Number 2313: Dickie Dean and the hallucination lamp

Dickie Dean was a boy genius inspired by the fictional Tom Swift, who was patterned after the real-life Thomas Edison. In this example of Dickie’s inventiveness, he created a lamp that causes hallucinations. No forcing an enemy to ingest a substance to make him see things that weren’t there...Dickie just turned it on by flipping a switch, which in turn turned the enemy on.

Dickie should have warned his buddy, Zip, who has a really bad trip thanks to Dickie’s lamp.

Dickie Dean was created by Jack Cole and first appeared in Silver Streak Comics #7 (1940). Bob Montana also drew Dickie Dean. He did this episode close to the time he drew the first story featuring Archie for Pep Comics. Charles Biro, editor of Silver Streak Comics, had also worked for MLJ, publisher of Pep Comics before the MLJ line began its transition from wild blood-and-thunder superhero adventures to a line devoted to teenage hijinks.

This episode is from Silver Streak Comics #20 (1941), drawn by Bob Montana.

Number 2300: The Fox from Montana

The Montana mentioned in the title of this, my 2300th posting for this blog, is artist Bob Montana. He is best known for being the artist who gave the original look to Archie and his gang back in 1942. Before he became linked to Archie (comic books and a long-running newspaper comic strip), he drew more regular comic book fare for various publishers. That includes this episode of the Fox from Blue-Ribbon Comics #18 (1941).

Montana could draw superhero action as well as the more passive Archie teenage poses. He could also draw the sort of thing that caused the hue and cry of those who thought comic books unfit for young minds. The splash panel for this tale is a good example. In Archie comics being “stabbed in the back” was not shown as literal, as it is here.

Number 2138: Montana and Wolverton, comic book/comic strips

Bob Montana had a career drawing the Archie characters for a successful newspaper comic strip. I read it every day in my daily newspaper, and liked it more than the comic books, which were aimed at a younger audience. Before his comic strip work, Montana worked in comic books, both for MLJ (later Archie Comics) and Comic House, where this Dickie Dean, Boy Inventor feature appeared. Montana died young, at age 54, of a heart attack. It was a loss I still feel when I remember reading about his death in 1975.

On the other hand, despite having a national audience in 1948 when he won Al Capp’s Lena the Hyena contest for the Li'l Abner comic strip, Basil Wolverton just never achieved his dream of a daily newspaper feature. In the early days of comic books many of the early artists for that genre worked toward achieving the success of someone like Al Capp. These episodes of Wolverton’s character, Scoop Scuttle, are done in the daily strip format, and were likely prepared originally to sell to a newspaper syndicate. Many are called, but few are chosen, as the cliché goes. It was a tough field to enter, whereas early comic books allowed artists great latitude, and during the height of their early popularity, a lot easier to get a job with them than a newspaper.

Both the Dickie and Scoop episodes I am showing today were published in Silver Streak Comics #20 (1942).

Number 1815: Bob Montana and the boy inventor

Bob Montana, most famous for his work on the Archie newspaper comic strip (at one time carried by 750 newspapers), came up the usual way of many cartoonists of the era, through comic books. He worked for MLJ and also for the Lev Gleason line of comics. Here is an example of his early work in these episodes of Dickie Dean, Boy Inventor. Dickie was a secondary Lev Gleason character, appearing in various titles, drawn by various artists. He was a Tom Swift-inspired character, a genius youngster who came up with important inventions, many of which he donated to the U.S. government.

This story, from the last issue of Silver Streak Comics (#21, 1942), is an example of how good Montana was, even at a young age. Born in 1920, he was 21 or 22 when this was published. I have also included a two-page Dickie Dean strip from the first issue of Crime Does Not Pay, which continued its numbering from Silver Streak at #22. The strip is a patriotic plug for what young readers can do to help the war effort. Montana caricatures himself at the very end, right across from a cartoon of Uncle Sam, drawn with a toothy Archie-like grin.

Number 980


Bob Montana's Archie


This is the oldest Archie comic book story I have. It's by Bob Montana, from Pep Comics #31, 1942. From a humble beginning as a backup strip Archie took over the MLJ Comics line, and probably in the nick of time. As a reader turned the page of this issue from the last page of Archie he came across a Paul Reinman "Bentley of Scotland Yard" page showing a corpse impaled on a church steeple, dripping blood. MLJ cleaned up its act a lot with Archie, and probably had more than a few critics of the violent, gore-dripping comics of its wilder years before the publishers turned the company over to the Riverdale gang, and the pre-teen/teenage readers.

Montana, who drew Archie until the end of his life at age 54 (too young!) in 1975, did the newspaper comic strip version, which I read religiously. My newspaper dropped the strip shortly after Montana's death. I've included some early Archie newspaper strip originals by Montana I found on Heritage Auctions.

In this story we have the first appearance of Veronica's dad, Mr. Lodge.