Never Trust a Martian-Don Heck-1961

Halloween always tends to remind folks of Orson Welles' legendary Martian Invasion scare of 1938. Well, here's a different Martian Invasion scare from 1961, 23 years after the original and yet already itself 51 years ago. Time, as they say, flies.

13 and Jinx-Alan Mandel-1943

To quote one site on PD superheroes: 

” Harold Higgins was always a lucky child growing up…until he turned 15 and his parents where murdered. He then dedicated his life to capturing murderers, first as a private-eye and then as a superhero named 13. He is assisted by 16 year old DarrelCreig who takes the sidekick identity of Jinx. 13 seems to possess superhuman luck, but it is unclear if it is truly a superpower.”

Another site sums them up more succinctly as a "half-baked Batman and Robin."

Dr. Dimwit-Basil Wolverton-1943

I cleaned up the scans here as best as I could. Hey, it's Wolverton. It's worth the extra effort. Still hard to believe that a genuinely insane cartoonist of this caliber could be a devout JW whose career-defining work (in HIS mind at least) was illustrating The Book of Revelations from The Bible. This, oddly enough, is from an issue of SUB-MARINER!

Captain America-Jimmy Thompson-1943

The Golden Age Cap stories were action-filled and often featured very stylized work from Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, Syd Shores and more. Here, however, we find some uncharacteristically smooth Cap art credited by GCD to Jimmy Thompson, later known for DC's Robotman. GCD also says page 2 is by Ernie Hart but looks the same to me. Either way...good stuff!

The Menace of the Fireball-Bob Brown-1957

Best remembered for his fairly generic work on CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN, SUPERBOY, BATMAN and DAREDEVIL, Bob Brown was a much more interesting artist early on, as evidenced by this story. I love his faces here. I seem to see influence of Virgil Finlay, Alex Raymond, maybe Leonard Starr, Dan Barry.

Roy and Dusty, Boy Buddies-Bill Vigoda-1944

Back temporarily. I'm a sucker for requests. This one goes out to SDS in NJ. The sidekicks of the Shield and the Wizard (who shared SHIELD-WIZARD COMICS but rarely actually met) go up against a reasonable facsimile of The Shadow, as drawn by Abe's brother (really) Bill Vigoda!

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Liddle Wolfgang-Al Kilgore-1966

Here we have one of those strips that looks pretty much like it could have been an adaptation of a cartoon only it wasn't. Art here is from the brilliant Al Kilgore, perhaps best known for his caricatures and his ROCKY and/or BULLWINKLE comics and strips.

The Three Mice-keteers-Spencer Spook-1955

Here we have another anonymous humor filler but with some of the most non-stop action I've seen in one in ages. (Note all the speed lines and such!) This was an ACG back-up and, of course, was not ot be confused with DC's Three MOUSE-keteers.