LEGENDARY HEROES

#4 IN A SERIES

TAILSPIN TOMMY

The period of the late 1920's through the 1930's became the heyday of pulp fiction.  At the peak of it's popularity over 200 magazines were published monthly reaching an audience of 10 million readers, with more successful titles selling up to a million copies per issue.  Publishers explored every popular category and genre in an effort to appeal to fans, from westerns and mysteries to romance and science fiction.  The golden era of the pulps coincided with the glory days of aviation, fueled by public interest in stories of WWI ace Eddie Rickenbacker and his memoir "Fighting the Flying Circus", and Elliot Spring's book on WWI combat flying "Nocturne Militaire".  But the major influence on the country's fascination with flying was the successful 1927 solo flight across the Atlantic by Charles Lindbergh in his plane The Spirit of St. Louis.  More than 40 pulp magazines - known as flying pulps - were devoted to the new heroes of the sky and most were devoted to WWI air battles.  Newsstands were filled with pulp titles like Wings, Aces, Air Trails, Skybirds, War Birds, Flying Aces, War Aces, Battle Birds, and one of the most enduring titles G-8 and His Battle Aces.

Newspaper comics were also quick to realize the public's heightened interest in aviation and on May 21, 1928, the first comic strip to deal with the subject, "Tailspin Tommy", was launched.  Other strips would follow, like "Skyroads", "Scorchy Smith" and "Flyin' Jenny", but "Tailspin Tommy" was the first.  The air adventure comic strip was drawn by Hal Forrest, scripted by Glenn Chaffin (a newspaper journalist and press agent), and distributed by Bell Syndicate.  It was initially carried in four newspapers but by 1931 it was in more than 250 papers across the country.  Cartoonist Hal Forrest bought out Chaffin's interest in the strip and took over the writing himself.  Forrest was not a very good illustrator but this seemed to matter little to the public that read the comic strip.  But the artwork improved slightly when Forrest hired cartoonist Reynold Brown to assist with the art.

The story starts out in Littleville, Colorado where young Tommy Tomkins is so obsessed with flying that he earns the nickname "Tailspin" before he ever gets into a plane.  Tommy takes a correspondence course in aero-engineering but his first real introduction to flying happens when a mail pilot, Milt Howe, makes an emergency landing in Tommy's neighborhood.  Tommy sees the downward spiral of Milt's plane and runs to offer assistance.  Milt Howe rewards Tommy with a plane mechanic's job in Texas at Three Point Airlines.  Tommy soon becomes a pilot and with his girlfriend, Betty Lou Barnes, and his best friend, Peter "Skeeter" Milligan, the trio become part owners of Three Point and embark on many airborne adventures.  Reprints of Tommy's adventures were soon to be found in comic book form.  A series of thirty 8-page booklets were part of a promotion for Big Thrill Chewing Gum.  In 1934 Tommy was among the strips to be reprinted in the first modern comic book Famous Funnies published by Max Gaines, father of William Gaines of Mad and EC Comics.  In 1936 two issues of a "Tailspin Tommy" pulp came out with adaptations of  the comic strip stories, but ceased publication because rights to the character were not properly secured.  Eleven Big Little Books were released with titles like "The Famous Payroll Mystery", "Dirigible Flight to the North Pole", "Hunting for Pirate Gold", "Island in the Sky", and "Sky Bandits".  And in 1936 Grosset & Dunlap published a Tailspin Tommy novel titled "Mystery of the Midnight Patrol".

1934 also saw the release of the first Tailspin Tommy 12-chapter movie serial by Universal, followed by another 12-chapter story in 1935.  In 1939 four hour-long features of Tailspin Tommy were made to meet the demand of his youthful audience.  In 1940 United Features Syndicate took over the distribution of the comic strip, but Tommy began to lose newspapers.  The change in syndication did little to help and on March 15, 1942, the last "Tailspin Tommy" strip was printed ending a 14 year run.  It's uncertain why "Tailspin Tommy" failed - it could be that it was competing with better drawn & written strips - or maybe that America's fascination with flying had started to wane - but whatever the case may be, for a short time "Tailspin Tommy" was on top of the heap and was a true hero of his day.

If you like my portrait of "Tailspin Tommy" you can find more examples of my ink illustrations at instagram.com/gregclarknoirart, pinterest.com/gregclarknoirart, and ebay.com/usr/noir*art.