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Saturday, February 11, 2012

Adventure Comics # 95, December/January, 1944-45


More propaganda and another nice cover that sure looks like Kirby's work.
 




BUZZY was DC's first response to ARCHIE (before BINKY). Although he was originally drawn in an extremely stylized fashion (as per the cover below), he'd eventually get a more realistic look and last for more than a decade.



Friday, February 10, 2012

Adventure Comics # 94, October/November, 1944


Looks like another Kirby cover to me. Not sure why they continued listing S&K on the SANDMAN stories long after it was obvious they weren't doing them (although they were still being ghosted in something akin to their style).. 



Shining KNight and Starman are the only two legit superheroes left besides Sandman.




Thursday, February 9, 2012

Adventure Comics # 93, August/September, 1944


I'm willing to go out on a limb here and say that this striking cover really is Kirby! The story inside, however, is just as clearly not. NOte more wartime support for the 5th War Loan.



HANDY ANDY would later resurface as a legitimate non-fiction feature in ADVENTURE.



Here's a fun Genius Jones adventure with a radio setting.







The strip below, JOE JAM, is the first black and white strip to appear here in several years.


RC and Quickie would appear in ads for Royal Crown Cola for several years and they were more often than not better drawn than comics they were in!

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Adventure Comics # 92, June/July, 1944



Here we have an absolutely striking cover that may or may not be by Simon and Kirby as signed. They had done some work far in advance for all of their titles. I'm leaning toward not, myself...but still a great cover!

Note on the inside cover ad that DC now had way too many titles to boast of their "Big Six."


This is the first of several SANDMAN stories by one Pen Shumaker who would pretty much finish out the character's Golden Age run and then move over to Archie.




Here's another particularly good art job by Emil Gershwin, once again channeling Jack Burnley's great early stories.






Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Adventure Comics # 91, April-May, 1944


What can you say about an issue whose highlight is a one page BATMAN AND ROBIN propaganda PSA by Jerry Robinson?

By this point S&K were in the military. GCD credits this, a reasonably good attempt at aping their style, to future comics superstar Gil Kane. 







This is said to be Jim Mooney art on MANHUNTER. Mooney would become a fixture at DC for many years but also did quite a bit of art for Marvel.



Supposedly there's a MILE GIBBS, GUERILLA story here, also, but my scan doesn't have it. I know you're all upset. What we do see here is, I believe, the earliest example of the classic and oft-parodied Charles Atlas ad to appear in this title.