I understand how the Strange Death of Alex Raymond got started now...

Hi, Everybody!

Continuing from yesterday:

Surprise Tim! (Click for bigger)

As I sent to Dave:
Dave,

Going thru the stuff you had Rolly send.

1: Eve Jones strips. Eve was in the clink? And the FOUR-TWENTY strip references "grass"? Was Stan Drake into pothead culture? What year was this? 1979? Okay, "Dad" probably read an article in Newsweek (or whoever was writing the strips did...).

2: Wally Wood's Cannon. From Wikipedia:

Heroes, Inc. Presents Cannon is a two-issue comic book series that represents one of the earliest independent comics. The first issue was self-published by prominent writer-artist Wally Wood in 1969, with a second issue published by CPL Gang Publications in 1976.

This comic-book series is unrelated to the organization HEROES, Inc. ("Honor Every Responsible Officer's Eternal Sacrifice"), a Washington, D.C., aid group for families of police and firefighters killed in the line of duty.

Publication history
Writer-artist Wally Wood, who by 1969 had had a critically admired two decades in comic books, self-published the first issue of his mature-audience comic Heroes, Inc. Presents Cannon that year, after having already self-published a similar anthology, witzend. These comics, along with such titles by other publishers as Star Reach (1974), Big Apple Comix (1975), and American Splendor (1976), helped bridge the gap between the countercultural underground comics and traditional mainstream fare, providing genre stories for an adult audience. Like those other examples, it was a forerunner of the late-1970s rise of the modern graphic novel and the 1980s independent-comic publishing boom.

Created for the military readership Wood had cultivated with his "Sally Forth" feature in Military News and Overseas Weekly,

Matt sez: this is a bit of a misnomer. From the Sally Forth page on the Wikipedia:  

Sally Forth began as a recruit in a commando unit in the June 1968 Military News, a 16-page tabloid from Armed Forces Diamond Sales.

In 1976, Wood recalled:

It all started in 1968, when I was asked to do a complete comic section for a proposed tabloid newspaper for servicemen, four pages of full-color, service-oriented humor strips ... There was a high-flying lowlife named 'Wild Bill Yonder,' a couple of others that for some reason escape my memory ... (such an embarrassment) and one that I felt, and still feel, had a great name for a comic heroine ... Sally Forth.

Sally returned July 26, 1971, in the Overseas Weekly, a tabloid intended for U.S. military men serving outside North America.

Armed Forces Diamond Sales is the one on the Back cover.

Back to the Wikipedia:

the first issue contained no U.S. Postal Service indicia. The only publishing information was on an editorial page that gave the office address as "Armed Forces Dist., P.O. Box 23635, Pleasant Hill, Calif."

Matt sez: "Pleasant Hill is a city in Contra Costa County, California, United States, in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area." Notable people (according to the Wikipedia: Tom Hanks: Academy Award and Golden Globe winning actor who grew up and spent his early childhood in Pleasant Hill, CA, Tim Scully: underground LSD chemist, Gary Simmons: NHL hockey player, Julie Strain: model and actress; attended Diablo Valley College (because OF COURSE there's gonna be a weird Comic Art Metaphysics to this...)) I'll return to the San Francisco Bay Area in a minute. BACK to the Wikipedia:

Not targeted at children and carrying no Comics Code seal, it contained more action/combat violence and more revealing clothing on nubile young women than did mainstream comics, though it did not contain nudity or gore; most deaths occurred in silhouette, off-panel or indeterminately within battle scenes. The glossy cover promoted "Amazing Adult Adventure".

In October 2005, Heritage Auctions auctioned off a lot containing approximately 70,000 copies of the issue.

Matt sez: Sold on Oct 9, 2005 for: $5,462.50 That's eight cents a copy (if you round up)! Guy probably paid more in shipping. From the lot description: "Heroes, Inc. Presents Cannon #nn Group (Wally Wood, 1969). Initially intended to be sold in Army PX's, the first issue of this title, this first of only two issues produced of this title was never distributed, and featured appearances of Cannon, the Misfits, and Dragonella. Originally some 1,800 copies were stored in a warehouse, and about half of them were stolen, seemingly making this a scarce issue to acquire indeed. Some of the copies have surfaced over the years, but pale by comparison to the group we're offering, which consists of approximately 70,000 copies! Overall grade quality varies widely, but many of the copies packed in the center of each box comprising this lot grade at least NM 9.4. The cover is by Wally Wood, and the interior art is by Wood, Steve Ditko, and Ralph Reese. Before placing your bid, be aware of the bulk of this lot and the inherent shipping expenses the winning bidder will incur. Most of the comics come in the originally packaged distributor's bundles of 300 comics per bundle. Overstreet 2005 values for this issue are FN 6.0 value = $6; VF 8.0 value = $10; VF/NM 9.0 value = $12; NM- 9.2 value = $15." I would presume, this is how Tim got a copy. Back to Wikipedia:

First issue
The 32-page, color comic book featured three stories with original characters. Priced at 15 cents when a typical comic book cost 12 cents, it bore no issue number. The cover was signed "Wally Wood 1969". The inside front cover bore a full-page ad for Mesa Hills home sites, P.O. Box 788m Santa Fe, New Mexico. 

