Powerhouse Pepper
 

Introduction to Powerhouse Pepper

Welcome to the Powerhouse Pepper website. The lovable lug was a creation of the fertile mind of Basil Wolverton and made his first appearance in Joker Comics #1. His naïve innocence and superhuman strength made him an appealing and unique character. The strips abound with puns and slapstick humor.

Basil Wolverton was probably best known for his science fiction character Space Hawk who appeared in Target Comics, Spacehawks from the short lived Circus – A Comic Riot (which issue #1 was issued in June 1938, the same month as Action Comics #1) and his many grotesque horror stories appearing in Atlas Comics, Aragon Comics and others. He later drew for Mad, (whose issue #11’s Lena the Hyena cover became legendary) and D.C. Comics’ Plop. Powerhouse Pepper was by far Wolverton’s best known humor character.

Powerhouse was a character who embodied all things good. He spoke the truth, never started a fight (although finished many), cared little about material things (especially money) and was always helpful to those in need. He championed the underdog and defended the weak in a way no other “superhero” has. Like Superman, bullets bounced off his chest and no evil-doer could overpower him. His only weakness was long-legged blondes and his own naiveté. Wolverton once described him as a “puny person with potent paws”.   

Collected here are ALL of the Powerhouse Pepper stories that appeared in Timely comics from his debut in Joker Comics #1 from January 1943 through 1948. There were other stories that appeared in men’s humor magazines in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s. These later stories were all printed in black and white and many have been reprinted in books such as Fantagraphics 1997 reprint of 11 stories simply titles “Powerhouse Pepper”. (http://www.amazon.com/Powerhouse-Pepper-Basil-Wolverton/dp/1560971487/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1364747649&sr=1-1&keywords=powerhouse+pepper)

The purpose of creating this site was my desire to share these stories. It took over 20 years to find all of these issues and another 15 years to get a site built to display them in a way that can be read by all.  

Pick a cover and that issue’s story will appear in a flip book that can be sized so it can be easily read. In the case of the 5 issues of Powerhouse Pepper’s solo outing, all the stories appear in an index and can be selected from there.

One day I hope to add as many of Basil Wolverton’s humor characters as I can, including Flap Flip Flop, Scoop Scuttle, Mystic Moot and his Magic Snoot, Bingbang Buster and his Horse Hedy, and as many others I can obtain.

Enjoy!   

 


 

Fair Use Notice: This website contains copyrighted material whose use has not been authorized by the copyright owners. I believe that because this is not-for-profit, educational use on the Web and constitutes a fair use of the copyrighted material (as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law). If you wish to use this copyrighted material for commercial purposes, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Fair Use notwithstanding I will immediately comply with any copyright owner who wants their material removed.