Gwandanaland Comics #678(b)

Minor spoilers - the stories are 80 years old; you had your chance, okay?

This is a trade paperback reprint of Rusty Ryan stories from the 1939 anthology title Feature Comics #32-73. Never heard of Rusty Ryan before? That's okay, neither had I. When I first started looking at the Gwandanaland covers on Facebook, the cover to this book caught my eye every time I ran across it for two reasons. First, the "Rusty Ryan" logo stands out, and second, because Rusty's costume looks remarkably like Captain America's. I eventually bought the book because the cover had caught my eyes so many times, I really wanted to read this obviously patriotic hero's exploits, and it showed up cheap on Amazon.

Allow me to sidetrack on Amazon for a second. They advertised the book as "new." When I received it, it had obviously been dropped on the corner of the spine, and the cover had bends in it. That's not "new." They took care of replacing the book in a timely fashion, but the misleading description was aggravating. That doesn't affect my rating of the book, but it's disappointing that Amazon has stopped caring about the condition of the books they ship out- doubly so since Amazon actually printed this book through their print on demand service. Take some pride in your work, Amazon. Shoddy product is a disservice to both the customer (the buyer of the book) and to the publisher who gets their printing done with you (ALSO your customer).

Back to the book. For the first third of the book, I felt like I had been bait-and-switched, because the costume on the cover was nowhere to be seen. In fact, the stories were about Rusty and the other boys in the... well... I'm not sure what to call it. They live in a town called Boyville (yes, really) and that's the name of the place they live in too. It's either an orphanage, a boys home, or a school- it seems to be all three, but I was never really clear on it. At any rate, the first third of the stories are about hoods trying scam-after-scam on Boyville. Sometimes for insurance fraud, sometimes for the deed to the land, or for gambling, but eventually the goal becomes to undermine the American youths who live there as the country gets into World War II. Rusty and his crew foil them all, becoming a real band of patriotic fighters as they go.

Finally! The costume! Turns out the convenient Captain America copy is from when the boys' football team went all-star. They all don their uniforms, dub themselves the Boyville Brigadiers, and continue fighting for America! The nature of anthologies at the time seems to have been to change with the wind- whatever they thought was going to sell books. So, it wasn't long before the Boyville Brigadiers went from fighting enemy plots in Boyville, to taking a national tour with an extended stop in New York, to working with the army, to getting shanghaied overseas. There's a couple of femme fatales, and the shanghaiing turns out to be a cover to get them to where they were needed. But later, they get shanghaied again.

It's that last bit- about the last third of the book- where things get really strange. Ryan and the Boy Brigadiers stay the same throughout, but there's often a more cartoonish comedy foil for them to deal with in the story. Before they go overseas, it was a pushy salesman. In the last third of the book, it's some stereotypes that are pretty painful to read today.

Most of the Germans and Japanese ("Japs," consistently throughout) are portrayed in stereotypes of the WWII era. Identifying one Japanese spy hinges on him mispronouncing his "L's" as "R's." It's horrible by today's standards, but it was common in WWII, and they were the badguys at the time.

Alababa (not Ali Baba) is a fat, genie-looking con-man. He shanghais the boys, but they eventually get the upper hand on him, and they start working together. He gets them into as much trouble as he helps them get out of. You can laugh Alababa off as that type of annoying-but-tolerable rogue with more decency than badness to him. Really, this character isn't so bad, except that the tone of the era means that it was suggesting that all people of Alababa's descent are as conniving as he is. The story doesn't come out and say that, so we can leave it at the character, and just say he's a con-man with a good heart underneath it all.

Stumpy is a salty old sailor- long white beard, wooden leg, talks about "keelhauling" and "walking the plank." He happens to have been stranded in Africa, and has taken control of a tribe of head-hunters- cannibals that he doesn't allow to be cannibals. He's like Popeye's grandpappy, and loveable as such.

It's the tribe of head-hunters, and the character before them of Harlem's own Pierpont Lee (in his zoot suit which is in danger of being repossessed by the finance man) that are the truly regrettable choices. Like many comics of this era, they're full blackface, talk like they're uneducated slaves, and are generally made to look stupid. The only redeeming (that's probably too strong a word) thing about this characterization is that as much trouble as Pierpont gets the boys into (much like Alababa) he also helps them out of it. In fact, there's somewhat of a hint that he's maybe not as dumb as it seems. If you can look past the blackface portrayal, the character is actually as fun and lovable as any "helpful nuisance/ comedy relief" character out there.

The book ends with the boys trouncing an encampment of Japanese spies, but they still have not made it back to America. Rusty Ryan appeared in over one hundred issues of Feature, so there are more stories to be collected. There's a Rusty Ryan Meets Patty Dexter book, but Volume 2 of the Rusty Ryan stories has yet to be printed.

For the score, five stars for a great cover that made me want to buy the book. Minus two stars for the seeming bait-and-switch for the first third of the book. Plus one because yay, they finally don their uniforms! Plus one for the stories breaking out of Boyville and having them tour the country. Plus one for having them go international. Minus three for the politically incorrect characterizations. Minus one, because the characters are actually fun and loveable, and would have still been so if not depicted in stereotype. Plus one, because the characters were still fun and loveable. Plus one, because the dreaded finance man does not catch up to Pierpont and his zoot suit. Plus one for the number of times "zoot suit" was worked into the stories. Minus one, because there has not yet been a Volume 2 published. Final score: four stars.

Note: Originally posted January 14, 2019 under my cbishop account. I moved it here, and the original has been deleted.