http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/images/DCM banner87-MASK meets PW-FINAL.webp
Many, many thanks again to MARK BOWEN for all his work to produce and share his scans of these very rare and expensive comics!
Hi Gang!
Thanks for clicking on our banner!This is a very nice preview of our coming
DCM 15th Anniversary event!
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If you are interested in checking out the
DCM WANTED COMICS LIST (bless you!), you can
find it HERE with instructions on how it works.!
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Mask Comics (Rural Home) only had two issues, both with classic covers by
L. B. Cole. They are among his 'grail' books for Cole collectors. Want to buy one, you better have very deep pockets! I would say the 'Case of the Exploding Spaghetti' story is one of the more insane tales I've read in a precode horror/crime book. Nuts!

If you'd like to see more L.B. Cole examples check out our
L.B. Cole Spotlight from 2015. CLICK HERE.A Mask Comics #1 cover recreation by Cole can be found here.---
Lou Fine
(26 November 1914 - 24 July 1971)Lou is the cover artist of our second book -
Weird Comics #2 (Fox 1940.05). A typical Fox book it's best is on the cover. There are some interesting features inside though. Worth a look for sure!
We haven't done a
Lou Fine Spotlight yet which is a failing we plan to address in the future. Lou Fine was a master of the cover as much as Cole but he used a completely different way of doing them. His attention to detail and anatomy was second to none among comic book artists.
To read a Comic Fandom wiki on Lou Fine click this link.To see a full visual Lou Fine cover checklist in chronological order you can
Use this GCD link!+++
Our featured scanner,
Mark Bowen, wrote this quick review of the contents for MASK COMICS #1. His opinions might vary with others. But there is no denying the cover is the high point of the book.
"I hadn't heard of this comic until a couple months ago, and then I scanned it. The scans came out looking really bad, so I scanned it again. The second time, the scans looked ok. It's got a pretty cover on the front, 50 pages inside, and an ad on the back.
The cover was drawn by somebody named 'Pound Coal,' which I guess was a play on the expression "pound sand," but I don't really get the joke??
Anyway, this book has kind of a lot of one-to-three page filler stories for a first issue, so there's that. You'd think, based off the cover, that they'd be Horror stories, but they're actually mostly Crime. One of them involves exploding spaghetti (the one called "The Case of the Exploding Spaghetti," FYI).
Despite its name, at no point in this issue does a mask appear (although it's possible one is mentioned in the text story, but to know that for sure, someone would have to read it, which literally nobody has ever done with a comic book text story); this may make you think they did a poor job naming the book, perhaps in an attempt to cash in on the success of the medium's masked heroes.
You'd be wrong.
Behind this book's striking chthonic cover is 50 pages of shrug - in other words, this book hides its true nature behind a false face. It truly is... Mask Comics."
To which longtime scanner
Darwination says
"I like the kitsch of bad comics, so I don't mind the Stars [books] at all
"Enough from me, we hope you enjoy this preview of our coming DCM 15th Anniversary on March 28th!
More exciting books to come on our big day!