Arro the Caveman-Nature Boy-1957

NATURE BOY was an interesting Charlton comic from the late fifties. Most of the title character's stories were written by SUPERMAN creator Jerry Siegel and drawn amazingly well by a very young John Buscema (channeling Hogarth all over the place). This back-up story from the fifth and final issue, however, is by neither of those two stalwarts. Well, definitely not Big John. GCD offers no info. Interesting nonetheless.

Randolph-Graham Place-1949

Randolph, our titular hero in today's strip, was the brother of one Judy Foster whose bi-monthly four-color dates long outlasted her radio series. What's interesting about this strip is how alien it is to the average person under the age of 55 or so, dealing as it does with fountain pens and ink bottles. In fact, Randolph's solution to his story problem isn't all that different from what happened in real life to put the fountain pen on the endangered species list.

Blackout-Robert Brice-1941

 
Okay, now here we have a stylish masked hero indeed--BLACKOUT! Even if he doesn't actually appear in uniform until the last couple of pages. In spite of a very different origin story, seen here, Blackout is extremely similar in concept to DC's Dr. Mid-Nite who had debuted just a month before. And both had stylish duds! Coincidence?

Wild Bill Hickok-George Woodbridge-1955

George Woodbridge is not a name one generally associates with EC Comics--in spite of the fact that, via MAD, he ended up working for EC much longer than most of those flashes-in-the pan  like Ingels, Craig or Elder! Here's some extremely EC-esque art from Woodbridge, though, offered up in an early Code-approved issue of THE MASKED RANGER. I could be wrong but the abrupt ending has Code interference all over it.

Alix in Follyland-Tom McNamara-1954

We wrote back in April about what an interesting man artist Tom McNamara was. He was also an interesting cartoonist, as seen here in another stylish example of his work, this from a back-up in DC's inexplicably long-running BUZZY title.

Baseball Digest-Ginger-1954

In the news recently is the 2012 ARCHIE story with the characters swapping genders. In the fifties, however, the company already had a female version of its red-headed teen hero, GINGER! Hardly a typical GINGER story but this somewhat unintentionally sexist baseball primer made me laugh. This Ginger is, I presume, no relation to the current (underutilized) Ginger character in Riverdale. 

The Topper-Samson-1941

According to GCD, The Topper went on to appear in US JONES after this debut in the last issue of Fox's SAMSON. Looks like yet another variation on Eisner's SPIRIT from the year before, albeit this one with a top hat rather than a fedora.