This one was at the top of my pile from the newstand/bookstore the day my mom told me I was no longer allowed to spend my entire allowance on comic books. I was about 9 at the time.
Obviously, a traumatic experience, because I remember it so clearly! (ha)
Avengers #126 (August 1974) by Ron Wilson and Frank Giacoia
Mar. 1949: There's a lot going on in this Lee Elias cover for Black Cat #16, but the composition is strong enough that the action is clear and easily readable.
Black Cat was a title with something of an identity crisis. Though clearly Harvey’s most popular character at the time, as the superhero comics slipped into decline, Harvey focused on the western aspects of Black Cat’s character, even renaming the title Black Cat Western with this issue. But it didn't stick. As of issue #20, the title was back to plain old Black Cat again. From there it gets a bit confusing, so here's a list:
Issues #1-15: Black Cat #16-19: Black Cat Western #20-28: Black Cat #29-53: Black Cat Mystery #54: Black Cat Western Mystery #55-56: Black Cat Western #57: Black Cat Mystery #58-62: Black Cat Mystic and after a three-year gap it was back to straight superheroics, #63-65: Black Cat
Just saw this cover for the first time ever, so had to come and post it here. How did Batman think he could swing around all over the place on a rope wearing a kilt! Surely that's not gonna end well. From August 1953. Cover art Win Mortimer. " />
Just saw this cover for the first time ever, so had to come and post it here. How did Batman think he could swing around all over the place on a rope wearing a kilt! Surely that's not gonna end well. From August 1953. Cover art Win Mortimer. " />
Don’t worry, I’m sure he'll have something in his Utility Sporran to help him avoid any embarrassing situations.
May 1949: This month features the return of Bob Montana from his four years in the Army Signal Corps back to being a full-time comic book artist. Montana had been able to do a few Archie jobs during the war, but for the most part the Riverdale crew suffered art-wise during his absence. Montana had greatly improved as a artist during those years, and with his return, we start to see the character designs come closer to those we are most familiar with. So this month I'm going with two covers, Archie Comics #38 and Pep Comics #73, both penciled and inked by Montana.
June 1949: The late ’40s/early ’50s was the height of the western genre, and this month saw 21 different western issues hit the stand. So why not go with a western—specifically Western Adventures #5 from Ace Publications with a cover by Max Elkan.
Little is known about Maxwell Elkan. He was a good artist, but never a go-to guy. He worked for a lot of companies, including Quality, Fawcett, and DC, and he rarely worked on any one title for more than a few months. He entered the field around 1942 and left in 1952, though he did a handful of jobs over the next few years, and one final job for Dell in 1962. It's unknown what he did after comics, but given his anonymity, he likely went into advertising.
Ghost Comics #2 Spring 1952 Cover: Maurice Whitman
Ghost Comics were published by Fiction House starting in 1951 running for 11 issues. The Ghost Comics covers by Maurice Whitman were definitely sought after with their well-endowed frightened females fleeing from phantoms. The covers alone are worth the price. Enjoy! You can enjoy Ghost Comics again - or for the first time - with this public domain portal online here or here.
Captain Action #3 - from March 1969. Cover art by Gil Kane and Dick Giordano. Unusually for DC silver-age comics, they've been acknowledged on the cover. The artwork inside was mostly drawn by Kane and the great Wally Wood.
July 1949: More western action with Lone Ranger #13 with cover art by Morris Gollub. Morris “Mo” (or sometimes “Moe”) Gollub was a highly skilled, versatile artist who was adept at drawing funny animal stories as well as more realistic adventure stories. He started his career in the mid-’30s as a WPA muralist, and in 1937 he became an animator for Disney where he worked on Bambi (he storyboarded the stag fight scene) and various shorts, though he left Disney before Bambi was released in 1942. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Gollub left to serve in the Navy as a photographer’s mate in the South Pacific.
After the war, his friend Walt Kelly got him work at Dell drawing funny animal comics. His first confirmed job was for Four Color #128, where his “Santa and the Angel” story appeared alongside a Walt Kelly story. Fittingly, he also drew Dell’s adaptation of Bambi. He stuck with Dell/Western for his entire comic book career, though he quickly shifted from funny animal stories (which he didn’t feel he was very good at) to adventure stories, particularly westerns and Tarzan. Gollub was a fan of westerns (particularly a fan of Tom Mix from his childhood), and loved and rode horses, so he was a natural fit for books like Lone Ranger.
