tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8908753937567944345.post4739783806355426016..comments2024-01-16T02:42:22.308-06:00Comments on APOCOLYTE'S WORLD OF COMICS: MOON-MAN, Golden Age One-Hit Wonder, in "The Poisoned Children"!THE APOCOLYTEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13835797417138325832noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8908753937567944345.post-48654515436088622312014-02-26T16:07:59.626-06:002014-02-26T16:07:59.626-06:00A thoroughly engaging analysis, Daniel. One could ...A thoroughly engaging analysis, Daniel. One could conjecture that in 1941, prior to U.S. involvement in the Great War, the effects of the Great Depression were still being felt, therefore relatively small sums of currency could hold much more prodigious significance...i.e., to them with very little, a very little could be perceived as very much. McGool's imagined $27.83 could in actuality purchase 146.47 gallons of gasoline in 1941, certainly a precious and desired commodity in our present era. The average price for gas today in my state is about $3.75, so the cost to purchase the same quantity would run approximately $549.26. Why, in dire straits, for such a sum one might easily conceive a dastardly plot involving bestowing a banquet of bacterially besmirched beef upon a blameless bunch of wandering waifs!THE APOCOLYTEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13835797417138325832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8908753937567944345.post-7363757962669851712014-02-25T02:58:38.530-06:002014-02-25T02:58:38.530-06:00A day before this post, Pappy offered a 1948 story...A day before this post, <a href="http://pappysgoldenage.blogspot.com/2014/02/number-1528-phantom-lady-just-doodly-do.html" rel="nofollow">Pappy offered a 1948 story about buried loot from a 1927 bank robbery</a>. The writer solved a problem of the change in bills between those two years by having the robbers instead steal silver coin. But, as it happens, we're talking about the amount of silver coin that could be carried by one mortally wounded man. <a href="http://pappysgoldenage.blogspot.com/2014/02/number-1528-phantom-lady-just-doodly-do.html" rel="nofollow">It's just not enough money to motivate other parts of the story</a> (though, accounting for price inflation, it would be a very nice sum of money to have).<br /><br />In the early golden age, there seems to have been rather a lot of stories of costumed heroes bring to justice providers of state services who had been skimming state funds and delivering substandard product. Such stories may express a tension between populist tendencies of a distrust in people with power and of a longing for a welfare state; and these stories provide an explanation (sabotage) for the failures of the latter. My perception is that there were proportionately fewer such stories during the war, probably because it were considered harmful to the war effort to call state officials and their contractors into question — though in fact the war provided a lot of opportunity for such behavior, and that much of that opportunity was certainly seized.Daniel [oeconomist.com]https://www.blogger.com/profile/06763094285750736837noreply@blogger.com