Here is
another mystery-man strip delineated by master cartoonist Harry
Lucey.
The cover
date is August 1940 and the magazine is an Ace publication called
SUPER-MYSTERY COMICS. I ask you to step back a moment and consider a
few things. It can be easy for modern viewers to look at these early,
Golden Age stories and dismiss them as naïve, crude and simplistic.
You need to realize that guys like Lucey, Tuska, Kirby, Cole and
Eisner weren’t just working in comics, they were literally
inventing the form during this era. Graphic stories told complete in
a handful of pages were a totally new medium and these guys were
experimenting in how to successfully pull this off. They laid the
roadway to the comic book form we all love.
This
particular tale is the second one for the Magno character who was one
of the publisher’s most popular. Besides a long run in
SUPER-MYSTERY, the hero was a regular in a sister title called FOUR
FAVORITES. By his fourth story Magno would acquire an obligatory boy
sidekick named Davey. The strip continue to run through 1945, a
respectable shelf life for strips of the era.
Even in
these early days, Lucey had a knack for drawing saucy women and I
really dig his conception for the baddie’s rubber suits. However
primitive this comic is still a lotta fun!
Pat
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