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Johnny Dynamite: Explosive Pre-Code Crime Comics - The Complete Adventures of Pete Morisi's Wild Man of Chicago
Fight crime alongside the one-eyed, two fisted Chicago private eye in these comics from the early 1950s!
At the height of the Mickey Spillane crime novel craze of the early 1950s came Johnny Dynamite to rival Mike Hammer in wild, sexy yarns! Illustrated by Pete Morisi and written by Ken Fitch, the complete mini graphic novels from the rare Dynamite comic book (1953-'55) are collected here by the creators of Ms. Tree, Max Allan Collins (Road to Perdition) and Terry Beatty (Rex Morgan, M.D.).
Collins, Spillane's chosen literary heir, provides an informative introduction and a Collins/Beatty Johnny Dynamite tale is included as a bonus!
At the height of the Mickey Spillane crime novel craze of the early 1950s came Johnny Dynamite to rival Mike Hammer in wild, sexy yarns! Illustrated by Pete Morisi and written by Ken Fitch, the complete mini graphic novels from the rare Dynamite comic book (1953-'55) are collected here by the creators of Ms. Tree, Max Allan Collins (Road to Perdition) and Terry Beatty (Rex Morgan, M.D.).
Collins, Spillane's chosen literary heir, provides an informative introduction and a Collins/Beatty Johnny Dynamite tale is included as a bonus!
- GenresComics
184 pages, Hardcover
First published March 17, 2020
14 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 4, 2021
"MEET JOHNNY DYNAMITE… The One-Eyed Private Eye! He's Rough! He's Tough! He's Dynamite!"
This volume collects the entire run of Pete Morisi's Johnny Dynamite comics from 1953-55 for the first time. It is an interesting time capsule, although the formulaic stories and leaden style do not hold up well today.
Editor Max Allan Collins kicks off the book with a lengthy essay detailing the origins of the Johnny Dynamite character and his place in the pantheon of crime comics. In the early Fifties, there was great demand for comics based on Mickey Spillane's popular antihero investigator Mike Hammer. Spillane launched the strip From the Files of… Mike Hammer but it did not last long, being deemed too sexy and violent for the Sunday papers.
Artist Pete Morisi and writer Ken Fitch (under the name William Waugh) teamed up to create an obvious pastiche to fill this void utilizing the larger and less restrictive format of the comic book. The character took his surname from the comic book in which he originally appeared (Dynamite, issue #3). He was the best of many Hammer imitations, and the stature of this series has grown over the decades.
The first thing a modern reader notices is that the panels use a lot of dialogue and narration bubbles. This is in contrast to most graphic novels today, in which the art drives the story and the text is kept to a minimum.
The second thing I noticed was, of course, the treatment of women. For the most part they are all used as femme fatales or eye candy. For example, In "An Eye for an Eye", a woman is responsible for Johnny getting his signature eye patch, and he in turn shoots her down weeks later in cold blood. In another early story, Johnny sees a "dame" who is so busty he wonders "if she could get through the door sideways". This old-school machismo is part of the appeal of the strip, but it is also jarring in this day and age.
Like Spillane's novels, the stories tend to be atmospheric but thin, and they quickly feel repetitive. A lot of the prose sounds wooden to the ear: "I came on them at the end of the corridor. I didn't talk but let the rod in my hand speak for me. I let it go and didn't stop pulling the trigger, watching the rats drop like flies striking an electric screen."
Series highlights include:
"Excuse for Murder" - Must have been edgy for its day. Includes depictions of a man shot in the face at point-blank range, as well as a woman asked to trade sex for a fix of heroin.
"Luke Hennessy… Homicide" - Recounts a mobster's rise to power, his attempts to go straight, and his eventual downfall. It contains more than a few similarities with The Godfather series. Features Det. Hennessy, a minor series character; Johnny Dynamite does not actually appear.
"Kidnap" - The lead story in Issue #6 marks the point when Morisi took over the writing duties from Fitch. Dynamite's secretary Judy Kane is kidnapped, which oddly feels like low stakes, since just two stories before she was held hostage and forcibly turned into a heroin junkie.
"The Killer Walked In" and "The Wire Trap" are the only Johnny Dynamite prose stories. From Issues #5 and #8, respectively.
This collection ends with Morisi's last comic ("Poison Jasmine", issue #11) . The comics code had gone into effect just two issues prior. Morisi tried turning Dynamite into a globe-trotting spy, but it just did not work: the code had effectively neutered the character. However, this was not the actual end of the series. Dynamite continued solving crimes in four subsequent issues (Johnny Dynamite #12 and Foreign Intrigue #13-15) before the publishers, too, moved on to something new. Then, Max Allan Collins and Terry Beatty also revived him for a brief Dark Horse miniseries in the mid-1990's.
There is a bonus story "When Dynamite Explodes" also included from 1987. Collins and Beatty wrote a much older Johnny Dynamite into a crossover with their female detective Ms. Tree. (Note: This one-shot is not included in the five-volume Hard Case Crime collection of Ms. Tree).
This volume collects the entire run of Pete Morisi's Johnny Dynamite comics from 1953-55 for the first time. It is an interesting time capsule, although the formulaic stories and leaden style do not hold up well today.
