On the movies page we also have an advertisement for the U. S. Music School, which promises you the "shortest road to friends, popularity, good times
We see the story of a young lady who wasn't a hit at parties. In fact, she was a wallflower, and received fewer and fewer invitations. The she read about a new method for learning music that has made popular musicians of thousands! This method was as easy as A-B-C! Our young lady was a hit at Janet's party with her newfound piano playing ability, and would have no more lonesome evenings! She recently got engaged to Bill!
All you have to do is send away for this free course. You don't have to be talented or practice long hours learning your scales and stuff. It has an innovative method of telling you what to do, and then showing you what to do! And it's so fascinating!
Next we have a whole page feature on how to build a model of a Vought Corsair, "the fast plane used on our Naval carriers". It would be interesting to actually try to build, but probably not to interesting to talk about. There's also a coupon for subscription to "Model Airplane" magazine, and a promise that each issue of New Fun will feature a new model airplane design!
I'm no expert on aircraft, but as far as I can tell this is the O2U Corsair, apparently most famous for having protected New York from King Kong when he climbed the Empire State Building!
I was curious about the same thing, and didn't see it listed online in the contents of future issues, but it's the sort of thing that might not be listed, so I'm not sure you can tell anything from that.
Based on a quick check of scans of future issues online, it looks like it survives at least a couple of issues, but is gone by the time it makes the transition to More Fun with #7.
Next up we have a text feature on aviation, which begins with Wiley Post's attempts to push altitude records and fly through the stratosphere. It predicts that as planes begin to fly in the stratosphere, we will soon have passenger service from New York to LA in six hours, and from New York to London in twelve! It is noted that American companies are preparing for a Pacific Ocean flight, from San Francisco to Honolulu, and then to Tokyo! A bit of irony, since American planes would be flying to Japan in a much different contexts ten years later. Anyway, we're treated to a picture of one of the planes being prepared for trans-oceanic ship, called "Flying Clipper Ship No. 7", designed by Glenn Martin and Charles Lindbergh. This ship holds fifty passengers and will cruise at 163 mph for 3,000 miles (or 4,000 miles loaded only with mail). We're given a lot more specifications about the plane, and the article ends by asking, "Who knows how soon it will be before long fleets of silver planes will pass over the tramp steamers and modern liners that steam across the ripple surface of the waters?"
Anyway, this is nice as a look at pre-War optimism about the future of air travel, which will really take off (no pun intended) in the postwar era. Unfortunately, Wiley Post would perish later that year in a plane crash that also claimed the life of his passenger, Will Rogers.
..."I have REDUCED MY WAIST EIGHT INCHES WITH THE WEIL BELT!"... writes George Bailey"
That's just one of the testimonials we're given in favor of the Weil Belt, whose massaging action promises weight loss with "no drugs, no diets, no exercise." We get a cartoon of a poor fellow who suddenly realized that he had become fat. The boys kidded him about his paunch, at parties he became a "wall flower" that nobody wanted to dance with, children laughed at him in a bathing suit. And so he got the Weil Belt and soon had lost eight inches off his waist and 20 pounds off his weight. Soon, he qualified for insurance! Plus, he could work better, eat better, and play better! And a cute girl was on his arm! So, I think this is supposed to be George Bailey in the cartoon, but it would be an interesting twist if it was Bill from the learn music ad!
We also get a bit on the medical dangers of fat.
George Bailey would, of course, find himself a few years later on the verge of suicide on Christmas Eve, before a visit by a guardian angel showed him what the world would be like if he had never existed, and he would learn the lesson that no man is a failure who has friends.
... at parties he became a "wall flower" that nobody wanted to dance with
Had George considered taking up the piano?
Originally Posted by EDE
... children laughed at him in a bathing suit.
While a bikini was an unusual choice, he should own his body shape and be proud of his fashion decision.
Originally Posted by EDE
And a cute girl was on his arm!
Clearly after his bikini collection. The Premium Weil Belt Package offers a cute girl to go on dates to parties with you. This self esteem booster lets people think you're awesome. And in today's vacuous society, it's a quick two step to *being* awesome. Besides we promised no more lonesome evenings for piano playing Janet.
Originally Posted by EDE
...that no man is a failure who has friends.
And for the friendless, remember, no man is a failure who has a steady income from advertorials.
"...not having to believe in a thing to be interested in it and not having to explain a thing to appreciate the wonder of it."
HOW TO BUILD A MODEL OF HENDRIK HUDSON'S "HALF-MOON"
So, if you had fun building the model airplane a couple of pages back, you're now given almost two full pages of instructions on how to build a model ship! In this case, it's the famous Half-Moon, used by Henry Hudson in his exploration of the New World/Search for the Northwest Passage. And you've got plenty of drawings and instructions. The ship looks to me harder to build than the airplane, but I don't really know much about such things.
GEM RAZOR AD
The part of those two pages that's not taken up by shipbuilding instructions has an ad to join the "Shav-Easy Foundation", which provides you with "the only method of GUARANTEED shaving at a cost of less than two cents a week!" All you have to do is write to their president, Patricia, at her address in Connecticut! She wants to hear from the 10,000,000 new Gem Razor users, and ALL men who shave with safety blades or old fashioned razors.
