If
you asked a genre fan to make a list of the top 5 romance artists,
I’d bet the house that the name Matt Baker would be one of the
five, indeed a significant number would have him at the top. Besides
being an excellent draftsman and superb storyteller, Baker had an
astounding knack for delineating beautiful, sexy women. Often this
talent was exploited with underdressed jungle heroines or scantily
clad superwomen (like his iconic Phantom Lady) but the skill served
him equally well on love stories.
Baker
did an awful lot of work at St. John. Today’s examples are culled
from that publishers comic magazine TEEN-AGE ROMANCES.
“Wild
Desires Made Me Love-Blind” is a 9-pager from issue 12
“Could
I Live Down My Past?” stems from the prior issue of the title.
Baker
was unique in another respect in that he was one of the few (perhaps
only) African American artists of the Golden Age. I can’t help but
smirk at what some good ‘ol boy might have done if he’s known the
uber-erotic blonde goddess he was ogling in the pages of his
funnybook came from the imagination of a brother! The world of comics
was dealt a heavy blow when Baker passed away at age 38 from a heart
attack.
Pat
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