Editor Max Allan Collins kicks off the book with a lengthy essay detailing the origins of the Johnny Dynamite character and his place in the pantheon of crime comics. In the early Fifties, there was great demand for comics based on Mickey Spillane's popular antihero investigator Mike Hammer. Spillane launched the strip From the Files of… Mike Hammer but it did not last long, being deemed too sexy and violent for the Sunday papers.
Artist Pete Morisi and writer Ken Fitch (under the name William Waugh) teamed up to create an obvious pastiche to fill this void utilizing the larger and less restrictive format of the comic book. The character took his surname from the comic book in which he originally appeared (Dynamite, issue #3). He was the best of many Hammer imitations, and the stature of this series has grown over the decades.
The first thing a modern reader notices is that the panels use a lot of dialogue and narration bubbles. This is in contrast to most graphic novels today, in which the art drives the story and the text is kept to a minimum.
The second thing I noticed was, of course, the treatment of women. For the most part they are all used as femme fatales or eye candy. For example, In "An Eye for an Eye", a woman is responsible for Johnny getting his signature eye patch, and he in turn shoots her down weeks later in cold blood. In another early story, Johnny sees a "dame" who is so busty he wonders "if she could get through the door sideways". This old-school machismo is part of the appeal of the strip, but it is also jarring in this day and age.
Like Spillane's novels, the stories tend to be atmospheric but thin, and they quickly feel repetitive. A lot of the prose sounds wooden to the ear: "I came on them at the end of the corridor. I didn't talk but let the rod in my hand speak for me. I let it go and didn't stop pulling the trigger, watching the rats drop like flies striking an electric screen."
Series highlights include:
"Excuse for Murder" - Must have been edgy for its day. Includes depictions of a man shot in the face at point-blank range, as well as a woman asked to trade sex for a fix of heroin.
"Luke Hennessy… Homicide" - Recounts a mobster's rise to power, his attempts to go straight, and his eventual downfall. It contains more than a few similarities with The Godfather series. Features Det. Hennessy, a minor series character; Johnny Dynamite does not actually appear.
"Kidnap" - The lead story in Issue #6 marks the point when Morisi took over the writing duties from Fitch. Dynamite's secretary Judy Kane is kidnapped, which oddly feels like low stakes, since just two stories before she was held hostage and forcibly turned into a heroin junkie.
"The Killer Walked In" and "The Wire Trap" are the only Johnny Dynamite prose stories. From Issues #5 and #8, respectively.
This collection ends with Morisi's last comic ("Poison Jasmine", issue #11) . The comics code had gone into effect just two issues prior. Morisi tried turning Dynamite into a globe-trotting spy, but it just did not work: the code had effectively neutered the character. However, this was not the actual end of the series. Dynamite continued solving crimes in four subsequent issues (Johnny Dynamite #12 and Foreign Intrigue #13-15) before the publishers, too, moved on to something new. Then, Max Allan Collins and Terry Beatty also revived him for a brief Dark Horse miniseries in the mid-1990's.
There is a bonus story "When Dynamite Explodes" also included from 1987. Collins and Beatty wrote a much older Johnny Dynamite into a crossover with their female detective Ms. Tree. (Note: This one-shot is not included in the five-volume Hard Case Crime collection of Ms. Tree).
July 7, 2020
I've always been intrigued by the Mickey Spillane type of hard-boiled crime story but I haven't found the time to read much. I typically enjoy mysteries in the classic style, like Ellery Queen, or more of a suspense or thriller novel.
I picked this book up more because of the appearance by Ms. Free in a 1987 story by Max Allan Collins, Terry Beatty, and Gary Kato than any other reason (I've been a Ms. Tree fan since being introduced to the character in ECLIPSE MAGAZINE by cat yronwode in 1982).
Johnny Dynamite is a dynamite (sorry! :-) ) character. The stories in this volume are a bit repetitive but still enjoyable, and the art is fantastic.
Recommended!
I picked this book up more because of the appearance by Ms. Free in a 1987 story by Max Allan Collins, Terry Beatty, and Gary Kato than any other reason (I've been a Ms. Tree fan since being introduced to the character in ECLIPSE MAGAZINE by cat yronwode in 1982).
Johnny Dynamite is a dynamite (sorry! :-) ) character. The stories in this volume are a bit repetitive but still enjoyable, and the art is fantastic.
Recommended!
August 19, 2020
Some classic tough-guy comics, but geez these scans of poorly printed old pages are hard to read. I'm at least one chapter the lettering is unreadable. Probably the best archival approach we'll get for this material, though.
January 13, 2021
I think this would have worked better as a novel, there were a lot of words with each panel, and the style of a. graphic novel made it more difficult to read - it was ok. but I think fully written prose would have been a lot better
May 7, 2021
Típicas historias de detective de cine negro.
Estupendo que el personaje sea una copia de John Garfield.
La única pega es que las historias son algo repetitivas.
A quien le guste el cine negro probablemente le gustará este tomo.
Estupendo que el personaje sea una copia de John Garfield.
La única pega es que las historias son algo repetitivas.
A quien le guste el cine negro probablemente le gustará este tomo.
October 15, 2020
It got repetitive in a hurry.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews