Monday, October 19, 2009


Number 613

Star Pirate


I love Star Pirate, a regular series from Planet Comics, drawn by Murphy Anderson.

I first saw Anderson's work in the late '50s in DC's Mystery in Space and Strange Adventures. I love his clean artwork, his well drawn characters, muscular guys, beautiful girls. Murphy was young, in his late teens and early twenties, when he drew episodes of Star Pirate. But he was thoroughly professional, as he continued to be throughout his career.

Many times I've written of the journeymen in comics, the guys who went in and slogged it out for low page rates and gave it the best they could, month after month, year after year. Anderson drew syndicated strips (most notably stints on Buck Rogers). He drew many comic books, and though he could draw anything, I remember him best for science fiction and super-heroes. Star Pirate is in the best Planet Comics tradition: sexy girls, action heroes, rocket ships and ray guns. It's obvious from looking at this that he had a lot of fun doing it.

This Star Pirate episode is from Planet Comics #46, January 1947. I showed another in Pappy's #409.








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4 comments:

  1. Daniel [oeconomist.com]12:03 PM

    Hey, this is nicer than the previous Star Pirate work that I'd seen by Anderson! It's more like the clean, precise work by Anderson at DC that I saw as a child!

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  2. Pappy1:17 PM

    Anderson started his career young and was precocious for a kid just out of his teens. His early work is heavily influenced by early Lou Fine, and nothing wrong with that, but while I like this funky '40s stuff I really love his mature style.

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  3. HEH9:31 PM

    Whoah, I'm now exposed to Star Pirate! Really nice to see some early Murphy Anderson work - gorgeous!

    Were there any notable Planet Comic reprint collections ever published?

    Thanks for sharing the images and enlightening me a bit more in the golden age era of comics.

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  4. Mykal Banta7:32 AM

    Pappy: I have been enjoying Anderson's work via the wonderful DC Archive editions of Hawkman, and you can definatly see the same artists at work. I really like this stuff a lot in its ornate detail; but he seemed to really have his stuff forged into a personal style by Hawkman.

    That first panel is really something, though, and completely tells you all you need to know about what to expect! Thanks for sharing. -- Mykal

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