Before John Cullen Murphy drew the fifties boxing strip Big Ben Bolt, he was mainly active as a sports illustrator for various magazines. One of his most important clients was Collier's, but I have also seen his work in Boy's Life and other places. This piece, taken from the relatively unknown man's digest 21, is a bit different. For the larger magazines he usually illustrated articles and short stories by others, often not only in line but also in full color. This piece reads as if it is put together by Murphy himself and looks like an early example of comics journalism - very similar to the articles Harvey Kurtzman had some of his artists *such as Paul Coker, Jack Davis and Robert crumb) do for the satirical Help! magazine in the early sixties. A magazine that Joe Sacco knew about when he did his groundbreaking books on Gaza and Bosnia.
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