do a little cut-and-paste to make the rest of "The Midshipman" story much more entertaining, worthy of an Edited Moment of Comic Book Greatness (tm!) :

I promise you it was much more entertaining to have Lee win the election for his awesomeness in livening up what was otherwise a very dull social event.

In the interest of full disclosure, though, it wasn't Lee:

Dames Is Trouble! (tm!)

And shouldn't Lee have been shot for abandoning his post?  I thought they took a dim view of that sort of thing in the military.

What's the idea, indeed!

See you tomorrow!

A Rather Washed-Out Shade of (Code) Red

From the Midshipman story in Pep Comics #9, we see how new recruits at the Naval Academy were made to handle the stress and horrors of war:

Yes, it's a tough rite of passage, but unlike hazing, it's designed to develop mental toughness.

Yes, it may seem cruel, but it prepares the plebe for the horrors of combat, lest he find himself erroneously called "Midshipman Gish." 

The stage is set.  

And now, the plebe discovers what he's made of...

Waitasec.

That's it?

Oh, do shut up.  Google "tailhook scandal" or "dog handler navy hazing scandal" and get back to me. 

Yeah!  GROW a pair, Midshipman Gish!

See you Monday!

Slup! Slup! Slup! Giff Me MORE!

From Pep Comics #4....

They may be courageous, but the Tong hasn't figured out the "work smarter, not harder" approach.  If you can't fight back against the brass warriors, why not just shoot their flesh-and-bone commander?  She threatens your life... you shoot her!

Maybe it's a cultural thing.

And if you weren't inclined to shoot her before, I give you:

In other words, Fu Chang (... International Detective) can do all the heavy lifting while Princess just sits there and looks pretty.  What a deal!

Are you ready for another team-up?  Because the Midshipman meets the Wizard!  Or The Midshipman meets The Wizard!  Either way, buckle your seatbelts! 

I'm starting to see why most characters from the Silver Age forward duke it out when they first meet one another, because that was pretty lame.  And my expectations for a team-up between the Wizard and the Midshipman were pretty dang low to begin with.

The only thing that can salvage this for me is a shot of a Nazi Officer getting a tub of Saurbraten on his head.

Oh, comics.... you always come through for me just when I need you the most.

My Super Brain, Drugs, and the Metric System

Apparently, the qualifications for having a "super-brain," were a bit lower back in the day:

So we're supposed to get all weak in the knees because he correctly identified three people in uniform/costume?  Slow down, Wizard!  Let me catch my breath!  

And he even correctly identified himself. 

And now, a public service message from Fu Chang.... International Detective:

It's like every Afterschool Special I ever watched.

Meanwhile, let's check in on Sgt. Effin' Boyle...

Ten to one... or as we count here in the USA, three to one.  That Metric System gets a little complicated when you try to convert it to ours.

That reminds me... remember the Metric Marvels?

This was back in the day when we were going to convert to the Metric System.  The system itself was actually easy to grasp, but everyone insisted that you had to know the formulas to convert our current system to Metric and vice versa.  That involved a lot of math, and we as a culture just weren't going to do that.  Had they just said, "We're following the Metric System now," and switched everything, it probably would have worked out.  But some people just won't relax unless you're forced to do things the hard way.

Thusly:

See?  5/8th of a mile?  Screw you, Metric System!

Ah, memories.

See you tomorrow!

Pitching Pennies at Tecumseh!

Let's check in on The Midshipman from Pep #3, shall we?

Considering how demanding Princess has been in the past, she's being a surprisingly cheap date.

I had to Google what "pitching pennies" actually is.  Apparently, you toss the pennies at the statue, and the person who has their coin closest to the statute wins all the coins on the ground.  It is believed that variations of this game have been played since Ancient Greece and may have shown up in the first Olympics, where I'm sure it was really entertaining for onlookers.

Hey... if you have areas designated solely for parades, you've got to expect all kinds of parades.

Yeah, the free use of "gay" and "queer" back in the day make for easy cheap jokes.  I never claimed I was above it.

The MIDSHIPMAN is NOT UNHURT!

