Saturday Leftover Day.
Somewhere in late 1949 Dan Heilman stopped doing American Adventure. It took him almost two years to return to the newspapers (unless he did some ghosting in between) with the strip he would be doing for the rest of his career.
Judge Parker was one more step removed from the Milt Caniff style. It still has that sparkle that makes me notice it every time I run across a sample in my newspaper collection. What has stopped me until now from scanning them, is the fact that my colection is so spotty, that I have never been able to read a whole story. After doing American Adventure, I may try and find Judge Parker from the start, incorporating as many color Sundays as I have. From what I have seen, it is one of the better written strips of it's kind. The style itself is quite good, although a bit to close to Alfred Andriola's Kerry Drake (another strip by a former Caniff assistant) for my taste. Kerry Drake is another strip which deserves a good collection. It ran in a lot of papers and had a long run as a reprint comic as well. The stories are gripping, but I just can't seem to warm up to the style, which is just a bit to slick and artificial to me.
Anyway, until I get around to doing Judge Parker, here's the november 1952 announcement.
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