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Series: Tell It to the Marines

- Attribution History

Years in Print: 1952 - 1955

Detail

Publisher: Flag

Toby Country:

United States Language: English Issues: #1 - #15 (15 Issues)

Continued From: none

Continued In: none Disclose

Tracking Notes: Disclose

Notes: "Tell It to the Marines" was one of several United States Marine Corps-themed comic books published by Toby Press in the early 1950s. The first six issues of the series starred brawny Pfc. James "Spike" Dowdy, and suave Pfc. Battingsley "Bat" Bentley in stories that took them from the battlefields of Korea to the oil fields of the Middle East to the beaches of Hawaii to the bistros of Paris. The artwork was crude and the humor unsophisticated. Transvestite scenes (especially for Spike) were common. Problems were solved with fists, and both men found frequent opportunity to display the exaggerated muscularity of their torsos. Though best buds on the battlefield, Spike and Bat often competed for the same "dames" with one gyrene usually left in the dust nursing his wounds while the other walked away with a trophy gal on his arm. With their emphasis on male camaraderie, inflated battlefield derring-do, muscular physiques, and sex-suffused womanizing, the Spike and Bat stories gave young men an idealized vision of the Corps.

A 4-page supplemental feature of the series, "Lover O'Leary and His Liberty Belles", starred USMC "gal hound" Lover O'Leary in frame stories that were nothing more than an excuse for exhibiting four or five vertical panels of Good Girls with alliterative names such as Jivin' Judy and Railroad Rhoda.

Format

Publication Type: Comic Books

Color: color

Dimensions: standard Golden Age US; then standard Silver Age US

Paper Stock: glossy cover; newsprint interior

Binding: saddle-stitched

Publishing Format: was ongoing series

Format Notes:

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Sample Issue Image

Issue #	Volume	Publication Date	Pages	Content Items
#1	none	March 1952	36	4 (3 stories, 1 cover)
#2	none	May 1952	36	10 (4 stories, 1 cover)
#3	none	July 1952	36	11 (2 stories, 1 cover)
#4	none	September 1952	36	14 (6 stories, 1 cover)
#5	none	November 1952	36	7 (6 stories, 1 cover)
#6	none	January 1953	36	13 (3 stories, 1 cover)
#7	none	May 1954	36	4 (3 stories, 1 cover)
#8	none	July 1954	36	5 (4 stories, 1 cover)
#9	none	September 1954	36	7 (4 stories, 1 cover)
#10	none	November 1954	36	6 (4 stories, 1 cover)
#11	none	January 1955	36	5 (4 stories, 1 cover)
#12	none	March 1955	36	5 (4 stories, 1 cover)
#13	none	May 1955	36	7 (3 stories, 1 cover)
#14	none	June 1955	36	6 (5 stories, 1 cover)
#15	none	July 1955	36	9 (8 stories, 1 cover)

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