Thursday, December 30, 2010

The Case of the Forgotten Gem

Thursday Story Strip Day.

I sometimes see my blog as a storehouse for everything that has justly or unjustly been forgotten about the fifties aving to do with comcis and newspaper strips. Todays entry is no forgotten gem but it has some merit. Perry Mason was one of the most succesful American detective series with new adventures in the weekly magazines of the day drawing lots and lots of reader. In fact, if this were an illustration blog, I would be giving those lavishly illustrated stories a lot of space. To have his adventures being made into a newspaper strory, which has not one but two name artists working for it, is at least something notable. Perry Mason had three artists in totalm the first ne pretty unknown to me, the secnd one the underrate workhorse Mel Keefer and thidly a very young (fresh out of school) Frank Thorne. The stories ran daily and wekly, but the paper I have these scans from was so bad, that including the dailies would only have made it more unreadble. As for the stories, I am not sure. I don't think the whole whodunnit thing works in ths format, but I have to read some more to really see. What do you think? If there is anyone out there, who can share some real clippings, I'd love to show them.














3 comments:

rnigma said...

Interesting! Especially if forego any memories of Raymond Burr and the TV series. (There was a Dell comic based on the TV show but it only lasted 4 issues.)
Mel Keefer is still alive and active (check out his website at melkeefer.com).

Ger Apeldoorn said...

I knew of the site, but he has been adding more stuff. Interesting. Someone should really do a career spanning interview with him.

The Seditionist said...

Which of these were done by Thorne?