Sunday Meskin Measures
As promised, here is the story Mort Meskin did for Orbit's The Westerner (#19). This book, also known as Pecos Bill, is mostly known because it featured Bernie Krigstein's earliest western stories. Regular artists for this book were Mort Leav and Mort Lawrence and later Syd Shores.
The Westerner was published in early 1949, which makes it fit into that period when Mort Meskin was probably starting up after his breakdown. It would have to have been lying around for some time, but the alternative is that he did this story on the side while he was doing a tonload of stories with Jerry Robinson for Standard.
If it hadn't been signed Mort I would probably not have thought it was purely by Meskin. Some of th faces have a Robinson look to them, but then again at that point in their career their styles ashed together so much, you can't really tell. At other points the art doesn't look like either of them and it is almost as if someone else inked or pencilled it. Still, Meskin was able to do quite a few differnt styles so even that is no sign of anything. Thirdly, all through the story Meskin uses circles, something I associate with his earlier work for DC more than his then current work. All in all a pretty mysterious story and quite hard to come by. I had to ook for it for more than two years before I finally nabbed it.
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