Heroes In Action

 Saturday Research Day.

One of the great unforgotten comic strips of the early forties is Vic Jordan, which was written by the pseudonymous Paine and first illustrated by Elmer Wexler for the PM newspaper and distributed by the Field syndicate. In june 1942 the artwork was taken over by Paul Norris, starting his career as a newspaper artist. A year later he was relieved by a David Moneypenny, who was succeded by Bernard Baily in 1944 and 1945. Clipping the Baily period, I saw that just before his arrival in late February 1944, Moneypenny's story was finished  by no one less than former Batman artist Jerry Robinson. He drew (and signed the strip for two full weeks. Of course, my internet friend Alan Holtz had this in his excellent reference guide American Newpaper Comics (although he did not find the two weeks enough to include it in his seperate Robinson list). But I had never seen them and I am guessing neither did you. I clipped them all, including the last week of Moneypenny and the first day of Baily (which I will contonue later). I noticed that Baily changed the lettering from the start. Maybe he was doing it himself or from another location. But Robinson used the same lettering als Moneypenny, making me wonder if he had not had a hand in Moneypenny's last week...