Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Cartoonists Make Better Lovers : Matt Baker


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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