Stardust- 5th Column / Still Earth

This is an animation based on the 40's Superhero Stardust, created by Fletcher Hanks. Hanks was a relatively old cartoonist who was briefly active in the early 40's. At this time the peicework nature of comic book production had not been fully established viz story/pencil/inking/coloring handled by seperate members of a production team , so Fletcher was a full autuer doing it all himself, and oh what comics he produced ! He did some std adventure comics, but is best known for his Superheroes, such as Fantomah the first female SH of any type and as seen here Stardust the Space Wizard. The storytelling was on an extreme level, gangsters or spies would come up with some awful plan that threatened millions but Stardust, an almost omnipotent alien Giant who operated from his own asteroid, would use his space TV to identify the evil doers and then subject them to some ghastly fate. The second story here is one of the most bizarre I've ever seen, three Gangsters use a machine to stop the Earths rotation so everyone floats away and then they can loot the Earth's wealth ... erm where can they spend it ? Hanks stopped working in 1941, the reasons are unknown but probably because he was out of step with the frequent & rapid changes in the comics industry . He was also a chronic alcoholic and abandoned his family and ultimately died homeless in miserable circumstances in 1976 at the age of 86, freezing to death on a Manhattan Park Bench. His work was rediscovered in the last decades of the 20th Century, his style and concepts appealing to the Pop Art & Alternative Comic sensibilities of serious comics fans, and well produced collections appeared in the early 2000's .

[@plumsink]

Love me some super weird demented Fletcher Hanks! :)

[@BlackMaria61]

well I'm glad someone does....

[@macsnafu]

I think I see where the Spectre got some ideas for dealing with criminals! The story is fun and simple, back when villains were just evil for the sake of being evil and not having to have complicated motivations. But it's just a little *too* simple. Stardust is way too powerful for mere saboteurs. The second story was a little more suited to his abilities. And I really have to wonder about anyone who wants to destroy not only democracy, but civilization itself.

[@fazbell]

One wonders what kind of drugs that Fletcher Hanks was using. So demented.

[@BlackMaria61]

Was he was a major alcoholic, perhaps these were what he saw when he had DT's