Have a cold refreshing KOOBA COLA!

Some things never change. Just as youngsters today do, kids in the 1940’s loved soda pop. Many modern cola drinks flourished during the Depression and war years: Coca-Cola, Pepsi Cola, and Royal Crown Cola were all big during the Forties. Other brands were big sellers during the war years but are minor players today; although Moxie was popular enough to become a slang term in the American lexicon during the pre-war period, that soft drink is largely forgotten these days (although it’s still available in the Northeastern U.S.).

And then there was Kooba Cola. Good ol’ Kooba! Cold, refreshing, tasty, and good for you, packed full of Vitamin B!

Paying attention to The Grim Reaper

If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time, you already know that I’m a tremendous fan of Golden Age comic books, particularly “mystery men” books published from the late 1930’s into the war years. I often recommend them to my comic fan friends, who frequently dismiss them (without ever reading one) with comments like, “They were for kiddies!”, “The art is terrible”, or “They’re too simplistic.” It’s always suspect to make blanket comments such as those. While some war era comics definitely fall into one or more of those categories, one certainly can’t make those statements about all of them, not by a longshot. I’ve already popped holes in the first two of those balloons in previous posts (using the art of the “Pat Patriot” features and the rich, twisted, and very adult subtexts of Charles Biro’s work on “Daredevil” as examples). Today I’d like to tackle the “simplistic” criticism by citing The Grim Reaper’s second appearance, the cover feature from May 1944’s Wonder Comics #1 (published by Great Comics Publications, usually classified today as part of the Nedor “family” of comics).