A full-page ad following the first story advertised National Diamond Sales, 437 12th Street, Oakland, California.

Matt sez: Back to the San Francisco Bay Area. The publisher being in the Bay area, Oakland businesses advertising makes some sense. Also, from Wally Wood's Wikipedia page part about Heroes, Inc. Presents Cannon: "In 1969, Wood created another independent comic, Heroes, Inc. Presents Cannon, intended for his "Sally Forth" military readership as indicated in the ads and indicia." I don't see anything in Wally Wood's Wikipedia entry about New Mexico, so it may have been a company affiliated with one of the ring merchants. (Nothing about Mesa Hills Santa Fe New Mexico jumped out at me from a google search.) Back to the Wikipedia:

The following page contained two stacked, half-page public-service ads, one for the U.S.O., the other for U.S. Savings Bonds.

 

A Military Diamond Sales ad after the second story gave the same address as the editorial office.

Following the stories came a full-page ad for U.S. Diamond Sales, 1128 Broadway, Oakland, California.

The inside back cover contained the text piece "Salute to a Medal of Honor Winner", with a black-and-white photo of U.S. Marine Corps Corporal Robert E. O'Malley.

The back cover was yet another diamond-company ad, for Armed Forces Diamond Sales, 1126 Broadway, Oakland, California.

Matt sez: getting back to your question:

I did a search, and apparently this became a thing:

After a bit of research I’ve found out that this is a National Diamond Sales insert (AKA a Lingerie insert).

These only ran in comics from April 1971 to April 1973 except for a gap in Nov and Dec 1972.

Essentially ad space was sold in the copies going to overseas US military bases. Mark Jewelers bought most of them, hence why these are the ones most commonly seen. However there are also ones for Alka-Seltzer and Mennen. These inserts and the NDS inserts are even rarer than the MJIs, as these companies didn’t buy as much ad space.

THIS is probably why Woody's Wikipedia said: "intended for his "Sally Forth" military readership as indicated in the ads and indicia". The ring ads were intended for soldiers and sailors and marines defending the Free World from the godless commie hordes. The same place that had the info had photos of 1970s era inserts:

"Become a Cop" "Get married" "Surprise her with 'Sexy Time'." Seems legit. (The Reddit page I found this on had a comment: "Just looked at the pictures again. That California Gift Center ad juxtaposed with the Saturday morning cartoon promo is hilarious.")

So, (and THANKS DAVE! for sending me down this rabbithole...) Wally gets hired in 1968 to do a tabloid for Armed Forces Diamond Sales, and creates Sally Forth. That deal doesn't do anything. (I'll get to WHY I think that was...eventually. Needless to say, I understand how The Strange Death of Alex Raymond started now...) OR, more accurately, the Military News (the project Woody was hired to do) isn't a success. Woody parleys that into getting the financing for Heroes, INC. from the diamond sales people (hence all the diamond sales ads.) The issue isn't distributed (I'll get to why I think that is in a bit.) Woody gets Sally Forth into Overseas Weekly (more on this later...)

BACK to the Wikipedia:

The 12-page "Cannon", written and inked by Wood, penciled by Steve Ditko and credited as "Wally Wood 1969" and "Art by Ditko and Wood", was an espionage adventure starring the titular C.I.A. agent, who has been brainwashed so deeply during capture by Cold War Communists that, when recovered by the United States military, scientists "go all the way" and continue brainwashing him as a covert assassin for the U.S. He is assigned to rescue or assassinate Jean Voss, a nubile young member of an American anti-missile defense lab, who was kidnapped by Asian, presumably Red Chinese, Communists with a base on the Yucatán Peninsula. 

"Cannon" went on to be published in serial form, in the U.S. Army's Overseas Weekly, starting in 1971.

"The Misfits", a 10-page story written and penciled by Wood, inked by Ralph Reese and credited "W. Wood and R. Reese" and "Copyright Wally Wood 1969", follows Mystra, a nubile young artificial human with telepathic abilities; Shag, a boyish blue extraterrestrial stranded on Earth; and Glomb, a human infant mutated by American scientists into a gray, simpleminded giant created to explore the planet Jupiter. Captives of the government's "Operation Misfit", they escape, only to confront an albino alien invader.

Reflecting less-enlightened times, page two of "The Misfits" includes this dialog from English-speaking officials at the scene of a spaceship landing: 

"A man just emerged from the ship... Hey! It's a white man..." 

