Showing posts with label Jane Martin - War Nurse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jane Martin - War Nurse. Show all posts

27 May 2020

The Inverse Evolution Of Jane Martin - War Nurse

We've been looking at how Pat Parker - War Nurse evolved from War Nurse to Adventurer to Superhero and Commando.

While we've looked at Jane Martin - War Nurse previously, it was mostly looking at later episodes featuring Lily Renée doing the artwork. Jane started the year before Pat, in the spring of 1940. When she launched, she sported a rather superheroic look to her uniform...


She kept that look for a few issues. This is one of the two for which we have confirmed art credit - George Tuska on both pencils and inks...
 

...then started to modify it to look less superheroish...
 

...and by her 5th appearance, she was uniformed as a standard Nurse, with Tuska returning on at least pencils...
 
 

Obviously, the outfit change didn't slow her down. She kept up her heroics, no matter how she was dressed, for a decade, long after the war had ended.

Oddly enough, there was another seeming change along the way. Based on the above tales, one might conclude that Jane Martin was British (unless i missed a reference while skimming). The USA wouldn't enter the war for another year and a half, and Jane's boyfriend was a British pilot.

So, why was i thinking she was from across the pond, demarcating her from Pat Parker?

Later stories told me so...


...though actually, it only says that "No American Girl has ever run such a strange gamut of thrills and mystery as Jane Martin." It doesn't actually state that's her nationality.

I'm not going reading through 100 tales to find out now. Read it the way you prefer, as shall i.

page art by George Tuska and ??? (Nick Cardy?)from Wings Comics #s 1 & 2-6, splash page by Lily Renée from Wings Comics #33 (1940,1943)

10 November 2019

Heading To Rio

We already saw Lily Renée's final two tales on Jane Martin in the previous two installments. Looking back from the Now, i see echoes of the coming future in some of her later tales. It's easy to see how shots like the opening panel below, with the woven bamboo head wear, might lead an editor to see how she'd draw a sombrero. And the second and third tale here, which were the last before the two mentioned above, feature fashions that might easily have shown up in Lily's Señorita Rio.




The dresses lead me to ponder whether Lily knew what she'd be working on soon and had such things in her mind, or whether an editor looking at them might have been influenced to choose her for Señorita Rio.

Of course, it's just as likely merest happenstance. 

Either way, we should visit the Señorita soon.

But... did we run that one with Jane Martin vs. the walking dead?

page art by Lily Renée for Wings Comics #s 41, 45, & 46 (1944)

09 November 2019

Lily & Jane, Together Again

No, not dead. Just mind in a pit this week. 
It's only been a week, right?

Climbing out, and figured i'd toss another trio of tales featuring Fly Girl Jane Martin drawn by Lily Renée up ahead of me. It's always good to make sure it's clear out there...




More words next time. 
Maybe even some good ones.

page art by Lily Renée from Wings Comics #s 35, 36, & 47 (1943, 1944)