By the end of the ’40s, Gollub was mostly a cover artist for Dell, which he most often painted. He got back into the animation field in the ’50s, and it seems he was in demand, as he worked on the best shows: Jonny Quest, The Flintstones, Space Ghost, the original Scooby Doo, Where Are You, etc. He left comics in 1971 (presumably because the pay was no longer good enough), but stuck around in animation until his death in 1984, most notably as a layout artist on 36 episodes of The Smurfs.
Aug. 1949: Four Color #241 with cover art by Ralph Heimdahl. Heimdahl started his career as an animator for Disney in 1937, where he worked on such features as Snow White and Fantasia. When the Bugs Bunny Sunday strip (which had been running since 1942) added a daily strip, Heimdahl got the job, which remained his until the late ’70s. He eventually took over the Sunday strip as well, and it was for Bugs Bunny than Heimdahl is best known. But he also did a fair amount of work in comics (primarily Bugs Bunny related material) from 1947 up until his death in 1981—mostly covers, but a number of stories as well.
A great cover here. This was one of the first comics I ever read. I was always a big Adventure fan, especially when the Legion were in it. I loved that pitch black background. Adventure #312. Sept 1963. Cover art Curt Swan, George Klein, John Forte.
Sept. 1949: There are so many covers to choose from this month. I'd like to talk about the photo cover for Headline Comics #37, which is notable because Jack Kirby is one of the models (a gangster being apprehended by the cops), and how photo covers were becoming very common on comics (29 covers this month had photographs for cover art). I'd like to talk about Owen Fitzgerald’s gorgeous cover to Starlet O’Hara in Hollywood #4 (the last issue of the short-lived series), but I'll get to Fitzgerald eventually. Then there’s Louise Altson’s cover for Junior Miss #36, which I consider to be her best cover, but I can't find a good scan, and I can talk about her in three months time. And there’s the cover to Four Color #247 and its cover of an underwater Flash Gordon by Aquaman creator Paul Norris, which is probably his best cover.
But I'm putting all those aside to focus on EC’s Gunfighter #11 and its cover by “Not Yet Ghastly” Graham Ingels. Yes, before Ingels became known as one of the best horror artists of all time, Ingels drew superheroes and westerns. And I wish he had done more westerns, as his style is an interesting departure from the typical cowboy fare of the day. This isn't Tom Mix or Gene Autry; this feels more like Sam Peckinpah. There's so much texture to the image, you can taste the dust being kicked up. And yet when it comes to the damsel in distress, he takes a less-is-more approach and doesn't even bother to delineate between her knees. There's so much movement and energy in the piece.
I won't get into Ingels’ biography yet, as I'm sure I'll talk about another of his covers down the road. But Gunfighter is a title that doesn't really get talked about with EC—the focus is usually on the horror, war, and sci-fi titles that made them famous. In fact, while this title started with issue #5 after taking over the numbering from a humor title, starting with issue #15 it would be renamed Haunt of Fear. I've never read Gunfighter, but it has interior art by Ingels, Al Feldstein, and Johnny Craig, (along with Wally Wood inking Harry Harrison in the last two issues) so I imagine it's worth checking out.
Oct. 1949: This month it's All-Star Comics #49 with a cover penciled by either Arthur Peddy or Irwin Hasen, and inked by Bernie Sachs. It was originally believed to have been drawn by Hasen, but then he denied having drawn it. Years later when shown the original art, Hasen said that he did draw it. It really is hard to tell though, because Sachs, who inked both artists frequently, tended to make them both look a bit more like Sachs than themselves. My personal feeling is that it's more likely Peddy, based on little things like Wonder Woman's nose and the detailing of the bridge in the background. But we'll probably never have a definitive answer.