"Well, that's a good sign, anyway...." 

The five-page "Dragonella" credited "Script by Ron Whyte and W. Wood", with art by Wood, and noted "Copyright Wally Wood 1969", is a humorous adventure of a fairy-tale baby abandoned in the woods and raised into nubile young womanhood by kindly dragons "of the ancient and noble family Isaurus". Named Dragonella, she eventually ventures forth seeking a prince to marry, accompanied by her dragon "brother", St. George.

Before the final story is a letter-from-the-editor page, hand-lettered on a montage of Wood art and signed "Sincerely, Wallace Wood".

Dave, if you could send a scan of that, that'd be great (it'll help with why I think the issue was never distributed.) 

Dave did:

Back to the Wikipedia:

Second issue

Published in 1976 by CPL Gang Publications—which published the fanzines CPL (Contemporary Pictorial Literature) and Charlton Bullseye before its various editors and artists, including Roger Slifer and Roger Stern, turned professional—this magazine-sized second issue carried a $2 cover price.

It contains an untitled, seven-page "The Misfits" story written and drawn by Wood; the superhero feature "The Black Angel", with the seven-page story "Beware the Sirens” by co-writers Mike Vosburg and Roger Stern, drawn by Vosburg; and an untitled, 14-page "Cannon" story, written and inked by Wood and drawn by Ditko.

In addition, the inside front cover contained a full-page Wood illustration of the character Dynamo, from Tower Comics' T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents; a two-page centerspread illustration of the original character Kadavahr the Resurrected, by John Byrne, plus an additional page of Byrne art; and a back-cover illustration by Wood of the original character Animan.

The covers for both issues were colored by Marie Severin.

Okay, looking at the Wikipedia for Overseas Weekly:

History
The OW was founded by an American civilian, Marion von Rospach, and three male colleagues who were then completing their military service. With a capitalization of $3,000, they produced their early issues out of their homes and "an elderly Volkswagen." With the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950, the men were retained in the U.S. Air Force and left Rospach to carry on alone. By focusing on stories too racy for the official military daily, Stars and Stripes, OW had a circulation of 15,000 by 1953, when the military establishment banned it from base newsstands on the grounds of "sensationalism" and denied its use of the printing and circulation facilities of Stars and Stripes. Rospach enlisted the help of California Sen. William F. Knowland and filed suit against the Secretary of Defense, Charles Erwin Wilson, actions that succeeded in lifting the ban and increasing its profile.

Who was Senator Knowland? We divert to HIS Wikipedia:

William Fife Knowland (June 26, 1908 – February 23, 1974) was an American politician and newspaper publisher. A member of the Republican Party, he served as a United States Senator from California from 1945 to 1959. He was Senate Majority Leader from August 1953 to January 1955 after the death of Robert A. Taft, and would be the last Republican Senate Majority Leader until Howard Baker in 1981. He succeeded his father, Joseph R. Knowland, as the editor-in-chief and publisher of the Oakland Tribune.

Back to the OW Wikipedia:

Life magazine took note of the newspaper about this time, describing Rospach as "a stubby dynamo of a woman" and OW as "the bane of the U.S. armed forces command in Germany."

"The OW was a tabloid whose front page featured a partially clad young woman and two or more enticing headlines--sometimes printed in red ink--on the lines of "LT SEDUCED MY WIFE, GENIUS GI TELLS COURT." Courts-martial, generally not covered by the Stars and Stripes, was a news staple, along with more pin-up photos, the comic strip Beetle Bailey and an editorial bias that favored enlisted men over their officers. To the military it was known as the "Oversexed Weekly". In 1958 Rospach added a second weekly, the Overseas Family, edited by Cecil Neff and more genteel in content, to appeal to the wives and children of military personnel.

In 1961 an OW reporter broke the story of the "pro-Blue" program sponsored by Maj. Gen. Edwin Walker, commander of the U.S. Army's 24th Infantry Division in Augsburg. In a front-page story, the newspaper accused Walker of brainwashing soldiers with right-wing materials from the John Birch Society. In return, Walker condemned the OW as "immoral, unscrupulous, corrupt and destructive." Relieved of his command and passed over for promotion, Walker resigned from the U.S. Army that October.

Curtis Daniell, a recently discharged serviceman, became the OW's executive editor in 1963, when the newspaper reached a weekly circulation of about 50,000. As the Vietnam War began to intensify, Daniell hoped to publish a Pacific edition but was refused space on military newsstands in South Vietnam. Nevertheless, in 1966 he sent reporter Ann Bryan to Saigon to establish a bureau there, and in time she won permission to publish a Pacific edition of the OW, printed in Hong Kong and flown to Saigon each week.

Rospach died from a fall at her home in New York City in October 1969, at which time the New York Times estimated its circulation as 40,000. The Overseas Weekly was purchased from her estate by Joe Kroesen, with Daniell continuing as executive editor.

