Number 2238: “We will blast you loose from your brains!”

“Big Red McLane” was another comics creation of the oddball comic book writer/artist, Fletcher Hanks. Big Red is not as powerful as another of Hanks’s heroes, Stardust, but has that eccentric charm that is a hallmark of Hanks’s comic book career.

Big Red is a lumberjack boss, and he goes up against “Sledge,” an evil lumberjack boss who wants Big Red’s neck of the woods. And who wouldn’t? It looks terrific! Consider the splash panel, where Red struts blithely down a groomed path, where nary a fallen leaf or dead tree impedes him. He looks so happy that he is unaware of Sledge’s gang lurking behind those perfect trees.

Red can fight.* The sound effects of his blows to the villainous crew remind me of the Batman television show of the 1960s. On one page we “hear” SOCK! BIFF! BANG! On another SLUG! BONG! and the incongruous ZOWIE! Fletcher Hanks had a fascinating and quirky way about his stories, and it is why over the years his reputation has grown.

From Fight Comics #7 (1940):

*In Fight Comics #9 Red went to San Francisco to look for a former fiancée, and wound up in a boxing match. The teaser at the end said we will see more of his boxing career beginning in the next issue, but the bell rang and the fight was over for Red. He was never seen again.

Posted in: Pappy Comics