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)

===

*(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)

29 January 2019

Bad Hunter - Or Maybe Very Good?

Is a hunter very bad if he never catches what he seeks?
Or very good if he constantly finds new things instead?

What the frell am i babbling on about?

Well - how many werewolves do you see? (And, no - the head in the logo, when it appears, does not count)


Oh - Before we continue...
Note signature at bottom left in the picture above - L. Renée.
We don't know who wrote the series as both Armand Weygand and Armand Broussard are pseudonyms, but the artist on a couple dozen of these is Lily Renée. She's one of those artists we haven't yet gotten around to discussing. For some reason we haven't circled back to Jane Martin, War Nurse - one of our Fly Girls. Lily drew nearly a score of her adventures. And she had her own war adventures, too - as chronicled in a biographical comic published earlier this decade: Lily Renée, Escape Artist: From Holocaust Survivor to Comic Book Pioneer.

So, yeah - we'll definitely be seeing her again.

Okay - on with our werewolf hunt.
Can you find any?





























I count no werewolves, but obviously a goodly number of other strange and supernatural things found. Hence my question -
Bad hunter or good hunter?

(Yes, i am using the truth like a politician and avoiding the first four episodes of the series. For now. It's not like Karl stuck to hunting vampires, y'know)

While we're here, let's go ahead and look at the story from that first splash panel at the top of the page -



page art from Rangers Comics #s 12-38, 40, & 41 (1943-1948)


26 January 2019

Monstrobot No More

No posts this weekend.

Sadly, my worst fears were confirmed this week when i went looking to see why Snell hadn't updated his blog in over a month. When you type in somebody's name and Google suggests "Obituary" is never a good sign.

Brian Snell died of natural causes at the young age of 55 in the middle of last month. When i was trying to decide how to build a connection between my hermit cave and the outer world, it was Snell's blog that inspired me to start The Voice Of ODD! He was at it for a decade before i even started.


Now his voice has been silenced.

The Voice Of ODD! will be silent this weekend in his honor.
Instead, go read something on Slay, Monstrobot Of The Deep!
For example, see why i haven't written much on comic god-of-odd Bob Haney. (Snell's got 68 posts on the guy, so i was only able to get there first once) Browse the topics and you're sure to find something of interest. Snell left us with nearly a dozen years of entertaining comic blogging archived for our enjoyment and edification.

It wasn't nearly enough.

We'll miss you, Brian.
I'll be back in 3 days.