The OW ceased publication in 1975.

I presume that the 70,000 copies of Heroes, INC. couldn't get space on military newstands, and that's why it "failed", and led Woody to get Sally Forth into Overseas Weekly.

Thanks Dave, this was an interesting use of my afternoon.

William Knowland's Wikipedia has all sorts of "fun" tidbits:

Knowland became a caustic critic of the Harry S. Truman administration. He was publicly critical of the actions in the loss of China to Communism and the Korean War. However, Knowland admired the former Senator from Missouri personally. A firm believer in legislative authority under the US Constitution, Senate leader Knowland sometimes also was at odds with President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Eisenhower wrote that Knowland "means to be helpful and loyal, but he is cumbersome" and described the Senator's foreign policy views, particularly on Red China, as "simplistic." In his diaries, the publicly avuncular Eisenhower felt free to confide more critical assessments of his political acquaintances. "Knowland has no foreign policy, except to develop high blood pressure whenever he mentions 'Red China' ... In his case, there seems to be no final answer to the question, 'How stupid can you get?'"

and

For his strong support for Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalist government in China against Mao Zedong and the Communists, Knowland sometimes was called the "Senator from Formosa" (now known as Taiwan). A keen opponent of China's accession to the United Nations, Knowland tangled with Indian statesman V. K. Krishna Menon over the issue, leading the latter to acidly recommend psychiatric treatment to the former. In later years, Knowland moderated his position, praising President Nixon's diplomatic overture to China in 1972.

and

The 1952 Republican National Convention met in Chicago. General of the Army Eisenhower and U.S. Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio were the two main candidates. On July 8, 1952, Taft asked Knowland if he was interested in the vice presidency. Eisenhower won the nomination and selected as his running mate Richard M. Nixon, who was serving as California's junior U.S. senator. On September 23, 1952, Nixon gave the Checkers speech, a response to allegations that Nixon had maintained a secret fund of political donations from business leaders. (It was reported that Knowland said after the Checkers speech, "I had to have my picture taken with that dirty bastard, crying on my shoulder!") Eisenhower's aides contacted Knowland and persuaded him to fly from Hawaii to join Eisenhower and be available as a potential replacement running mate. However, seeing public opinion, Eisenhower retained Nixon on the 1952 Republican ticket.

and

Knowland's Democratic counterpart was Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas. Knowland and Johnson shared a cordial and respectful political relationship, often working in tandem on policy and procedure, including co-authoring a resolution in 1957 in an unsuccessful attempt to limit the filibuster, the practice of allowing minority viewpoints to use everlasting debate to obstruct the passage of legislation. "To completely block the legislative process of government is too much power for any responsible person to want, and far too much power for any irresponsible person to have," Knowland said of the filibuster. Knowland and Johnson crafted and passed, in the Senate, the watered down Civil Rights Act of 1957. It was the first such law since Reconstruction. After the bill was passed, Knowland wept because of the bill's perceived weakness in protecting civil rights.

and

Knowland called the Senate the "most exclusive club of 96" (there were 48 states at the time). He was slow to criticize its most infamous member, Wisconsin's Republican junior Senator Joseph McCarthy. In 1953, McCarthy questioned the "integrity and good faith" of US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, which led Knowland to denounce McCarthy publicly. McCarthy was later condemned by the Senate for "conduct contrary to Senate traditions" in his vehement investigation of alleged communist infiltration of the US government.

and

Knowland had a long-running battle with Nixon, with whom he served in the Senate from 1951 to 1953, for influence in California Republican Party affairs. Nonetheless, he gave Nixon the constitutional oath for Vice President of the United States on January 20, 1953, and again on January 21, 1957, on the East Portico of the U.S. Capitol (the second inauguration was delayed a day because January 20, the normal date, was a Sunday). In 1968, as Nixon crossed the Bay Bridge from San Francisco to Oakland, an aide pointed out the Oakland Tribune Tower and Nixon replied, "Bastard."

and

As editor and publisher, Knowland took an interest in local affairs along with the job and was less concerned with national and foreign policy. During his tenure as newspaper executive, Oakland and the East Bay Area were changing, with the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley, the Black Panthers, and "white flight" to the suburbs.

He offered a $100,000 reward for the conviction of those responsible for the 1973 murder of Marcus Foster. The Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) claimed responsibility. The SLA subsequently kidnapped Patricia Hearst and Atlanta Constitution editor J. Reginald Murphy. Such acts made Knowland fearful for his own safety.

And

On February 23, 1974, Knowland died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, an apparent suicide, at his summer home near Guerneville, California. His personal life was in a shambles; heavy gambling took all his money and he died owing over $900,000 (equivalent to $5,560,000 in 2023) to banks and impatient mobsters.

I sent all this up to Dave, and he replied:

Indeed!

Next Time: Monday!