It's sad but true. America's newspapers are dying! Everybody's got a different idea as to why - venture capital hollowing out media corporations, the high cost of printing and distribution, the contempt newspapers have shown towards their own greatest asset, which is of course the comics page - but we know the real reason. Newspapers are dying because they quit hiring teenagers!


Back in the 1960s they knew how to get things done. Hire some teenagers and turn those kids loose to take some death defying plane rides into trickery, terror, and treachery - that's what sells papers.


Teenage movie star Shelley Marks leaves a teenage nightclub with one of her many teenage escorts, when suddenly she's kidnapped by whom we assume are also teenagers!


Wait a minute, these guys aren't teenagers, they're grown adults with guns, cars and apparently a sideline in the bakery business.


I can't say it enough! Good tire maintenance can save your life, and maybe even help out on that big kidnap job you've been planning!


Don't worry, Mister Useless, I have a feeling you won't be involved in anything Shelley does for a long time.


The next day, the Green City Journal's editor decides what this teen-age kidnap story needs is a teen-age reporter.


Okay Bob, you're covering the longshoreman's strike. Fred, we need in-depth interviews of those coal miners. Frank, you're covering the big stories at the water treatment plant and at the city dump. And Johnny, you're going to spend the weekend as a houseguest at the ranch of a teenage movie star. Can you handle this assignment?


Now don't get sidetracked by the glamorous movie star and forget you're reporting on the glamorous movie star!


Making an uninformed guess and then using it to make a judgement on the character of a complete stranger? Johnny already has the makings of a fine modern reporter.


Her parents would never allow Shelley to participate in dangerous publicity stunts. Dangerous film sets are where they draw the line!


In Shelley's house they believe in Rock And Roll, Fabian, Annette, and Always Leaning At A Thirty Degree Angle.


Let's get one thing straight! Shelley is the breadwinner and she paid for everything here with her hard work and if she wants to ride the horses she maintains with her own money, then... she actually should be able to ride those horses.


All his life, Chuck had heard the expression "a burr in his saddle," but never in his wildest dreams did he dream he'd have the opportunity to make that cliché a reality.


Teen reporter, teen bronco buster, can't wait to see what other exciting teenage occupation Johnny Jason's going to reveal his mastery of!


Take a nap? A NAP? Johnny, are you REALLY a teenager??


You see Johnny, adults sometimes have parties without there being a birthday involved. You'll understand when you get older.


Sure, embarrass the reporter! That's a great way to get good press coverage.


Food, fun, music, drinks, and the random abuse of a minor - Shelley really knows how to throw those Hollywood parties.


"Getting my ass kicked? This party sucks now!"


"Why do you ask these questions, Mister Reporter? Is it because you're just simply curious about things? Or is it because you work for a newspaper as a reporter and we invited you out here to write a story about us? Could that be it?"


That's right, Jason Johnny. No child, no matter how wealthy or successful, should ever be allowed to make their own decisions.


Chuck isn't going to wait for Frank Sinatra or Sean Penn to start the trend, he's going to begin thumping reporters right now!


Shelley says Chuck stays, and unless somebody else in this family wants to step up and become a teenage Hollywood star, it looks like Shelley's gonna continue to have her way.


If I was a movie studio I wouldn't give one of my big stars one of those Buddy Holly, Patsy Cline, Jim Croce puddle jumpers, but maybe they took out a big life insurance policy on her or something. All I know is somebody's promised a spanking!


You've invested hundreds of thousands of dollars and your very lives in her, but investing in some competent instruction and a solo flying certification was just a little too much to ask?


The little red needle is pointing to "E", and that's always stood for "excellent" in my book, but I guess it means they're out of gas!

Yes, that IS a Firesign Theater reference. I get to throw one of those in every five years, it's in my contract.


Dang Johnny, this girl has handed you the "crashlanded with a movie star" story of the year, and all you can do is whine and moan. Go ahead and build a fire if it'll make you feel any better.


Let's go boys! Us creepy hoods can definitely beat trained rescue crews to their crash site, and then we can decide if we want to hold her for ransom or turn her in for the reward! We can't lose!


She wishes her movie scripts were as exciting as a small plane crash? She's been making some really boring movies.


Kidnapped again by the same crew - and this time they're on foot! The only flat tires they have to worry about are the ones that happen when somebody is walking really close behind somebody else and their foot kind of slides down on the heel of the foot of the person in front and it pulls the back of their shoe down! And that isn't a kidnap-ending event. Not really.


Hmm, where would this criminal come up with a figure so reminiscent of the percentage charged by professional agents in the performance of their representational duties? Johnny wonders if he senses the sinister hand of the William Morris Agency, already behind so much chaos in the world.


This is a Dell comic, so the threat of a good slappin' is all the implied violence we'll be seeing here today. That's enough for Shelley, though!


Johnny's brilliant scheme to make things easier for the artist has paid off handsomely!


All it took was a plane crash and a kidnapping to turn Shelley back into the cringing, fearful, submissive child that society is more comfortable around.


Their plan of "stop on the mountainside and wait for the kidnappers to catch them and then they'll shoot and cause a rockslide that will kill Marty" has worked out perfectly!


Safely back at the ranch, Johnny blows the lid off of Mr. Woods and his sinister plan to make Shelley into a movie star and then get annoyed at only getting his agent's commission, which is what he knew he was getting all along, why this was a surprise to him is anyone's guess.


And it's Chuck to the rescue as he strikes a blow for actors everywhere! You know, they say this comic is drawn by John Tartaglione, but a lot of the work, like this sequence here, has a real Bob Powell feel to it. That's how thrilling this climax is, it's inspiring us to compare B-list comics artists.


All this adventure has turned Shelley back into the obedient teenage girl we all knew she could be if she really tried to suppress those feelings of competence and self-assertion! Now between her dad and her fiance Chuck, she'll always have a man around to tell her what to do and when to do it, and it will be this way for always and ever - at least until 1970 or so. Then look out, fellas.


A fist fight, a plane crash, a desperate escape, a rock slide, but what Johnny's still sore from is that horse? Well, chalk up another adventure for Jerry Johnso.. I mean, Jonas Jameso... I mean, Johnny Jason, Teen Reporter. If this doesn't sell some papers, I don't know what will!

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