DON WINSLOW

In 1934, Frank Martinek, former Lt. Commander in the U.S. Navy, published a book about a man of similar rank as his own named Don Winslow. It took place in the island of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Since the book is rather pricey, I do not know the plot but one listing of an alternate title has it as Don Winslow U.S.N. in Ceylon with Kwang while another has it even longer with Don Winslow U.S.N. in Ceylow with Kwang, Celebrated Chinese Detective. This would direct thoughts towards it being a mystery of some sort, especially since it came just a half decade after the first Charlie Chan book was released and just a year or two after the first movie starring Warner Oland came out.

Around the same time, so the story goes, Martinek was asked (or offered) to assist an Admiral in charge of training who was lamenting the poor volunteer rate the Navy was seeing from the midsection of the nation where thoughts of ocean travel was not in most young men's minds.

In order to perk up recruitment, it was thought that a comic strip appearing in local newspapers might spark interest in the Navy as an adventure (see Comic Strips). Martinek had a ready-made character to star in this strip in his Don Winslow from his recently printed adventure.

Writing this comic strip would occupy the author for the next few years, as would the occasional Big Little Book story he would pen for Whitman Publications (see Young Adult Books).

In 1940, he again sat down to pen a complete adult adventure with Winslow as the lead, though it was written in a style that would appeal to many of the younger readers growing a tad older. In fact he would release four adventures of Winslow and his pal, Pennington, and his lady friend, Mercedes and all would deal in one way or another with Winslow's seemingly unending fight with the evil spy master, the Scorpion, head of the organization Scorpia.

A year after the start of newspaper comic strip adventures of Don Winslow, the creator and author, Frank Martinek, responded to a requst from Whitman Publishing to turn the adventures into stories for young children. He came up with one initially and then a couple years later four more appeared followed two years later with two more for a total of seven. Most were in Whitman's Big Little Book line while one was in its Better Little Book line and one was in the Penny Books group.

All had adventures likely taken from the comic strip (speculation).

While much of what I have read about the success, or lack thereof, of the comic strip, it did survive over 20 years in newspapers around the nation and it must have been good enough to attract the attention of Hollywood seeking to create patriotic fare with WWII just starting.

Two different movie serials were created with Winslow as the protagonist. The first had him going up against the Scorpion in a defense of cargo ships bringing supplies to Hawaii. The second had him temporarily assigned to the Coast Guard protecting the coast of the mainland from the Scorpion, now working for the Japanese.

Both were produced by Universal Studios and starred Don Terry as the intrepid Winslow.

The 15-minute episodes were geared toward the juvenile market with numerous marketing tie-ins such as membership in special club with its own creed and card.

The show ran daily from mid-October of 1937 to May, 1939. It was on the "Blue Network" (a part of NBC) and ran for a while at 5:15 pm before moving to 7:00 pm for several months and then finishing its run at 5:30 pm. Its sponsors included, at time, Kellogg Cereals and Ipana Toothpaste. It also ran for a short time on NBC's other network, the "Red".

The "Blue" brought it back in 1942 for a very short run lasting from early October of that year to New Years Day of 1943, being aired at 6:15 in the early evening.

I could only find available on the Internet two of the many episodes.

It was 1933 when the first "comicbook" was printed and over the next few years numerous existing publishing companies and newcomers alike created titles that they put on the newsstands monthly for 10¢. As with all new endeavors, many would make a mark and many would come and go quietly.

Dell Publishing's Famous Funnies is considered by most to be the first but others came very quickly thereafter. It is amusing to me that as the first of their kind, they all shared a common aspect - un-originality. The format was decidedly new and different but inside the pages, the stories were all reprints.

Black and white comic strips had graced the pages of newspapers for many decades already and the concept of the Sunday color editions, dubbed the "Sunday Funnies", first arrived on the doorsteps and newsstands in the late 1890s with the idea becoming fairly common by 1905.

As far as Don Winslow is concerned, it was again Dell that transported the Naval Intelligence Ace from the newsprint to the comicbook in its Popular Comics. Issue #1 came out in February, 1936, according to its indicia. It had the increasingly popular Dick Tracy, Little Orphan Annie, Gasoline Alley, The Gumps, and Mutt and Jeff, along with several other lesser-(today)-known strips. It ran 64 pages with each individual getting from 1 to 4 pages (or half-pages). Don Winslow was one of those in attendance.

The line-up for each issue did vary somewhat and many comicstrips came and went. Winslow was there at the beginning and would last a couple of years but April 1938 was his last adventure in that magazine for some time.

It may have been a coincidence, although I doubt it, but in June of 1938, Whitman Publishing began a comic book called Crackajack Funnies. It would also consist of reprints of Sunday editions of comic strips. One of the stalwarts that graced the pages from the first issue was Don Winslow! Crackajack Funnies lasted 43 issues, ending its run in January 1942. Winslow was there in all of them.

I found no evidence but it seems likely that Whitman made a better offer for Winslow. Making this more compelling is the fact that with the demise of Whitman's mag, Don Winslow reappeared in Dell's Popular Comics a couple of months later (issue #75), continuing the storyline (with apparently a short gap). He hung around Dell for a year before leaving for good in issue #84 in February 1943.

Note 1: below I have placed a single cover from both comics. The actual strips can be found in the Comic Strip section.

Note 2: Dell started a new magazine which was really a series of one-shots with each issue featuring a single character. Don Winslow was the star of issues #2 and #22. Each issue was of 68 pages in length and held the same reprints that Popular Comics had shown.

Don Winslow as an original comicbook came to be in February 1943 when Fawcett Publications started his own series. Fawcett had been around for several decades involved in all manner of endeavors. Its biggest claim to fame came in 1940 when it came out with ol'-Shazam himself, Captain Marvel. Fawcett would use the superhero character on the cover of the first Winslow character to introduce him to the comicbook world.

For the next 8 years, Winslow and his buddy, Red, would fight in Europe and the Far East as well as in both Americas. He went everywhere and fought against all three of the Axis powers alongside all branches of the Military. Fawcett's run of Don Winslow would come to an end with Issue #67, published in May 1951.

In March 1955, Charlton comics brought Lt. Cdr Winslow back for 4 more issues but they were reprints of various stories told in the last years of the Fawcett line.

Both Australian and English publishers repeated the concept of reprinting both the Sunday strips as in the Popular and Crackajack comics.