Someone tell me more about "Hook Slider", a 1950s baseball adventure comic strip

 

I'm always on the lookout for original comic art. With comic books, I'm mostly interested in grabbing Fantastic Four-related pages, but in recent years, I've grabbed a number of comic strip art pages with one overlying criterion: does it look good? (Affordability is also something that sets a lot of comic strip art apart from many comic book pages.)

And thus we come across this very obscure 1950s baseball-adventure comic strip, Hook Slider. Beyond some very basic details about its theme, I can find next to nothing about this apparently short-lived strip, and so I'm here, late at night on the internet, to show off this new art purchase but to also see if anyone has more information about it.

The strip follows ballplayer Hook Slider, which is just about the best name for a baseball protagonist that I can think of, and one of the reasons I'm so interested in learning more.

You'll notice that "WEDN." is written in the top corner of the strip. A different panel tells me that this was published on January 26th, but it doesn't give me a year. If this was indeed a comic strip from the 1950s, then this particular strip was from 1955, the only year in the decade where the 26th falls on a Wednesday.

Our coach in the second panel is named "Mr. Dryver", another rock-solid baseball name, to go along with his rock-solid neck and haircut. If this isn't the epitome of a 1950s Danny Murtaugh-like head coach, I don't know what is.

Also, I wonder if Major League pitchers are still forbidden from bowling.

The reference to the Braves and Coach Dryver's Boston shirt makes me wonder if this strip used the names of actual Major League franchises. The Boston Braves had moved to Milwaukee by '55, is that is when this was published, so that might be why our coach is telling Slider that he was sent to Boston from the Braves. Of course, this might all be a coincidence.

Bob Sherry is the artist credited on this strip, and I'm having a similarly difficult time learning more about Sherry and his work. It seems he was a World War II pilot who worked for King Features for years, ghosting on strips like Red Ryder. This strip was published, as you can see in the second panel, by McNaught, a newspaper syndicate that operated from the 1920s until the '80s.

This is one of those strips that might be lost to time. There are a few strips available to purchase on eBay and the like, but none of the listings provide much more backstory. In some comic utopia, there'd be a collection of this series out there, but here and now, I'd settle for a little more info. 

Let's talk about that trailer

You know I'm talking about that newly-released Fantastic Four: First Steps trailer! AND NOW I MUST DISCUSS IT!

Years ago, Marvel surreptitiously de-emphasized their Fantastic Four and X-Men lines in a roundabout attempt to regain the film rights to their wayward franchises. They stopped publishing Fantastic Four altogether for years, even though the Thing, the Human Torch and Dr. Doom showed up in titles like Uncanny Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel 2-in-1 and Infamous Iron Man. I knew the point of this embargo, but I still thought at the time that no single movie would be worth doing without the comics for so long. So, after seeing Marvel and Disney's new teaser trailer for this July's Fantastic Four movie, have I changed my mind?

NO! NEVER!

I'll never forgive them for it. That being said...boy, am I excited for this movie. I loved the trailer and I can't wait to see the whole thing later this year. It seems that the folks behind this movie finally learned the lessons about what didn't work with each of the previous versions.

There were a few things that stood out to me, and hey, this is my blog, so let's talk about them here.

I'm starting off with the Thing. You all knew this! Let's start by saying that I like it. It's a comic-accurate Thing with a thick brow and I can't wait to see him run through a wall. I know that sometimes studios will release a trailer before the visual effects are completely finished, so I wonder if this is the absolute final version of Ben Grimm for this film. If it is, it's pretty good, even if it's slightly more cartoony than I had expected.

I want to see this guy in blue trunks. I like the uniforms and I understand that the consistency among the four main characters is visually important. But give me this guy in the trunks. At some point. Do it.

I did think that the Thing's voice would be lowered a bit, but maybe Marvel wanted to do something more to distinguish this Ebon Moss-Bachrach version from the Michael Chiklis version.

