Tuesday, May 03, 2005

Yeti Detector - "Three Broken Thumbs"


illustrations by Ashley Holt
story by Troy England Evitt

The great lord of 40's/ early 50's comics was Morty Goldburg, who, along with his accountant and favorite illustrator, Bernie Meyerfarb, wrote Scarbone and Teabiscuit from issue #1 - #42 at Hamless Lunch Comics.

Scarbone and Teabiscuit raised not a few eyebrows with scenes of Scarbone getting snapped with a towel in a Greek bathhouse and Teabiscuit's infamous 3-martini breakfasts. But, at the end of each issue, the bad guy was either in jail or really a robot and the kiddies lapped it up like highchair pabulum.

When Hamless Lunch was bought out by mob boss, Joey "the Chin" Pamperdampoli, Goldburg and Meyerfarb were forced to write boxing comics like "Glove-Fisted Tales" and "A Round for the House", which featured, badly, a boxing match between Scarbone and Teabiscuit on a parallel Earth ruled by giant bugs.

After three broken thumbs and a barrel-roll from a moving car, Meyerfarb accepted $21,000 and a bus ticket to LA, where he resurfaced as a hack illustrator for ZAPTHUDPOW Comics, working on such epics as "Nuclear Skidoo and Megaboy" and "The Adventures of Captian Gorilla".

Goldburg ended up writing pulp sci-fi novels like "Green Men from Mars" and the "Robot Dragon" series.

Meyerfarb would live to be 89 and died in his sleep.

Goldburg left a fortune as well, but went insane. When Meyerfarb last visited him, he reported that Goldburg had been lobotomized and knew only that he liked pie very much.

A copy of Scarbone and Teabiscuit #11, with the elusive blue staples, sold for $2,441 at Comtrek '02 and was later bartered for a Polaroid of Will Shatner with his dogs.

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