New Adventure Comics # 22, December, 1937

Another great Flessel cover on yet another Christmas issue. Inside, we even get an editorial Christmas wish spotlighting all three of the Major's comics--MORE FUN, ADVENTURE and DETECTIVE. 

 G-WOMAN is another long strip with giant, often full-page, panels. Seen here is the first page and the last page, the latter interesting in that for no apparent reason there's a Lionel Train ad in the upper right hand corner!

 DON COYOTE has been a regular feature all along and has long since become one of the better strips both in art and story, I alternated between color and black and white from issue to issue. .

Above is a tongue-in-cheek cartoon featured in this issue's movie review pages.

New Adventure Comics # 21, November, 1937

You can't tell it from the indicia yet but according to most histories, Harry Donenfeld and Jack Liebowitz, publishers themselves of risque pulps, brought in as Major Wheeler-Nicholson's printer and distributor in 1935, had wrangled a partnership deal and were soon to force the Major out completely in a hostile takeover.

A few new strips, again oddly all humor, this time. JONAH JONES was by Editor Ellsworth and SHIFTY SMITH and VARIETY SHOW are credited to Alger (Russell Cole).

 WINNFIELD brings up the rear and offers some already very polished cartooning by Gill Fox (signed in Panel 4 although GCD has a question mark so they apparently missed that). Fox would go on to a long and successful career in comics, pin-up art, advertising and newspaper strips. Much of his comics work would be for Quality Comics. Eventually he became a well-respected political cartoonist and would also become a bit of a comics historian in later years.

New Adventure Comics # 20, October, 1937

 Note in this issues introduction below that FEDERAL MEN is described as "increasingly popular" which would. in theory, make Siegel and Shuster quite the big shots among the comics creators in these "all new" strips made just for this new medium. By the time they sold SUPERMAN, in other words, still more than six months away here, they were a known, proven commodity, not just a couple of hopeful kids from Cleveland.

 Do you poop out at parties? Learn to play harmonica!

Note the similarity of this opening scene from FEDERAL MEN to the strip's sole spot on the cover a fw issues back.

 What the heck is this below? Definitely not one of the Major's comics. A pulp, perhaps?

New Adventure Comics # 19, September, 1937

With the newly returned editorial message on the inside front cover of this issue, we note that this isV2, issue 7 as well as issue 19. Obviously, then, each set of 12 issues was considered a volume.

Another fun Flessel cover here. Not much new inside. There's a nicely drawn new two page humor piece called PLATO PSMITH signed with the distinctively stylized signature of co-editor Vin Sullivan.

Here's another sampling of the highly contrasting art styles of some of the many features in these early issues.

New Adventure Comics # 18, August, 1937

Another Flessel cover this time but not really that much of an adventure...unless surfing was considered adventurous in those days. Still quite a mix between humor and adventures trips with the few new ones this time being humor again.