(Amazing comic book art) Oddball Comics: Picture Progress Vol. 1, No. 7

Oddball Comics: Picture Progress Vol. 1, No. 7
From the same fine folks who brought you the original CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED comes PICTURE PROGRESS, an educational funnybook that explains and explores “The Four Seasons” - and which cover-stars a tree! Thrill to the renewal of life that comes with Spring! Squeal with the pleasures of Summer! Gasp at the transforming colors of Fall! Delight at the chilly wonderment of Winter! Yep, this comic is so gosh-darn normal, it’s positively Oddball!

PICTURE PROGRESS was an educational giveaway comic that was distributed through various school systems, both public and private. Here’s a complete list of the themes for each issue of PICTURE PROGRESS published between January, 1954 and October, 1955:

Vol. 1, No. 5: “News In Review”

Vol. 1, No. 6: “The Birth Of America”

Vol. 1, No. 7: “The Four Seasons”

Vol. 1, No. 8: “Paul Revere’s Ride”

Vol. 1, No. 9: “The Hawaiian Islands”

Vol. 2, No. 1: “The Story Of Flight”

Vol. 2, No. 2: “Vote For Crazy River (The Meaning Of Elections)”

Vol. 2, No. 3: “Louis Pasteur”

Vol. 2, No. 4: “The Star Spangled Banner”

Vol. 2, No. 5: “News In Review”

Vol. 2, No. 6: “Alaska: The Great Land”

Vol. 2, No. 7: “Life In The Circus”

Vol. 2, No. 8: “The Time Of The Cave Man”

Vol. 2, No. 9: “Summer Fun”

Vol. 3, No. 1: “The Man Who Discovered America”

Vol. 3, No. 2: “The Lewis & Clark Expedition”

It’s interesting to note that, despite its rather inventive, four-way cover design, the artwork in this issue of PICTURE PROGRESS is about as blandly institutional as humanly possible, without a single word balloon or specific character. This may be due to its educational nature, but more likely, was intended to distance itself from newsstand “funnybooks” that, in 1954, were then-currently the target of psychologist Dr. Frederic (SEDUCTION OF THE INNOCENT) Wertham’s demonizing of comic books in general.

The title of this 24-page (plus covers) giveaway comic’s cover-story is “The Four Seasons”. It opens with this intro:

INTRODUCTORY NARRATIVE CAPTION:
All living things - human beings, animals, plants and insects - change with the changing seasons. Have you ever wondered why we have seasons?

Then, with a series of diagrams of the relative positions of Earth and sun, the cause of the four seasons is explained:

NARRATIVE CAPTION:
The seasons are caused by the way the sun shines upon the earth. The earth spins around on a make-believe line we call the axis. See how the earth leans over to one side. It takes one full day (24 hours) for the earth to spin all the way around on its axis. The sun can only shine on half the earth at one time. That is shy we have day while the other half of the earth is having night. As the earth is spinning on its axis, it is also moving all the way around the sun. It takes a whole year (365 days) to make this trip. As the earth moves around the sun, the sun shines upon it in different ways during the year. This is what causes us to have seasons. Summer is hot because we have the heat and light of the sun directly over us. It gets cooler in the autumn because our part of the earth is moving away from the direct sunlight. Winter is the coldest part of the year. That is when our part of the earth is furthest from the direct heat of the sun. In the spring, the weather gets warmer because we have moved back toward the direct sunshine. Now let us see what happens on our part of the earth during the four seasons.

The second chapter of this issue of PICTURE PROGRESS is titled “Spring Begins March 20″. We’re shown how the snow and ice melts and the ground defrosts and softens, “making it ready for nature to awaken”. As sap flows within trees and plants, blossoms begin to appear, attracting bees from their honeycomb. The bees bring back nectar to their queen, who then lays approximately 4,000 eggs, one of which will someday become the new queen. We see how beavers build dams on water-swollen rivers, and a mother chipmunk digs a series of interconnected warrens and tunnels. A pair of robins, having migrated back from a winter spent in the South, builds their next in a tree. After the mama bird lays her eggs, she and the father bird takes turns sitting on the eggs and foraging for food until their babies hatch. With the weather turning warmer, farmers plant seeds that will become their crops. Elsewhere, on a pond’s surface, a bullfrog suns himself and hunts for tiny fish, while a mother frog lays her eggs at the pond’s muddy bottom. Soon, her eggs will hatch into tadpoles. In the world of humans, life’s activities accelerate as well:

NARRATIVE CAPTION:
We have seen the beginning of spring in the country. But spring also comes to the city. The stores have new spring clothes. The baseball season starts in Washington, D.C. The President of the United States usually throws out the first ball. As the days get warmer and longer, children play outside until evening. Son the school children will begin their summer vacation.

