Gene Autry's Champion, of all things

[Poztron]

Back in the day, I was not overly fond of Dell Comics, as a lot of their art seemed to be anonymous hackwork. Or so I thought as a kid. But the recent posting of issues of Gene Autry's Champion (a comic about a horse, a dog, and a kid, with no sign of Gene Autry in its pages at all) has made me reconsider my sweeping judgment. Take issue #11, with two lengthy stories by the same artist. I don't know who the artist is (maybe JVJ can tell us), but I'm knocked out by his style. It has the economy of Alex Toth, combined with the crisp penwork of, say, E. Raymond Kinstler, and best of all a fantastic grasp of horses and dogs in action. As usual, it is all buried beneath Dell's coloring and printing, but the inside back cover of each issue has a page of the story in pure B&W, where you can really see the artist's chops.

I'm not saying that this stuff is the best comic art ever - there's every sign that these pages were knocked out at some speed - but the result is nevertheless extremely stylish and charming.

I think this is one of those cases of an unsung comic that had a hidden gem within it.

Check 'em out and see what you think...

http://www.digitalcomicmuseum.com/index.php?cid=903

[Yoc]

An excellent post P!
Everyone is encouraged to let us know when you find something worth a second look.

-Yoc

[John C]

I think Yoc understates...

By "is encouraged to," don't read that as "should feel free to" so much as "we really want to hear about it."  With almost ten thousand books, we're all guaranteed to have missed something, even in books "everybody must have read."

[Aratak]

It's really pretty sweet that a cowboy's horse could mount a successful series. Pun intended.

Makes me feel better about all those "Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen" and "Superman's Girlfriend, Lois Lanes" I've loved over the years.