Give me a minute....

Okay, that means he was hurt.  I had to diagram the sentence to be sure.

You know he's hurt because his head is fully wrapped:

Even the President of the United States has asked me to thank you!

Really?!

Well... he didn't NOT ask me to not unthank you!

I love the Golden Age.

See you tomorrow!

You Shouldn't Tell Me to Do What I Want if You're Planning on Punishing Me if I Do What I Want. That's Entrapment.

No posting on Monday, my lovelies... it being a holiday and all.

But that's okay, because it's time for The Midshipman story from Pep Comics #2!

Now you may recall that Lee Samson (who, with a name like that, had to either be a military man or a carny) had the dubious honor of winning the conditional affections of .... eh, I don't remember her name and I don't care enough to scroll down to find it.  And apparently her affections are as fleeting as ever:

It was explained earlier in the story about how if Lee ran his part of the race one way, his team would win, but I don't think it was a relay race so I'm not really sure how that would have worked.  Anyway, Lee should have stuck with the "good riddance" sentiment, but you know he'll be apologizing to Princess as soon as the race is over.

Again, I'm not sure where that's coming from.  He's saying he wants to beat someone individually, even if that means his team loses.  That may be disloyal, or not a team player, but I don't think he's a quitter.  No wonder Lee looks confused there.

I have a really hard time following these stories.

Anyway, he ends up running the race, which is as exciting as reading about a race in a comic book is, which is to say not at all. Here he's running chest-deep through a river or something:

Okay, even if we have no clue it's going to rain (because we all know the military doesn't have all kinds of meteorological tech stuff for predicting the weather), don't you think they would have marked off an alternate route before the race began?  I mean, the military trains pretty hard to be able to adapt to situations.  The fact that they weren't able to come up with a way to detour a race in the amount of time it took for a chest-deep river to form isn't one of our proudest moments.

That's right, Daniels.  You race Lee Samson and you're going down.  One way or another.

I have no proof Lee was responsible, but you just know he was.

Oh, man... we learned a lesson.  I hate learning lessons.

See?  What did I say.  Whipped.

See you Tuesday!

Because You Should Choose Your Partner Based Solely on the Outcome of an Intramural Competition...

Running late again because work is bananas.  In fact, next week may not have daily posts.  Sorry about that in advance.

But let us live in the here and the now, with The Midshipman...

This is a really awkward read.  First, we get big expository paragraphs like so:

And it really isn't necessary because... y'know... comics are a visual art form and whatnot.  You could always just show it in a picture.

Like so:

And that's just the first example.  The whole thing is text, followed by a picture that made all that text unnecessary.  It's like it was written by someone who had no faith in the artist's ability to show what was going on.

But I got some Fun with Out of Context Dialogue (tm!), so it was totally worth it:

HA HA HA HA  HAAAAAAAA!

Anyway... Lee rescues the pilot and of course it's a girl:

Oh.  I just spoiled the pic for you didn't I?  Now they've got me doing it.  Anyway, it's not just any girl... then again, in comics it rarely is :

A reward?  I think we've read enough of the stories in Pep Comics #1 here to know where this is going:

Eeeesh.  Again? 

Oh.  Well that settles that.

Some consideration?  For saving your life?  Someone has issues with appreciation.

Well... that's arbitrary.  Nothing makes a fella feel more special than knowing his date is with him because he won a contest.  At that point, Adam would be out. Princess there is a bit high maintenance for me.

Anyway, there's a canoe race.  Yes, it's as exciting in comic form as it sounds.  And Don doesn't take his loss well, so Lee does some Jiu Jitsu, presumably having learned it at Scotland Yard.

I realize I just may not be a romantic, but by the time I was finished fishing her out of the crashed airplane, won a canoe race, and tossed Don Lewis over my shoulder, I'd be thinking the "reward of the smiles of Miss Dennis" weren't worth it at all.  It's not like it's going to end there.  Miss Dennis will have you rowing many a figurative canoe in a never-ending quest to make her happy, and life is too short for jerks like that.

Ah, well.  See you Monday!