Apparently, Patricia has found a new method for gaining popularity and not being a wall-flower! All you need to do is sell safety razors and soon you're corresponding with millions of clean-shaven men!
I feel that this new format of periodical shall prove to be a foolhardy proposition, should the life affirming advertorials be interrupted further by the appearance of what are colloquially referred to, by the local street urchins, as "funnies."
Not yours, (as this would be an improper suggestion)
Mr Broad Sheet
"...not having to believe in a thing to be interested in it and not having to explain a thing to appreciate the wonder of it."
We begin with the square-jawed title character on the docks telling one of his men that they will sail with the morning tide, and that it's important that no one, especially Butch Ramsen, knows that they are headed to Kilitook Island to hunt seals. Unfortunately, since he says this out in the open on the docks, Butch Ramsen just happens to be standing around the corner and overhears. So Butch hurries to his own ship and gives an assignment to his man Spike. That night, Butch and Spike row out to Cap'n Erik's ship, and, while Spike knocks out the Watchman, Butch cuts the hawser holding the ship to the docks. Cap'n Erik's ship drifts until it crashed into an old freighter moored nearby! As Butch sails off, he taunts Cap'n Erik, who vows that he will get to Killtook Island first despite Butch's underhanded tactics! And the story ends there.
So I suppose we have to keep reading to find out if our noble hero can beat his nefarious rival to the island in order to be the first to club all the baby seals. Except Cap'n Erik is yet another title that only makes it to #2. It apparently also ends on a cliffhanger, which I suppose means it's tied with Jigger and Ginger for the longest unresolved plots in DC history. Longer lasting nautical themed character Cap'n Spinniker also debuts in #2, so I suppose there wasn't really a need for both.
We begin with Jim Kenyon, bound for California, arriving in New Orleans, only to discover that the wagon train has already left, and he can only make them out as a small speck on the plain.
I'm already seriously confused by the first panel of this. New Orleans is nowhere near the plains, nor is it a typical place from which wagon trains departed. But, whatever...
Jim takes off walking across the plains, confident that he will somehow catch up to the wagon train. He hears someone calling for help. He discovers this old fellow and his horse sinking in quick sand. Fortunately, JIm has a rope, and saves them. Now riding the horse, they head to catch up with the wagon train. But... they spot smoke signals ahead. More determined than ever to catch up with the wagon train to warn them of an imminent attack by natives, they rush forward. They run right the path of the natives, however. The old fellow valiantly jumps down and vows to hold the native off with his rifle while Jim makes it to the wagon train, but Jim himself jumps down, and the old fellow tosses him a gun. And we have to buy the next issue to find out what happens next!
So, apparently in the next issue they shoot one of the natives, who thus holds the dubious distinction of being the first character killed in a DC comic. This series would last until More Fun #18, and along the way they would eventually join up with the wagon train, and Jim would rescue and fall in love with the old man's daughter. I'm honestly surprised that this series lasted so long, as it's really one of the weaker offering in this first issue. Both the writing and artwork are pretty weak compared to other stories. I don't get it.
After that brief interruption by comics, we return to text features! On this page devoted to scientific marvels of the modern era, we learn about a steamline train that "talks"! So, the story goes that as the train comes into a station, the train aims its beacon at a mirror in the station, and the operator speaks over a microphone that modulates the light beam, which can then be amplified at the station. So, it's something like this principle.
Next up we have a feature on scientists who are "putting the sun to work", through the use of "sunshine motors", that convert the sun's energy into power. So, yeah, solar power. Unfortunately, "it would take as many cells as would cover an area of 1500 square foot to produce a full horsepower of energy".
And there's also a lesson on how to perform a magic trick of making a coin disappear.
There's also an ad where you can mail in for books to get into the "big pay fields" of electricity or radio/television/talking pictures. Basically you get lessons in these fields, and then 'pay after graduation" once you start earning the big bucks! So, yeah, basically student loan debt.
Always liked the science articles in comics and magazines when I was a kid (still like them now it seems).
I never watched Mr Wizard but it looked like a cool show. That link was fun. Would have loved to do that when I was young or with my kids when they were growing up. Of course movie projectors are a little hard to come by these days and even if LP records have made a minor comeback in some circles it might be just a wee bit harder to do the wiring connection with today's digital circuit electronics.
I was curious about the "sunshine motors" in the article and that sent me looking into the timeline of the solar cell, since our modern cells rely on semiconductor technology which hadn't been invented then. It seems the first solar cells were created back in the 1880's using selenium and gold and experiments continued from there. Einstein won the Nobel Physics Prize for his work on the photoelectric effect. It wasn't until the 1940's during experiments leading to the transistor that the basis of our modern cells was discovered. These early cells had efficiencies below 1% which I suppose explains the huge area requirement.
We live in an amazing time in history, for all sorts of reasons.
Apparently the "using light to transmit sound" is a popular kid's science experiment. Most of the stuff I found on the topic seemed to be of that variety. I couldn't find anything on actually using it on trains, though.
