Stripper's Guide

What do you get when you offer a comic strip that adapts a not particularly popular radio series? Go to the head of the class if you guessed: a not particularly popular comic strip. 

The Sea Hound debuted on radio in mid-1942. The 15-minute daily kid's program offered a sea-going story about a crew of heroes who sail around Central and South American waters foiling Nazi plots. If this sounds a little beside the point to the war that was going on, it really wasn't. The United States was terrified that Germany would develop these close neighbouring countries into allies. The government's answer to this threat was the Good Neighbor Policy, part of which was a charm offensive to show how much the people of the U.S. loved and valued their neighbours to the south. 

The Good Neighbor Policy was waged in various avenues, but the most visible to Americans was the media -- movies and radio shows that presented Central and South America in a positive light were encouraged and funded through government agencies. One small tendril of the Good Neighbor Policy was the radio show The Sea Hound. It didn't so much matter whether kids actually liked it or not, it was introduced on the radio at least somewhat as a propaganda tool. 

The Sea Hound is a ketch that seems only to ply the waters of the Caribbean and South Atlantic for the purpose of hunting Nazis. At the helm is Captain Silver, ably assisted by his Chinese friend (servant?) Ku Kai, displaced cowboy Tex, and their dog Fletcha (literally a sea hound). A toy tie-in extravaganza that never panned out had the Sea Hound carrying a plane called the Sky Hound, and a powerboat, the Spray Hound.

While the radio show might have been created for less than the pure-hearted reason of entertaining the kiddies, the few shows I've listened to seemed genuinely exciting and well-written, if a little cheesy production-wise. The writing quality probably has a lot to do with Fran Striker, better known as the creator of The Lone Ranger, who also wrote scripts for this series. Striker could churn out good material at a tremendous rate, and though The Sea Hound was not his bread-and-butter, his touch seems evident. It probably has a lot to do with his involvement that the show managed to outlast the war and the Good Naighbor Policy, not going into drydock until 1951. 

In addition to his radio shows, Fran Striker also wrote The Lone Ranger comic strip for King Features. It is probably this connection that explains why The Sea Hound, not an obvious candidate for adaptation into a comic strip, was attempted. Striker was not only a good writer, he also was a whiz at reusing material, so as far as he was concerned those radio shows were ripe for adaptation to print -- a payday for him with little effort involved. 

King Features probably should have known better, but they gave it the go-ahead. The daily-only strip debuted on October 2 1944* with art provided by "Jon". This was Jon L. Blummer, who had worked on The Lone Ranger strip for a short stint in 1939 in addition to credits on Hop Harrigan and several other short-lived features in the 1930s. Despite having a very attractive style Blummer's art career was primarily spent providing material to pulps and comic books. He just never lucked into being associated with the right newspaper strip property to make this his career. Why on this strip he preferred not to take a proper credit is unknown; he certainly did excellent work on it. 

The high quality of the strip notwithstanding, King Features had practically no luck selling it. With a daily comics page already filled to overflowing with Nazi saboteurs getting their comeuppance, yet another strip plying the same waters was of practically no interest. There was also that slightly off-putting smell of Good Neighbor Policy propaganda that may have rankled editors. 

The Sea Hound comic strip limped along on a clientele mostly of Hearst-owned papers until June 29 1946**, when Captain Storm and crew literally sailed off into the sunset.

* Source: Indianapolis News (and by the way, the samples above are the first weeks of the strip).

** Source: San Antonio Light, courtesy of Jeffrey Lindenblatt.

Labels: Obscurities

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 6:00 AM