The third chapter, “Summer Begins June 21″, starts with a montage of summertime activities — including what looks like scowling gonzo journalist Dr. Hunter S. Thompson spending a day at the beach! Meanwhile, the clutch of eggs of those robins that we met earlier have finally hatched, and their baby chicks have grown to an age when “summer school” is necessary to teach them to fly and dig for worms. Elsewhere, a hungry bear raids the bees’ honeycomb. By night, beavers train their young to gnaw down trees, while chipmunk babies evade a weasel by hiding in their underground next. In the nearby pond, the tadpoles have matured into full-grown frogs. The queen bee and her subjects abandon their honeycomb, leaving it to their industrious offspring. The next chapter, “Autumn Begins August 23″, opens with this update on farm life:

NARRATIVE CAPTION:
Our part of the earth is now leaning away from the sun. Both man and animal store food and patch up their homes for the coming winter. The farmer harvests his crops. The housewife cans food for the winter. Storm windows go up. Children go back to school.

Meanwhile, the beavers and the chipmunks prepare for winter, gathering stores of wood and nuts in their respective hiding-holes. Many birds prepare to migrate south, leaving their summer homes, although sparrows, crows and hawks remain in their nests for the rest of autumn and winter.

NARRATIVE CAPTION:
The cooler weather comes. The leaves on the trees turn red, brown and gold. They begin to fall off. Then, one windy night, the trees stand bare.

Field mice move into abandoned nests, while the bees gather together inside their honeycomb to avoid freezing to death. The chipmunks and the beavers hunker down in their nests until spring. The frogs hibernate in the mud at the bottom of their pond to keep warm beneath the frozen ice. Rabbits fur changes color to white, protective coloration to allow them to hide from their predators. The rising winds are filled with millions of seeds, destined to sprout in the spring. As “Winter Begins December 22″, this comic’s fifth and final chapter, opens, nearly all of the animals we’ve seen earlier are in hiding or in hibernation, emerging from their homes only when it’s necessary to gather food. A white rabbit is nearly killed by a hungry fox, but it manages to scamper back into its underground warren. Meanwhile, civilization adjusts to the harsher conditions:

NARRATIVE CAPTION:
Winter comes to the city, covering the gray buildings and the bare trees with a frosty, fairyland cloak. The park lakes freeze and become a winter playground. Night comes early. The street lights throw shadows on the empty sidewalks, while the people stay in their warm homes and wait for spring to come.

Also included in this issue of PICTURE PROGRESS are these features:

• An untitled, black-and-white inside-front-cover activity page, challenging the reader to unscramble the letters of the names of six flowers and six birds.
• “Picture Progress Quiz”, six illustrated questions relating to the contents of this comic.
• “Things To Do”, a black-and-white, inside-back-cover activity page, with a project “for boys” (a baseball diamond game) and one “for girls” (homemade sewing cards).

• “Do You Know That”, a back-cover feature with such educational tidbits as “The sun always shines directly on the equator, which is at the middle of the earth. That is why it is always summertime at the equator”, “It would take an airplane flying at 150 miles an hour nearly 71 years to go from the earth to the sun”, “Winter is an old German word meaning ‘time of water.’ This is because of all of the snow and rain that fall during this time of year”, and “Many, many years ago, men would look up at the stars and know when the seasons were going to change”.

ODDBALL Factoid - Although Robert Overstreet’s COMIC BOOK PRICE GUIDE lists PICTURE PROGRESS as a continuation of Gilberton’s PICTURE PARADE, according to the author of PICTURE PARADE No. 1’s “Andy’s Atomic Adventure”, it was actually a competing title!

The Buy Pile
Things are simply Marvel-ous as scoundrels rule the roost, ex girlfriends are bad ideas and if you’re using magic on Earth 616, you’re probably kind of goofy.

Save your money, unless you feel that $20 for a Superman flat paint scheme is okay.

The Comic Book is one of America’s unsung contribution to culture.

Dave Rodriguez Revisits His Creation in “Starkweather: Immortal”
Writer Dave Rodriguez is bringing da Starkweather back to stands with the help of Archaia Studios Press and author Piers Anthony!

Comics

Witch Hunter Robin: Complete Collectio

Witch Hunter Robin: Complete Collectio

Please visit the Things From Another World website for product details….

Retail: $ 149.98    Your Price: $119.98   Buy/More Info

Lying In The Gutters
Lots of good stuff this week including a possible Luke Cage period piece, news on the new “Flash” series, growing power structures in the industry, how a controversy can end up getting you work and much, much more.

There are few characters in literature more quintessentially American than Superman and few more difficult to write. Just compare the number of five star Batman stories with the number for Superman. The problem is trying to come up with a compelling story

Comic Books portray our fears, our desires and ethos.

Popularity: 7% [?]