Peddy began his comics career in 1939, working for a variety of publishers until settling in with Quality in 1940, where he co-created the original Phantom Lady, not only designing the character, but at least on occasion providing some dialogue. He moved to Hillman in 1942 before entering the war. When he returned from service he mainly drew Airboy and “The Heap” for Hillman before making the big move to DC in 1948 where he did the bulk of his work (outside of some romance comics for St. John in the early to mid-’50s) for the rest of his comics career, most notably on All-Star Comics and Wonder Woman. He left comics in 1967 and got into TV advertising.
Though much of his comic book work is fairly simply drawn, I think that was more for speed and to match what other artist were doing on the books he drew. Judging by sketches he drew during the war, his natural style seems to have been more illustrative (though there was certainly a bit of cartooniness there as well), which shows up from time to time in his late ’50s and ’60s work.
Nov. 1949: I'm passing over one of my favorite Oksner Leave It to Binky covers, and a fantastic Little Lulu cover in favor of this early painted cover by Norm Saunders for Fawcett’s Tom Mix Western #23.
I mentioned a while back that Carl Buettner was an influence on Saunders when they were both on staff at Fawcett. Saunders was there from 1928 to 1934 before leaving to become an illustrator for the burgeoning pulp magazines. It was during those early years in New York that he took evening lessons from the great Howard Pyle, and his career took off. During the peak years of the pulps, he was producing 100 painted covers a year for $25-75 a piece—good money in those days. Just prior to the war, he began to break into the slicks—the prestige magazines—and he was able to continue some of that work while serving as a Master Sergeant in the Army.
After the war, Saunders worked in a variety of mediums—the slowly dying pulps, the occasional job for the slicks, paperback covers... and comics. His first comics work was for the company where it all began for him: Fawcett. In 1950 he started working mostly for Ziff-Davis painting a variety of genres. But as with many artists of the time, he was forced to leave comics in the mid-’50s.
The ’60s was not a great time to be a magazine illustrator, as more and more of those jobs went to photographers. But among other things, Saunders began doing steady work for Topps trading cards, most famously the Mars Attacks series and the 1970s series Wacky Packages.
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Swamp Thing #12 by the talented Nestor Redondo (September-October 1974)
Obviously, a traumatic experience, because I remember it so clearly! (ha)
Avengers #126 (August 1974) by Ron Wilson and Frank Giacoia
Black Cat was a title with something of an identity crisis. Though clearly Harvey’s most popular character at the time, as the superhero comics slipped into decline, Harvey focused on the western aspects of Black Cat’s character, even renaming the title Black Cat Western with this issue. But it didn't stick. As of issue #20, the title was back to plain old Black Cat again. From there it gets a bit confusing, so here's a list:
Issues #1-15: Black Cat
#16-19: Black Cat Western
#20-28: Black Cat
#29-53: Black Cat Mystery
#54: Black Cat Western Mystery
#55-56: Black Cat Western
#57: Black Cat Mystery
#58-62: Black Cat Mystic
and after a three-year gap it was back to straight superheroics, #63-65: Black Cat
From August 1953. Cover art Win Mortimer.
How about Deadly Hands of Kung Fu (April 1974), with a painted cover by Neal Adams?
Had this one and loved it!
And the original image, by Tom Palmer, via his site
Little is known about Maxwell Elkan. He was a good artist, but never a go-to guy. He worked for a lot of companies, including Quality, Fawcett, and DC, and he rarely worked on any one title for more than a few months. He entered the field around 1942 and left in 1952, though he did a handful of jobs over the next few years, and one final job for Dell in 1962. It's unknown what he did after comics, but given his anonymity, he likely went into advertising.
From October 1952 The Thing #5. Cover pencils and inks by Lou Morales.
Spring 1952
Cover: Maurice Whitman
Ghost Comics were published by Fiction House starting in 1951 running for 11 issues. The Ghost Comics covers by Maurice Whitman were definitely sought after with their well-endowed frightened females fleeing from phantoms. The covers alone are worth the price. Enjoy! You can enjoy Ghost Comics again - or for the first time - with this public domain portal online here or here.
The artwork inside was mostly drawn by Kane and the great Wally Wood.
