This funny tale is cover-featured on Frankenstein #3 (1946). It’s by — who else? — Dick Briefer.
Briefer shows a magician named The Great Bruce. It is a caricature of Bruce Elliott, who helped Briefer write this issue. I don’t know a lot about Elliott except that he did some of the Shadow pulp novels, subbing for regular Shadow author Walter Gibson.
Briefer, who also did a comic strip for The Daily Worker, the Communist Party USA newspaper, takes a humorous dig at capitalism early in the story. Being a known communist in the postwar era would have presented a problem with the general public and certainly would have him on the FBI’s list. I don’t know if Briefer later changed his politics, nor do I know if his affiliation with the party was common knowledge amongst his peers or publishers.
