Friday Fun BASEBALL COMICS "Rube Rooky Heads Down the Home Stretch"

When Last We Left Our Wholesome Hero...

...under coach Pop Flye's guidance, Rube has developed into a top-notch pitcher.

But even a first-rate hurler needs a great team behind him!

Fortunately, the formerly-mediocre Badgers are inspired by the pitching prodigy and...

Regrettably, there was no "next issue" of Baseball Comics, so no World Series appearance for Rube Rooky.

But we still have this one-shot wonder from 1949 by writer/penciler Will Eisner and inker Tex Blaisdell to remember.
And, after Kitchen Sink Press reprinted this issue in 1991, there was a second issue  in 1992 reprinting a horror comics baseball story and a Will Eisner Spirit story about baseball, but without The Spirit!

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Baseball Comics #2

(A follow-up published decades later)
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Friday Fun BASEBALL COMICS "Rube Rooky Climbs Up from the Pit...."

Will Eisner's saga of how a baseball superstar is created continues...

...as Rube leaves his family and girlfriend to pursue his dream...

Wow!

Big-screen TV in 1949?

Who knew?

Next Week: the exciting conclusion to Rube Rooky's amazing saga!
BTW, anybody here see a parallel between Rube and a real-life ballplayer who faced similar problems being accepted by his teammates because he was "different" just a year before writer/penciler Will Eisner and inker Tex Blaisdell created this tale?

Think about it...

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Baseball Comics #2

(A follow-up published decades later)
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Friday Fun BASEBALL COMICS "Rube Rooky"

Is there anything Will Eisner hadn't done during his long, illustrious  career?

He took chances experimenting with genres like this baseball-themed 1949 comic book...

...which predated a rush of sports-themed comics from various publishers the next year.

Unfortunately, the big problem with being first is that, often, the world isn't quite ready for you, and Baseball Comics lasted only one issue.

But it certainly wasn't for lack of quality, as this Eisner-written and penciled tale, inked by Tex Blaisdell, proves.

There's more to Rube Rooky's one shot at stardom, and we'll be running it here at Friday Fun for the next few weeks, so don't miss it!

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Baseball Comics #2

(A follow-up published decades later)

Sunday Sports Special LARS OF MARS "Crucial Game"

Even a Martian pretending to be a TV actor playing a Martian reveres the Great American Pastime...

...and won't allow anybody to sully or demean the sport's image...even if it means cheating to do so!

The ends justify the means even if it involves alien manipulation of peoples' minds, eh?
Great lesson for kids!
Written by Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel, illustrated by noted DC Comics artist Murphy Anderson, this tale appeared in Ziff-Davis' Lars of Mars #11 (1951), the second (and last issue) of the series!
Considering the moral lessons the series apparently taught, perhaps it was for the best...

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Pre-Code Classics

Lars of Mars / Crusader from Mars

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Monday Madness LEFTY FLYNN "and the Diamond Death"

Take me out at the ball game...

Who knew baseball could be such a violent sport?

No, you won't!

This never-reprinted story from S&S's Doc Savage Comics V1N4 (1941) was Lefty's first, last, and only appearance anywhere!

Both the writer and artist of this one-shot strip are unknown.

Reading Room HOME RUN "Little Leagues"

With the return of fans worshipping at the temples of the National Pastime (aka "baseball stadiums")...

...we thought we'd look at the origin of how many of us (myself included) first experienced organized baseball!

There was a short-lived surge in sports-themed comic books from 1949 to 1952.

This particular one-shot from Magazine Enterprises, produced in 1952 (but published in '53), was the last gasp of that cycle.

Produced/packaged by writer/artist Bob Powell's studio, this non-fiction historical piece was typical of the high-quality material he supplied to numerous publishers including Magazine Enterprises, Street & Smith, Prize Comics, and Harvey Comics, from the mid-1940s to the early 1960s.

Jackie Robinson Comics Covers

With Spring Training for Baseball Season in Full Swing...

...here's a bunch of serious collectibles!
Not baseball cards, but baseball comics!

These are the covers of the never-reprinted series that ran from 1949 to 1952 about the exploits of legendary player Jackie Robinson!

Not only was he Rookie of the Year, National League MVP, National League Batting Champion, two-time National League Base-Stealing Champion, a six-time All-Star, and a Baseball Hall of Famer (as if that wasn't enough)...

...he was also the man who made history in 1947 as the first Black player in the major leagues!

He played for the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1947 through 1956 before retiring due to the effects of diabetes on his performance.

 

During that period, this series from Fawcett Comics came out each summer and fall from 1949 through 1952.
Besides being sold in newsstands and candy stores, it was also sold at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn where the Dodgers played home games.
Trivia: Babe Ruth was the only baseball player to have a longer-running comic than Robinson, but his mag, Babe Ruth Sports Comics was an anthology covering numerous sports with Babe himself appearing in only one story per issue for 11 issues!

There was a 1950 movie about Jackie, The Jackie Robinson Story, where he played himself (as an adult)!
In 2013, Chadwick (Black Panther) Boseman superbly-portrayed Jackie in the movie 42: the Jackie Robinson Story!

To this day, Jackie Robinson is remembered as one of the greatest players in baseball history!

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42: The Jackie Robinson Story

(BioPic starring Chadwick [Black Panther] Boseman)

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