Showing posts with label Norge Benson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Norge Benson. Show all posts

30 January 2019

Loving Lily or Reading Renée (Choose Your Own Title)

So...

I actually stuck my head outside of the cave for a bit yesterday, and over at and everything else... that Steve ran one of Lily Renée's The Werewolf Hunter stories from yesterday's splash gallery a couple weeks back. (The Living Mermaids tale - he's got it here) I guess i won't be running that today as i had planned. (Good thing i peeked outside when i did.)

Not only that, if you jumped straight over to read the post, you'll have noted that he's been running a series of her work on The Werewolf Hunter over at The Horror Of It All. Four more tales are linked in the above post, so you can enjoy more of them without me running more here.

That being the case, let's look a bit at some of Lily's other works. While she may have saved the Werewolf Hunter from cancellation*, the strip she was most well known for was Señorita Rio -


And, as previously mentioned, she drew a score of tales for one of our Fly Girls - Jane Martin, War Nurse...


...though by the time Renée came aboard the strip, Jane had left nursing for more dangerous work - but still flying.

Lily also drew a couple dozen tales from The Lost World...


...and a handful of Norge Benson stories...


You may have noted that, unlike all the other images presented, the splash above does not include her signature to verify who drew it. The signature is on page 6 of the story. It can be rough confirming things sometimes. Especially if the artist is working in a different style, as with Lucy, The Real Gone Gal -


There is no signature anywhere in this story. Nonetheless, we can be quite certain the work is hers. Lucy was a retitled reprint of Kitty, and Renée signed the original -


If you go hunting for her work, be aware that sometimes she signed with a simple L.R., as with Fifi On The Farm -


And, to keep things extra odd and interesting, you can also find her name as part of a joint signature, notably on much of her Abbott & Costello work -


What makes that odd & interesting is that Eric Peters was her husband - another refugee from the War who found a new life as an artist in the USA.

One more odd (and wonderful) thing about Lily - unlike many of those we talk about here, Lily is still with us. She'll be turning 98 this May. She's even attended some comic conventions in this decade, so you might even be able to meet her. Probably should read more of her stories, just in case you get the opportunity, eh? Let's go with a couple of the odd ones from above: Fifi On The Farm and Kitty, complete with cover -




Well - that should be different enough from the other Lily Renée posts happening, eh? But, no worries - we'll return to look at some of her more famous works -


See?
Now it would be cruel if i didn't show you what happened "when..."

And, of course, we have to come back and look at more of Jane Martin - she's a Fly Girl!


See you when.

page art by Lily Renée for Fight Comics #s 36 & 41, Wings Comics #s 35 & 48, Planet Comics #s 29 & 33, Lucy The Real Gone Gal #1, Kitty #1, Toyland #3, and Abbot & Costello #2 (1943, 1944, 1947, 1948, 1953)

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*(When nobody else wanted to touch the strip, it was Lily who talked the writer and editor into dropping the werewolf angle and opening it up to other magickal creatures. Combined with her artwork, she turned it into a hit)