After the war, his friend Walt Kelly got him work at Dell drawing funny animal comics. His first confirmed job was for Four Color #128, where his “Santa and the Angel” story appeared alongside a Walt Kelly story. Fittingly, he also drew Dell’s adaptation of Bambi. He stuck with Dell/Western for his entire comic book career, though he quickly shifted from funny animal stories (which he didn’t feel he was very good at) to adventure stories, particularly westerns and Tarzan. Gollub was a fan of westerns (particularly a fan of Tom Mix from his childhood), and loved and rode horses, so he was a natural fit for books like Lone Ranger.
By the end of the ’40s, Gollub was mostly a cover artist for Dell, which he most often painted. He got back into the animation field in the ’50s, and it seems he was in demand, as he worked on the best shows: Jonny Quest, The Flintstones, Space Ghost, the original Scooby Doo, Where Are You, etc. He left comics in 1971 (presumably because the pay was no longer good enough), but stuck around in animation until his death in 1984, most notably as a layout artist on 36 episodes of The Smurfs.
Adventure #312. Sept 1963. Cover art Curt Swan, George Klein, John Forte.
But I'm putting all those aside to focus on EC’s Gunfighter #11 and its cover by “Not Yet Ghastly” Graham Ingels. Yes, before Ingels became known as one of the best horror artists of all time, Ingels drew superheroes and westerns. And I wish he had done more westerns, as his style is an interesting departure from the typical cowboy fare of the day. This isn't Tom Mix or Gene Autry; this feels more like Sam Peckinpah. There's so much texture to the image, you can taste the dust being kicked up. And yet when it comes to the damsel in distress, he takes a less-is-more approach and doesn't even bother to delineate between her knees. There's so much movement and energy in the piece.
I won't get into Ingels’ biography yet, as I'm sure I'll talk about another of his covers down the road. But Gunfighter is a title that doesn't really get talked about with EC—the focus is usually on the horror, war, and sci-fi titles that made them famous. In fact, while this title started with issue #5 after taking over the numbering from a humor title, starting with issue #15 it would be renamed Haunt of Fear. I've never read Gunfighter, but it has interior art by Ingels, Al Feldstein, and Johnny Craig, (along with Wally Wood inking Harry Harrison in the last two issues) so I imagine it's worth checking out.
Peddy began his comics career in 1939, working for a variety of publishers until settling in with Quality in 1940, where he co-created the original Phantom Lady, not only designing the character, but at least on occasion providing some dialogue. He moved to Hillman in 1942 before entering the war. When he returned from service he mainly drew Airboy and “The Heap” for Hillman before making the big move to DC in 1948 where he did the bulk of his work (outside of some romance comics for St. John in the early to mid-’50s) for the rest of his comics career, most notably on All-Star Comics and Wonder Woman. He left comics in 1967 and got into TV advertising.
Though much of his comic book work is fairly simply drawn, I think that was more for speed and to match what other artist were doing on the books he drew. Judging by sketches he drew during the war, his natural style seems to have been more illustrative (though there was certainly a bit of cartooniness there as well), which shows up from time to time in his late ’50s and ’60s work.
Cover artwork by Al Avison.
Spider-Man #75 from August 1969. Inked by Jim Mooney.
Reminds me so much of Superman #204 from a year earlier.
I mentioned a while back that Carl Buettner was an influence on Saunders when they were both on staff at Fawcett. Saunders was there from 1928 to 1934 before leaving to become an illustrator for the burgeoning pulp magazines. It was during those early years in New York that he took evening lessons from the great Howard Pyle, and his career took off. During the peak years of the pulps, he was producing 100 painted covers a year for $25-75 a piece—good money in those days. Just prior to the war, he began to break into the slicks—the prestige magazines—and he was able to continue some of that work while serving as a Master Sergeant in the Army.
After the war, Saunders worked in a variety of mediums—the slowly dying pulps, the occasional job for the slicks, paperback covers... and comics. His first comics work was for the company where it all began for him: Fawcett. In 1950 he started working mostly for Ziff-Davis painting a variety of genres. But as with many artists of the time, he was forced to leave comics in the mid-’50s.
The ’60s was not a great time to be a magazine illustrator, as more and more of those jobs went to photographers. But among other things, Saunders began doing steady work for Topps trading cards, most famously the Mars Attacks series and the 1970s series Wacky Packages.