The Fabuleous Fifties

Starr on Stage

Friday Comic Book Day.

Leonard Starr did a lot of work for the early issues of House of Mystery. He also did some western work for DC, which I will show someday. But one of the most satisfying series he did for DC, was Star Spangled's Ghostbreaker. For all (or mos) of it's run Star Spangled had been the home of Tomahawk en Robin, the Boy Wonder strips. And for most collectors, it is still remembered chiefly as that. But this little series took the front page and was promoted to lead story from the start. It was the early fifties and horror was what was selling. DC followed suit and appointed one of their newest and slickest artists to the job. He was even allowed to sign his work, whatever that may mean. Maybe he was the only one who wanted to?

Here is where DC's policy of only reprinting titles or characters backfires for them There are loads of interesting series that did not get a long run. They did do a Black Canary book, but there are still lots of gems to be found hidden in their books, such as the Mort Meskin dran Vigilante and Johnny Quick I have been showing on Sundays, Carmine Infantino's Ghost Patrol or Foley of the Fifth, with a couple of very impressive first stories by Joe Kubert. Well, at least you can see some of them here.

This is the sort of post that would get me a lot of visitors through Dirk Deppey's Journalista! newssite, which unfortunately has been closed down just before CHristmas. I was a great source of stuff and I miss it dailey. Not in the last place, bevcause he always linked to my best posts and generated a lot of traffic for me.

I woul be amiss not to mention the Classic Coomic Press reprint series of Leonard Starr's Mary Perkins on Stage. The best written soap opera strip of it's day. Volume 8 has just been published, with a new cover by Mr. Starr, who is still with us and capable of producing some very impressive work.