Thick-Ear Donovan and the McGrew Boys
Thick-Ear
Donovan was a series of school stories with
plots so implausible we needn’t trouble with them. He first appeared in The
Wizard in 1933. The stories
were repeated more than a decade later in 1950 in The
Rover.
Thick-Ear Donovan – so-called because he
has a large ‘cauliflower’ ear – is teaching at a small school in England when
he is recruited to be the only master at Moose Springs School in Northwest
Canada. Later, he moves to a school in Poison Valley.
His pupils whose ages range from five to
eighteen are the sons of miners, ranchers and trappers. They don’t like school
and they need a strong man to handle them.
In this episode from the Wizard 14
April 1934 Thick-Ear arrives for the first time at the school in Poison Valley
and is confronted by four McGraw brothers, “four untamed demons, who needed
drastic and unusual treatment.”
As Thick-Ear turned away to the
blackboard, Dolan McGraw let fly. He missed. The bean hit the blackboard, and
bounced to the other side of the room. Ezekiel let fly. He missed. Jewkes let
fly. He missed. Then the youngest brother, Shamus, took the catapult.
“Watch me!” he exulted, and let fly.
Whing! Thick-Ear had opened his mouth
to begin a sentence on a simple arithmetic lesson when the bean came hissing
through the air, and stung the point of his nose like an angry hornet.
“Haw, haw, haw!” roared the McGraws.
“Step down here, Shamus McGraw,” said
Thick-Ear quietly. He produced his cane and stood waiting.
Go to the Comicbookplus website for
editions of The Wizard (here)
and The Rover (here).
For
more extracts from comics and story papers, click here
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