DOCTOR DAN DAZZLER "9 Lives Has Dr Dazzler"

One of the Weird Things About This Series...

...is that it reads like a series of one-shot stories about different doctors!

In the tale from the previous issue of Ben Casey, Dr Dazzler is shown to have acrophobia!

Yet here he is, merrily prancing around the building's superstructure without a care in the world!
Considering the same writer, Carl Memling, wrote all the Dr Dan Dazzler stories, the only way I can attribute this inconsistency is that they were initially-scripted as different doctors at the same hospital, but the (unknown) editor decided to make the feature about one doctor and just had whatever name was in the script relettered!
I'd also point out that, in every story, "Dr Dazzler" is drawn with different hair and facial features ranging from a callow 20-something with a full head of hair, to a middle-aged guy with a receding hairline!
It's a 'medical' mystery that'll never be solved...

Support Medical Comics and Stories!
Visit Amazon and Order...

M.D.Volume 1

The First Newsstand Comic Dedicated to the Medical Profession!

Paid Link

CITY SURGEON "Plague"

With RFK Jr about to become the Surgeon General of the US...

...we want to look at an example of how graphic fiction portrayed pandemics such as anti-vaxxer Kennedy seems to want to happen!

So the theme of this never-reprinted tale from Gold Key's City Surgeon #1 (1963)  shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone!

Tell the truth, Nurse Lake seems to be brains of the operation!

She's the one who figures out one of the two missing crewmen might already be deceased, and her quick thinking immobilizes the other when he shows up at the office!

In the early 1960s, one of the most-popular genres in pop culture was "medical drama"!

Spearheaded on TV by hunky prime-time physicians Dr Kildare and Ben Casey along with the related series The Nurses as well as daytime soap operas with hospital settings and paperback romance novels with covers featuring "studs in scrubs" with swooning nurses, comics hopped on the medical bandwagon!

DC and Marvel simply ran more medical-themed tales in their existing romance books.

But the smaller publishers were another matter...

Charlton launched numerous series featuring doctors and nurses in separate titles including Cynthia Doyle: Nurse in Love, Dr Tom Brent: Young Intern, Nurse Betsy Crane, Young Interns, and Sue & Sally Smith: Flying Nurses.

(Oddly, there were never any cross-over stories between the various books!)

Archie Comics published a short-lived series about Young Dr Masters!

Dell had popular comics based on Dr Kildare. as well as their own Nurse Linda Lark!

Gold Key published two different Ben Casey comics (including one done "fumetti" style using photos of the TV actors with captions and word balloons) and created their own doctor in City Surgeon!

Unfortunately, artist Jack Sparling's illustrations weren't consistent, showing Dr Blake Harper as young and virile in one panel and middle-aged in the next on the same page!

Plus there was no romantic element to the book!

For whatever reason, there was never a second issue of the title and Dr Harper never made another house call...

Support Medical Comics!

Visit Amazon and Order...

Cornered

Benign Humor Medical Cartoons

Paid Link

MAD HOUSE COMICS "Donna...She's a Doozy"

Prime-time TV in the early 1960s was filled with medical series...
...and someone becoming obsessed with them wasn't a rare situation...though perhaps not obsessed to the extent of this never-reprinted story's protagonist!

Was this one-shot from Archie's Mad House Comics #35 (1964), illustrated by Dan DeCarlo, meant as a "pilot" for an ongoing strip?

The use of the character's name as the story title instead of a medical-show pun would seem to indicate it!
BTW, the TV show titles in the story are variations on actual TV show titles.
Can you figure them out?
We'll give you two for free...
"Dr Ben Casebook" is Ben Casey, one of the major "heartthrob doctor" shows of the era.
"Ambulance 54" is "Car 54, Where Are You?", which was actually a police comedy!
Good luck with the rest of them...

Support Medical Comics and Stories!

Visit Amazon and Order...

Sincerest Form of Parody
Paid Link

Young Love PRIVATE DIARY OF MARY ROBIN, R.N. "Don't Let It Stop!"

Welcome back to the amorous adventures of our favorite neurotic nurse...

...but be warned, there's a shocking ending to this tale!

WTF???

A happy ending?

What could it mean?

This torrid tale from DC's Young Love #52 (1965) by writer Robert Kanigher and artist John Romita Sr was (despite the blurb at the end) the final Mary Robin story!
In addition, artist John Romita Sr left DC and moved to Marvel, where he immediately jumped head-first into Silver Age superhero sagas!
Within a year he was the artist on Daredevil, then Spider-Man!
By 1970, he was the Art Director of the entire company, while still penciling and/or inking numerous covers and occasional stories, until his retirement.

Please Support Medical Comics and Stories

Visit Amazon and Order...

Showcase Presents

Young Love

...which reprints the complete first part of the comic's run from 39 to 56, including the entire Private Diary of Mary Robin R.N. strip (not in color, as we're doing, but in black-and-white)!

BARBIE & KEN "Nurse Barbie (and Doctor Ken)"

Did you know Barbie was, among many other things, a Registered Nurse?

(Barbie from 1961...with the original packaging!)

Well, read this never reprinted story from Dell's Barbie and Ken #1 (1962) to find out about it!

You may have noticed that artist Norman Nodel deliberately drew Barbie (and to a lesser extent, Ken) to look like the actual doll, instead of a more "realistic" human.
The concept of the comic is that we're sitting in on a meeting of a Barbie Fan Club, where little girls talk about...you guessed it...Barbie!
In particular, her clothing and accessories, and how the girls imagine they'd interact with their plastic idol if she was a real person!
In this issue, four girls relate how they "met" Barbie...
As a stewardess (with Ken as the plane's pilot!)
As a ballerina (with Ken as the company's lead dancer)
As a nurse (with Ken as...well, you know already)
And finally, as a bride (with Ken as the groom)
Of course, Mattel already had playsets for each of these occupations on the store shelves...

Note: while Barbie is the star of the comic, Ken is the surgeon, and she's a nurse.
To be fair, in 1962, most little girls were culturally-conditioned to be nurses, not doctors.

Today, Barbie as an MD is an accepted concept...and quite a popular seller as well!

Get Tickets
HERE
to See Barbie: the Movie

Young Love PRIVATE DIARY OF MARY ROBIN, R.N. "All Men are Children!"

As of this issue (DC's Young Love #51 [1965]), Mary Robin loses the cover and two-part feature status!

Wonder if the publisher was unhappy about the story's title...

Despite the title, it appears women (especially Mary Robin) are as much "children" as men!

Be back next month as a major change hits the strip!

Please Support Medical Comics and Stories

Visit Amazon and Order...

Showcase Presents

Young Love

...which reprints the complete first part of the comic's run from 39 to 56, including the entire Private Diary of Mary Robin R.N. strip (not in color, as we're doing, but in black-and-white)!