1941 Notes--Yrt Yrt Niaga

I guess the lesson is, if you've got a shtick, stick with it.

That's sure as heck what Fred Guardineer did.

As we discussed yesterday, Guardineer created Zatara the magician in Action Comics #1. He wrote and drew the first few stories, and penciled the feature for the first couple of years.

And, as we all know, Zatara originated the really annoying "talking backwards" method of spell-casting:

Then, Guardineer moved over to Quality, and for the February 1941 Crack Comics #10, he created a new character, Tor The Magic Master.

And Tor's gimmick?


Yes, he talked backwards to cast spells, as well.

So, Guardineer stole his own gimmick. No doubt it happened a lot back in the day.

Meanwhile, Merlin The Magician (no, not that Merlin) had been running in National Comics since #1. He had never done magic by speaking specific spells, just waving his hand and making commands. But when Guardineer took over the strip in the June 1941 issue #12, suddenly Merlin had a new wrinkle:


I don't mean to pick on Guardineer. He's a real pioneer in the field, working on lots and lots (and lots) of comics. And, he's certainly not the only one to recycle his own gimmicks for new characters.

He obviously had a prediliction for the "tuxedo wearing magician" class of charatcers, because he also worked on and/or created Marvelo , Monarch Of Magicians for Columbia Comics in 1940. And although I can't find credits to confirm it, he supposedly worked on Fox's Yarko, who in his later days did spells by using a combination of backward speaking and Pig-Latin.

Seriously.

At the very least, let's tip our caps to Guardineer, who was dedicated to the concept of backwards talking magicians, and by gum he was going to use them as often as possible!!!