Hmm, I wonder how many newsstands displayed these books next to each other:
An explanation: I recently stumbled across a mention of Smash Comics, a series from Quality Comics that ran more or less concurrently with the more familiar Flash Comics. Just for kicks, I searched the Grand Comics Database (which is where I got the cover images) for Crash Comics, and found Crash Comics Adventures, which ran for 5 issues in 1940 before spinning off a series on the original Cat-Man. So the three books would have been on sale at the same time!
I couldn’t find any other books with the same pattern in the title. The GCD does substring matches, and “ash comics” only brought up variations on these three series. Though it did remind me that DC resurrected the Smash Comics title for one chapter of the 1999 The Justice Society Returns! event.
Let’s start with the drive out. Somewhere between the Cajon Pass and Victorville, we saw a warehouse with this banner. We had to wonder what “really living” furniture was. Trees grown into the shape of chairs, perhaps? A topiary table? We didn’t get the camera out in time to snap a picture, but we caught it on the drive back.
Then there was the moving truck. Somewhere around Barstow we got caught behind this veeerrrryyyy sssslllooooowwwwwlllly moving truck, with the company name and phone number spray-painted on the back. We joked that it was “Henry’s Moving… slowly.” (About 45 MPH on a 65 or 75 MPH highway.) What was really odd was that, two hours out, we’d run into a car from our own area code. Once we could get out of the lane, we passed them and left them way behind. Perhaps 45-60 minutes later, we made a stop in Baker. Bathroom break, new drinks, top off the gas tank, and stop at 