{"id":19416,"date":"2025-03-07T10:00:08","date_gmt":"2025-03-07T15:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/?p=19416"},"modified":"2025-02-24T11:25:20","modified_gmt":"2025-02-24T16:25:20","slug":"pulp-comics-miracle-squad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/2025\/03\/07\/pulp-comics-miracle-squad\/","title":{"rendered":"Pulp comics: ‘Miracle Squad’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back in the 1980s, a lot of companies tried getting into the comicbook industry, especially with the “black and white” craze created by the publication of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles<\/em>. Fantagraphics<\/a>, which mainly did books and magazines, like The Comics Journal<\/a><\/em>, got into comic publishing briefly. One of its comics was The Miracle Squad<\/em>, created by John Wooley<\/a><\/strong> and Terry Tidwell<\/a><\/strong>, who also did the pulp-inspired Twilight Avenger<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>The first storyline was finally reprinted in trade paperback from Pulp 2.0 Press<\/a>.<\/p>\n

More inspired by movie serials and poverty-row movie studios in the 1930s, The Miracle Squad<\/em> centered around a fictional poverty-row studio, Miracle Studios, and the folks who work there. We get an introductory story that ran in the back of another of Fantagraphics comics. The main storyline ran over four issues of The Miracle Squad<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The story starts when a young girl, Sandra Castle, heads to Hollywood looking for her twin sister. Her sister had been lured there in hopes of becoming an actress but hasn’t been heard from since. This leads Sandra to Miracle Studios, which supposedly sponsored the contest and claimed they were giving her sister a screen test. But Sandra learns it was all false. But they give Sandra a screen test anyway. And we learn that a gangster is trying to muscle in on the studio, and this leads to the death of the owner. His son takes over, hiring Sandra as a new actress.<\/p>\n

Thus the comic has two related storylines: one dealing with the crooks trying to take over the studio, and another with Sandra searching for her twin. Along the way, we get airplanes, blimps, and boats in the action. By the end, both storylines are concluded, but not in the best way for all concerned.<\/p>\n

A second four-part series, titled Blood and Dust<\/em>, was published by Apple Books. I hope at some point Pulp 2.0 Press will reprint this.<\/p>\n

There are several extras in this volume. We get some remembrances from the creators. There is a fiction piece by John Wooley, “The Return of Mr. Mystery,” which saw print in the first issue of The Pulpster<\/a><\/em> (1991). The series of non-fiction pieces that ran in each issue is reprinted. And we get extra art and the like.<\/p>\n

While more movie-inspired, there are clear pulp elements. I do hope we eventually get the second storyline reprinted, and<\/em> the third Twilight Avenger one as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in the 1980s, a lot of companies tried getting into the comicbook industry, especially with the \u201cblack and white\u201d craze created by the publication of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Fantagraphics, which mainly did books and magazines, like The Comics Journal, got into comic publishing briefly. One of its comics was The Miracle Squad, created by John Wooley and Terry Tidwell, who also did the pulp-inspired Twilight Avenger.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":19650,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_has_post_settings":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The Pulp Super-Fan looks at pulp comics: 'The Miracle Squad.'","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[2138,2170,893,2171,2172],"hashtags":[],"class_list":["post-19416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comics","tag-fantagraphics","tag-john-wooley","tag-pulp-2-0-press","tag-terry-tidwell","tag-the-miracle-squad"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/files\/2025\/01\/miracle-squad-featured.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3eLo8-53a","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19416"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19654,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19416\/revisions\/19654"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19416"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=19416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}