The Eternal 'Prentiss

Saturday Leftover Day. 

Another American Armed Force features strip, this one a bit later. It may have started somewhere in 1955 and continued into 1959. My source does not have issues for 1956 or 1958, I am still hoping someone has those issues. Art- or gagwise is not very special, but it is signed Shelly, which usually means it is done by newspaper and comic book artist Shelly Moldoff - the man best nown for not being known as Bob Kane's ghost on Batman.

Fighting Spirit

Monday Surprise Day.

As promised, Mondays are for stuff you haven't seen here bfore. Or anywhere, I would guess. This Athletes panel was one of the regular features of a weekly army Sunday section that was inserted in several Camp newspapers. It featured many unknown strips by cartoonists and familiar newspaper strip names. Paul Tumey (who recently announced a must-have book of screwball strips with Fantagraphics) and I both found one of the early issues and deducted there must be more. And indeed, the paper appeared at least from 1956 to 1964 - although it is rarely seen. Paul found an online source for it that has most of the years (though sadly lacking some of the more interesting early years). I will let Paul reveal more about it, when he gets around to it. But here is at least one of the features, started by Batman ghost Shelly Moldoff, taken over by cartoonist Hap Lyons and finished off by a Jack Debo (which seems like a pseudonym to me).

Super Detective

Saturday Leftover Day.

After the succes of the Batman television series, the newspaper strip that had been cancelled in 1946 was tried again. And like the television series, it was a pretty sorry affair. The strip ran on Sunday from 1966 to 1969 and daily from 1966 to 1974. At first is was as camp as the television series, with appreances by celebrities like Jack Benny. The Sundays were ghosted by Shelly Moldoff for the first half year and taken over by DC house inker Joe Giella in 1967 and Al Plastino in 1968. Somewhere in there, Carmine Infantino gave a hand as well and although he was no longer officially there, I see his hand in some of these 1967 strips. But that could be Joe Giella stealing Infantino's poses as well.