Art Pinajian (1914-1999) got his start back in the 1930s. One of his first comics was “Reynolds of the Mounted”, a series of four-page Northerns written and drawn by Pinajian. In Feature Funnies #16 (January 1939) a supernatural element crept into this pretty standard series. (Later in World War II, Art would serve with the US forces and receive a Bronze Star for valor. The man drew heroes and was one too!)
“Voice of the Totem” begins when Reynolds comes to a Cree village to visit his friend, Hansa. Hansa tells of the totem pole that speaks, demanding the locals pay a tribute in furs. The witch doctor Nikato says the voice belongs to the dead son of a shaman. Reynolds immediately knows someone is up to something illegal here.
The Mountie suspects Nikato and goes to his cave. Entering the cave, a guard draws a knife. Reynolds punches him and knocks him out. Exploring, he finds the back of the cave is quite deep. He finds a door and a nicely decorated room behind it. Inside is a young boy. The boy tells Reynolds that Nikato and Jake have been using him to provide the voice of the totem. The boy hates these men.
Jake and Nikato enter the room, not realizing Reynolds is listening. The villain wants Nikato to extort more furs immediately but the witch doctor cautions him to wait a month. Jake then explains how he had been a prospector along with a man named John Bradford. Bradford struck it rich and his partner didn’t. Jake kidnapped his son in revenge. Jake’s greed knows no bounds. He has been splitting the furs with Nikato but from how on he wants all of them, or he will kill the shaman.
Reynolds draws his gun to arrest the men. He recognizes Jake as Jake Moran, a wanted man. Unfortunately, one of Nikato’s guards knocks Reynolds out with a tomahawk. Moran flees, taking the boy and telling Nikato to kill the Mountie. Nikato doesn’t. Instead, using the secret door at the bottom of the totem pole (used to take in the furs secretly), Reynolds of the Mounted pursues.
A high-speed canoe chase ensues, with Moran and one Cree being followed by Reynolds and another brave. Moran runs into a rock and his canoe goes flying. Reynolds saves the boy, while the Cree pulls Jake out of the water. Moran is arrested. The boy is happy to hear he will be returned to his father, and can live his life as Billy Bradford. “Gee-that’s swell!”
“Voice of the Totem” is intriguing for me, because as I wrote about before, Robert Bloch would write a horror tale about totem poles for Weird Tales, August 1939. Pinajian’s tale doesn’t have real monsters in it so I didn’t include it on that page but the idea of talking totem poles runs through most of these tales. The fake idol that talks is hardly new. Edgar Rice Burroughs used it in The Mastermind of Mars (1927) and the idea wasn’t new then either. Pinajian, with only four pages, doesn’t have much room to play up the fake supernatural. We move from talking poles to daring-do pretty quickly.