1940 continues unabated here at Stupid Comics as we work through a backlog of masked and mustachioed mystery men clogging up the city streets, smacking gangsters in the face, and somehow avoiding the draft. Let's check in with yet another fantastic magician using his amazing powers for justice and also to impress girls!
El Carim! His very name spells "Miracle"! Just go ahead, editors, and clue the slower readers in on your clever linguistic trickery. They won't catch it otherwise. El Carim! The Master of Magic and also Bad Hair Day Solutions!
Sadly this comic story doesn't give us much of El Carim's amazing magical act, which seems to resemble a hot yoga studio/gymnasium crossed with a pet store. Instead it's right into how Jimmie sucks at picking pockets.
The weed of crime bears bitter fruit - and concussions! Luckily El Carim was there to take charge. No, we don't need doctors or policemen, a stage magician will do just as well.
Jimmie tells the magician an almost unbelievable story, one about an evil mastermind recruiting street urchins for his crime league, one that was almost as unbelievable when we read it in "Oliver Twist". But let's allow El Carim's spectrograph to get the facts and tell us what chemical elements are present in the light waves given off from these chemicals in the process of combustion! Also let's realize that the writers really don't know what a spectrograph is or what it's used for.
They don't call him "The Twister" because he's Chubby Checker, fella! However if he did decide to do "The Twist" I can't think of a better place than his spacious, tastefully appointed evil lair. I guess forcing children into your crime army pays off!
El Carim's crime-busting tips: follow teenage boys around the city like a creepy stalker. Crime is sure to follow!
Pow! Right on the turban. Where's your all-seeing spectrograph NOW, El Carim?
As it's 1940 a crucial element of our story remains the cleverly utilized ransom note, used to deliver a hidden message right under the noses of our captors, who apparently are blind. Not really sure who Gladys is. I guess she's good for five large. I sure hope she notices El Carim's not at all subtle attempt at a secret message!
I dunno about you guys, but when I get chained up in a flooding death-trap basement, I will be trying that Harry Houdini stuff FIRST, not as any kind of "last resort".
You want to make sure you have at least one spare robe and hood when you begin your career of urchin-dominating crime. That's a tip from The Twister! Now FREEZE FRAME like you're in a J. Geils Band video!
Wow, you'd think El Carim could have just followed Jimmie back to the Twister's lair on page two, arrested everybody with his arrestor, and wrapped this whole thing up in fifteen minutes.
Wait a minute, The Twister has ELEVEN grown adult criminal thugs on call in his secret lair, hanging around, loafing, wasting time, smashing valves in their panic? Why not send THESE guys out to commit crimes instead of easily-caught newsboys? Get with the '40s, Twister!
Apparently the newsboy knows who "Gladys" is, and he delivers the note, and she notices the TOP SECRET MESSAGE embedded with cryptological wizardry, and she calls the cops, and what strange adventure will next confront the Master Of Magic? Will it involve Jimmie? Will we learn who Gladys is at last? Don't miss next month's Master Comics!
PREVIOUS STUPID COMICS
PREVIOUS STUPID COMICS
BACK TO STUPID COMICS INDEX
BACK TO MAIN INDEX