Time to check in with gorgeous girl detective, Lucky Dale, as she sets sail on the high seas of action 'n adventure! She's one tough lil cookie, and wearing a red dress that seriously seems to have a mind of its own! You'll see what I mean as this early Warren Kramer (really?!) classic thrills, chills, and probably even titillates you with an over abundance of revealing good girl art, plus some hilarious tough guy dialogue too. From Avon's The Saint #4, published in 1948.
They waited all the way until page 5 to get her wet, that's some real outstanding control in the ol' comic drawing department!
ReplyDeleteLook at that last page. Panel 2 is about as much side boob as you can get away with, and panel 4 (40s panel is sometimes so confusing) is the place where Wertham got the idea that they drew them nude first!
It's a fun comic; I love how Lucky Dale just tackles dudes with guns.
BTW, this is what I always called the "impossible clothes" in comics.
This was a fun tale, action, adventure and a sliver of cheesecake for dessert.
ReplyDeleteI think there were a few other stories of ladies who could solve crimes, be tough as nails when they needed to be, give as good as they got in a fight, all the while looking like fashion models the whole time.
All we need is a Lucky Dale adventure in a haunted house and she can get a post on THOIA.
I like it! Somehow it doesn't come across all that outlandish--a couple of scuffles and one lucky break with the propellers the writer was smart enough to turn into a suspense set piece. Speaking of "lucky," barely surviving fatality after fatality isn't really the way I personally want to experience luck, thanks. Though if I ever do meet a band of river pirates, I kinda hope I'm lucky enough to run into smarter ones. If they'd just locked those two in their cabins instead of bringing them out on deck, they'd have struck it rich and been gone without worry about witnesses or murder raps. Everybody wins!
ReplyDeleteI suspect it'd be hard to design a mag called The Saint without visually reminding everyone of The Spirit, but I feel like Avon wasn't even trying. Just kidding; obviously they were trying to be as much like The Spirit as copyright would allow--at least on this issue. I like the cover art a lot.
> where Wertham got the idea that they drew them nude first!
ReplyDeleteWell, tbh Wertham wasn't always wrong.
>All we need is a Lucky Dale adventure in a haunted house and she can get a post on THOIA
I'm digging for it!
<obviously they were trying to be as much like The Spirit as copyright would allow
The Saint has been around since the 20's, while The Spirit didn't appear until the 40's... or did you mean something else related? Visually this comic doesn't look very Eisner-esque to me
"The Saint has been around since the 20's..."
ReplyDeleteWell yeah in the pulps, and in the movies, but not so early in the comics. Actually, I assume that made him a perfect choice when comics creators were casting around for a property to take market share from the very popular Spirit, he was already popular elsewhere.
I think the cover of this comics looks a lot like a Spirit cover, in design and execution maybe more than the artwork. But mostly I was referring to the title treatment. Sorry to be confusing.