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Rin-Tin-Tin (I). “Rin-Tin-Tin” was the name of a series of German Shepherd actors who were film stars in the 1920s and 1930s. In Spain, he appeared in the Celebrity Pulp comic book Rin-Tin-Tin (1928-1936). He was created by the Spanish creator José Canellas Casals (Amiel, Armando, Jaime Bazán, Black (III), Carlos and Marcos Bon, Bronkos, Cesar, Judit, Thalma Klan, Mario, Nick, Red Circle, Sam, Sankro, Spaceman (II), Titán (II), Toby, Capitán Velez, Mack Wan, Fernando Zabal, Zimbra, Khun Zivan) and Francisco Darnis (Carlos and Marcos Bon, Mario, Nick, Samuel, Spanish Explorers, Tom (I)).

Rin-Tin-Tin (I) is as heroic as the film version but is even more intelligent, has a varying set of human companions, and is thrown into more fantastic adventures, involving shipwrecks, technologically-advanced subterranean Lost Races, ghostly murderers, invasions of Yellow Peril Chinese armed with SCIENCE! weapons which wipe out entire cities, and so on.

Rin-Tin-Tin (I) appears in stories with titles like “The Ghost of Red Lake,” “The Grasping Hand,” and “The Green Star.”

* I'm including Rin-Tin-Tin in the Best of the Encyclopedia list because of its imaginative content. The Spanish pulps and comic books were often imaginative, and they generally wrote entertaining Celebrity Pulps, and Jose Canellas Casals was a fecund and creative creator, but combining the concepts of Celebrity Pulp, a pulp about a dog, and ideasplosions was a singular stroke of genius not unlike the reasoning which went into the creation of Six-Gun Gorilla. Rin-Tin-Tin is somewhat crude, to be honest, much like other Spanish comic books during the 1920s and 1930s, but the crudeness and basic characterization and delivery only cast the brilliance of the premise and the ideasplosions into sharper relief. Look--you either get why Rin-Tin-Tin, with its hero facing off about ghosts, death-ray-wielding Yellow Perils, and murderous intelligent gorillas, is an A+++ concept which deserves inclusion in the Best of the Encyclopedia list, or you're a gray adult with a withered soul. Simple as that. 

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