Snake On A Plane - And Bear & Lion & Monkey & Cow & Horse & Bird & Moose & ...Dragon?

Sky Girl brought a number of odd things to the Fly Girl genre, including a love of animals.
Not Ginger Maguire's love of animals, that of the writers...

If you wanted animals on planes in the 1940s, Sky Girl was the one to see.
You might have noticed a couple animals listed in the title were not shown above. I didn't want you to think that she had no love for animals, or that the relationship with them was completely adversarial, so we've got a couple stories for you to fill the gap. Both tales are drawn by Matt Baker.

Enjoy the dialogue in this tale, too - especially that of the pair of hoods who could have stepped out of a much more modern comic...

Y'know...  Sky Girl did Cavemen, too...

...but we're not there yet...

all art from Jumbo Comics #s 85,  91, 97, 100, 101, 103, 105, 107, 120 & 124 (1946-1949)

Ginger Maguire - Sky Girl & Fly Girl

Ginger Maguire was another Fly Girl, debuting a few years after Flyin' Jenny and Gale Allen in 1944's Jumbo Comics #68. Sky Girl was rather different from the other Fly Girls. While they were adventurers and aviators, Sky Girl was sort of the sitcom version - with emphasis on the 1940s perception of "Girl"...

As was all too often the case in those days, Bill Gibson is a house pseudonym. The identity of the writer for Sky Girl is lost to time (and the attitude that only the money counts, not the actual creators/workers). 

Here is the premiere episode of Sky Girl, with art by Alex Blum -

There's a fair chance that Ginger Maguire was based on the lady who shaped & defined sitcoms for television - Lucille Ball. While this was seven years before her tv show hit the air, she'd been in 60 films by this time, and this is how she looked at the time:

Purely conjecture on my part, but it doesn't seem to be a great stretch.

Sky Girl ran for more than 60 episodes, from Jumbo Comics #68 to #130
So, did things get better for Ginger over time?

Not so much, as we can see here, with Matt Baker taking over the artwork -

Ginger might be a comedy waitress, but she's definitely a Fly Girl adventurer, too.  She just lives in a very different world from the others.

Let's close out this post with the story that accompanies the splash panel used for the opening, with Matt Baker once again -

page art by Alex Blum and Matt Baker for Jumbo Comics #s 68, 90, & 113 (1944, 1946, 1948)

Saturday Super Solutions

Here are the solutions to yesterday's FF&G, simple though they may be...

puzzle pages from Amazing World Of DC Comics #7,  Superman Jumbo Color And Activity Book, Superman-Tim (July47), Superman Annual UK '72 (1947, 1972, 1974, 2006)

Cave Paintings

Have you ever noticed how often Cavemen/Prehistoric comics have gotten painted covers over the years?
Even when not fully painted, they often incorporate painted elements in the colouring and background, as in the first two covers here -

One might almost think that there's an industry "Cave Painting" joke among editors.

Which do you think are my favorites?
You know i've got some - cave comics are home to all kinds of Odd, as certainly hinted at in some of those covers.

(In case you didn't guess - Yeah, i'm teasing another series topic)

Friday Fun & Super Games

It's Friday? When Did This Happen?

As noted earlier, the week was off to a rough start and my grasp of time can be tenuous, at best.
But - Hey! I finally noticed that it's Firday and time for  -

As you probably couldn't escape noticing, it's Superman's 80th birthday this month. So let's go with a quick assortment of Superman puzzzles this week:

puzzle sources tomorrow - wouldn't do to give those hints today, would it?