Number 514


Matt Baker's Leg Show


Man, Matt Baker could draw girls. Voluptuous girls: girls with headlights on high beam and girls with legs. Long, long legs and he made sure you got to see them. If Baker hadn't died in his thirties he could have gone on to pin-up art, a la Gil Elvgren or Peter Driben, or even another ex-comic book man, Jay Scott Pike.

Sky Girl, who finds a way to show off her perfect pins in nearly every panel, is from Jumbo Comics #93. Flamingo, who also gives us a peek beneath her skirt, is scanned from Pacific Comics' Jerry Iger's Famous Features #1, July 1984. It's a previously unpublished story. Baker worked for Jerry Iger's comic book shop. Flamingo was a property developed by Iger, Baker and writer Ruth Roche for a daily newspaper strip.

Here's to Baker, here's to Baker's babes, here's to Baker's babes' legs!

Number 513


You've gotta be a football hero...


It's baseball season, so I'm showing you a football strip.

Our teenage buddy, Dudley, is the hero of his high school football team, much to the chagrin of his "friend", Milt (and haven't we all had a "friend" like Milt?) Dudley does his football derring-do without a helmet! What a guy! The story is the last from Dudley #1, 1949, drawn and written by the great Boody Rogers. Dudley was a short-lived comic book which competed with Archie.

It's pretty good and deserved a longer run, but it doesn't have the maniacal plots Boody showed in his other comics like Sparky Watts or Babe, Darling of the Hills.

And speaking of those comics, Craig Yoe's Boody, a book of Sparky Watts and Babe strips, is available now. Don't pass it up!

Number 512


London calling!


London, a hero with a blue suit, bowtie, cowl and cape, was created by Jerry Robinson for Charles Biro and Bob Wood, because as I explained in last Sunday's Blackout posting, they wanted some of that Batman magic. Jerry Robinson, one of Kane's assistants, created London, just as another assistant, George Roussos, created the short-lived Blackout.

London went about his business for a short time. This story, drawn by Robinson, is from Daredevil #11 (1942) and is the last appearance of London. He was a non-super, costumed, war-time character. I'm sure by the end of the war, if not sooner, London would have gone back into the inkwell, or wherever it is that secondary comic book characters go when their services are no longer required.

Number 511


Give me my dope, you damn dirty ape!


Dynamic Boy, a short strip from Major Victory #2, 1944, battles a drug ring that uses a real gorilla for an enforcer. It's one of those wild Golden Age strips that has to be seen. The splash panel is suitable for framing.

I got these scans from a Golden Age Comics website in 2003. I'm unable to locate the site again. Some of you may know it. The author of the site would use three or four strips in a composite online "comic book" called Spotlight, or some other names I've forgotten. It was based on Golden Age hero stories, but there were some good ones. Unfortunately it was a couple of hard drive crashes ago for me, so most of the downloading and swiping I did of stories is lost. If you are the originator of these scans please let me know so I can give you credit.

Dynamic Boy looks like he belongs in that blackheads ad. "Gee, Sis, why don't I ever get invited to parties?" "Frankly, D-Boy, it's those ugly blackheads." The Grand Comics Database gives credit for the artwork to Bill Madden.

Number 510


2 x Forte


John Forte was an artist who worked in comics from 1941 until his death in 1965 at the young age of 47. I was familiar with his work in ACG Comics where he did a steady stream of supernatural stories for editor Richard E. Hughes. Imagine my surprise when I saw that he drew Tales of the Bizarro World strips in Adventure Comics. I enjoyed his work with writer Jerry Siegel on that feature.

Here are a couple of fifties Forte strips from Atlas. The pre-Code "Come In and Meet the Folks" is from Astonishing #26, August 1953. "The Darkroom" is from the Code-approved Mystery Tales #42, June 1956. Both of the strips feature pretty young wives, and husbands who have problems with them.