Hired as a successor to the late Buck Jones, Whip Wilson was ultimately a low-rent version of Lash LaRue...who wasn't exactly A-List to begin with. Whip definitely had his fans, though. My dad talked about him for years. Toward the end of his brief film career, he ended up, like many of his B-Western compatriots, with his own comic book. At only three issues, his four color career was even briefer than his movie stardom.
Walter Gibson's THE SHADOW had a long and fondly remembered career in the pulps as well as in radio but somehow his ability to "cloud men's minds" never really has caught on in comics. His original Street and Smith run in the forties lasted quite awhile but was not the best drawn strip ever. I've been spending a lot of time with Lamont Cranston lately, though, and there's just something about the character, even at its worst. Art here is credited to Charles Coll but the script is credited to Gibson himself.
Mystico may look supremely dull but his back story was wild. I couldn't say it any better than the Public Domain Super Heroes Wiki so here's what they had to say: Mystico was a mummy stolen from his museum by Dr. Slade, a mad scientist who resurrects him with a life-restoring "vita-ray." However, the vita-rays were turned up too high, and the machine explodes. The explosion not only destroys Slade's lab, but it also kills Dr. Slade. However, Mystico is revived and decides to become a crime fighter. His super powers were magic-based and did whatever the plot required. Here he fights some creepy creatures!
Here we have TIPPY, one of the more blatant female ARCHIE clones. Perhaps that's because her misadventures were published and edited by Archie vets Harry Shorten and Samm Schwartz with anonymous art by other Archie vets including Bob White, Dan DeCarlo and, as seen here, Harry Lucey (according to GCD). TIPPY TEEN was the most successful character to come out of Shorten's Tower Comics, best remembered for Wally Wood's T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS. It was so successful, in fact, that just a few years after the character's final issue in 1969, she was revived in reprints at Atlas Comics with bad printing and a name change to VICKI!
Sub-Zero and his eskimo sidekick Freezum appeared in BLUE BOLT in the early forties. They can freeze things with rays from their fingers you see. In fact, they freeze the water coming over a giant dam in this story! Well..we're told they do. Oddly artist John Daly--who is not the newsman associated with WHAT'S MY LINE?--chose not to actually show that. Instead, we're told it's about to happen and in the next panel, rather than the showstopper we could have been given, it's already a done deal. In the end, though, our hero sends Freezum to call for a repair crew stating that he would remain there keeping the water frozen until they could fix it. Does he realize that could and probably would take months!!!??
Here's some late fifties Steve Ditko from Charlton. According to legend, Ditko reportedly loved the freedom he got at low-paying Charlton which is why he kept going back. Much of his early material there, though, seems rushed or even "phoned in." This story, however, does not. Some nice images here and fairly detailed work for a Charlton sci-fi job.
Allen Bellman drew a lot of things for a lot of companies back in the Golden Age of Comics and beyond. He's scheduled to appear at this weekend's Cincinnati Comic Expo, also In fact, he did their poster as a 1940's Timely comic with Cincinnati's Roebling Suspension Bridge in the background! Here's a one page mystery with the final panel thoughtfully You're welcome) printed partly upside down below so one can read the solution.