Thanks for the history of solar power. I think it's cool that the idea was in the air in the 1930s, even if it wouldn't become practical until much more recently.
Why, that means that National's '30s stories of superpowers are just waiting for science to catch up! I'll just leap from this garage to test my powers of flight..... >thump< science...isn't... quite...there... yet... >ow<
"...not having to believe in a thing to be interested in it and not having to explain a thing to appreciate the wonder of it."
Next up we have a whole page on collecting stamps and coins!
Most of it is super-basic stuff. How do you start a stamp collection? Get people to write to you! And collect as many as you can! Later on you can figure out what you like and specialize in different types of stamps! We are shown examples of two recent cool stamps: one commemorating the Spanish-American Union Exhibition of 1930, and the other commemorating the Eucharistic Congress of Brazil in 1933.
In the coin section we are told about a California gold slug from 1851 that recently sold for auction for $150, and a four-dollar goldpiece from 1879 that sold for $108. There's an interesting paragraph on silver mining companies paying their workers in part with silver tokens that are "not legal tender", but are nonetheless valuable for their precious metal content. The writer of the articles actually possesses one of these.
There's also a big ad where you can send away for a large catalog pricing guide on various stamps and coins, for a mere 4 cents, from an R. Max Mehl who wants to buy them. One woman got $400 for a half dollar! And there's lots of other stories of that kind.
Oh, and if you don't have any stamps or coins, you can make 40 dollars a week selling bars of soap in another ad.
So this page is a real curiosity. It's basically an article on home organization and kitchen management. We read about a home economics class that studies the number of steps taken in a kitchen, and finds that a poorly organized kitchen can require the homemaker to 500,000 steps per year than a better organized kitchen. The implication, of course, is that this makes the better organized kitchen preferable, but I look at it and think that a poorly organized kitchen would sure help in getting one closer to the 10,000 steps per day we're all supposed to get! We also get lots more advice on putting stuff near wear they are used (e.g. sauce pans should be stored near the stove). Also, it's important that tables be of the proper height so as to allow the homemaker to work with proper posture and not have to stoop over them.
So, I'm not really sure who this feature is aimed at. Teenage girls who will soon need to know this kind of thing? Is there a thought that young housewives might actually read comic books? Maybe it's for young mothers who buy the comics for their kids? Former wallflowers that learned music the easy way? I'm not really sure. It just seems to stand out as somewhat different than most of the features in the book.
There's also an advertisement on this page for the Wilson Chemical Company, from which you can order rifles, watches, radios, guitars, banjos, and wagons! All of which seem a bit weird for a chemical company to manufacture, but whatever.
So this is a comics strip about kids, maybe even a forerunner of the 'kid gang" strips. Lefty shows up for a club meeting, but Slim won't let him bring his "uncle", who looks to be a kid significantly younger than them, into the meeting. Lefty suggest that they let his uncle join the club as their mascot, and Slim decides to give him a test. Slim and Lefty would follow uncle around and see if he leads them to something lucky, like finding a quarter. So, they follow uncle around for awhile, but then end up getting in an argument with one another, and threatening one another with a fist fight. Just then, "mean old miser Spinks" starts yelling at them to cut it out, and, realizing that he is mean enough to call the cops on them, Lefty and Slim hightail it out of there. Once they get back to the clubhouse, they suddenly realize they forgot to bring Lefty's uncle along! But we have to wait until next issue to see what happened to Lefty's forgotten uncle!
So, I'm not sure what the deal is with the uncle who seems more like a kid brother, but other than that this strip isn't bad at all. It survived the New Fun Implosion of strips that were cancelled after #2, but only survived until #6. From what I saw of future synopses, the question of whether the uncle is lucky or not continues to be a main theme of the strip.
This feature stars a family of cave people, with a little boy Ur and a little girl Wur. When we open the rest of the family are huddled around in the cave as it grows dark, wondering where little Ur has gotten to. Ur is out in the cold and unfriendly world, and has lost his way trying to get back home. As it get dark, he is scared. He worries about a dinosaur that sometimes comes around. Lightning flashes, which scares him more. The lightning causes fire, which gives Ur an idea. Putting a stick in the fire, he now has a torch, and runs home, because suddenly he now knows the way? Maybe he was lost because he couldn't see before? It's not clear. Anyway, he shows the fire to his parents and the rest of the cave people, who rejoice in its light and warmth. Then the dinosaur sticks its head in the cave and they all run. And that's it for this issue.
This story was okay, but nothing too special. It would last until #5, and apparently ends on a cliffhanger of Ur and Wur falling to their impending doom, but I like to think that maybe they survived in some sort of suspended animation and are out there just waiting for some future DC super-team to discover them and revive them in the present day!
Stunned that Ur didn't replace Anthro in Crisis on Infinite Earths. He must have survived the fall as he went on to have a Sumerian city/state named after him! What mythic heroics could have been behind that? What strange places did he and Wur visit when they fell through that gateway after #5?
"...not having to believe in a thing to be interested in it and not having to explain a thing to appreciate the wonder of it."
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