H.E.R.B.I.E. looks...good? I don't know that they had to R2D2 the little guy's voice, and it's one of those tropes where people in the film can understand what he's saying while the audience doesn't. But we all know that the FF has translators sewn into their suits, so there's an in-universe explanation for it! Please send me my No-Prize.

Did they finally get the visual for Sue's powers right? You bet your buns they did. So glad to see (or not see) it!

TRENCHCOAT THING. Trenchcoat Thing!! This is a requirement for the movie to be good. I'm glad to see that they got my letters.

How much of an effect did Alex Ross's work, and the Marvels series in general, have on the look of the movie, including Johnny's powered-up form? Ross paints in that photo-realistic style, so maybe it's a coincidence. But the Torch here made me think of Ross's art more than anything else in the trailer.

There were several things in this trailer that made my heart beat faster, and this is one of them. These are versions of the Ben Cooper Thing Halloween costume. They're pretty much exact copies. I absolutely love this, and I really, really hope that some company makes and sells new versions of these again this year. Also make them in adult sizes and I will wear one. If they make them before July 25th, I'll buy one and wear it on opening night.

The Fantasticar should be a flying bathtub, but I will also accept this four-wheeled version. Maybe it flies? Splits up into four individual components? I'm excited to see it in action.

John Malcovich's appearance was the most out-of-place part of the trailer, but I guess if John Malcovich is in your movie, you should put him in the trailer. Maybe he'll be the Mole Man, hiding away on Monster Island? He kind of looks like one of the Council of Reeds here. I know that parts of the Hickman/Eaglesham "Solve Everything" storyline were adapted in the film. Who can say?

Others have said it, but it bears repeating: I'm glad they decided to use an apparently comic-accurate Galactus in this movie.

I'm buying the soundtrack the day it comes out. I assume you all figured as much. I was very happy when the choir's "Fantastic Four!" line was part of the theme music that played in the background. Thank goodness that the powers that be decided that it was time to lean into what makes the comic and the concept so wonderful. So Galactus looks like he has a bucket on his head. Who cares? So the team wears matching blue jumpsuits. Perfect! So the Thing and H.E.R.B.I.E. make dinner. Give me more of this!

It looks like they're going to make it fun, bright, and optimistic. Sign me up.

I'm hoping that there'll be a Super Bowl commercial for the movie - maybe even something different from this teaser. I'm also hoping to start seeing toys in stores before too long. Let's get some new Thing fists! It's been a long, long time coming for this movie. I'm going to enjoy it.

You can't punch out the Thing - unless it's the 2002 Thing punch-out

As you might expect, I keep an eye out for weird promotional stuff when I visit the comic shop. A few years back, Marvel gave out handfuls of glowing, bouncing eyeballs as a promotion for their Original Sin series, and they gave out vampire teeth for the recent Blood Hunt event. Maybe one day, we'll be able to make an entire Marvel face? Anyway, I don't know how I missed Marvel's promotional punch-out cards from way back in 2002, but luckily, eBay came to the rescue, as it often does, and I was able to grab a stack that included the Thing.

The set came unpunched and in the size of credit cards. Perhaps I'll keep one in my wallet and try to pay with it, and if anyone balks at the idea, well, I can always clobber them, and then blame the Thing for the litigious results.

The set I picked up came with Dr. Doom and the Fantastic Four, minus the Human Torch. Sorry, Johnny. The cards have a color bleed that makes Sue's face look very weird, but I get it. Thankfully, the set had more than one Thing, so I didn't have to stay up at night and fret over whether I would actually build the model or not.

It also came with a number of other popular Marvel characters. A lot of the Spider-Man and X-Men character art, since this was 2002, used images of the characters' Ultimate counterparts instead of the regular folks.

To build the tiny figures, you match up the (extraordinarily tiny) numbers on the cards and insert the pieces into their corresponding notches. There are front and back illustrations, so you get the whole 3D experience with these.

These were weird promos that I missed the first time around, but they're pretty fun and the Thing stands up pretty well on his own. Now I have like four doubles of the Hulk card. Who wants 'em?