Friday Comic Book Day.
I haven't made it easy for myself by deciding to show you the first comic book story of Milt Caniff's Steve Canyon (which probably was ghosted by Ray Bailey, except for the heads, just like all the others). Turned out it was book length, so here you have the whole of Four Color #519.
2 comments:
This book is interesting for several reasons. For one thing, in both story and art it's much more "Caniff-y" than the other Canyon Four-Colors. Even the lettering and balloon design are similar to the newspaper strip. Perhaps Caniff had more to do with this book than with the later ones?
Also interesting is that the art draws heavily on the way Caniff was designing characters and drawing clothing during Canyon's first couple of years, which isn't typical of Ray Bailey. Then consider the loving detail put into the bad guys' old-fashioned car. Next check out the construction and inking of the faces of non-hero males like Sr. Espan. Finally, note that the famous Bailey Mountains never appear, though they have plenty of opportunities to.
Based on these observations, I'd bet my spare set of Miss Lace's undergarments that this book was drawn by sometime Caniff ghost William Overgard.
I do not believe this is the work of Ray Bailey. Ray's work is far better especially the figure drawing.
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