09 April 2020

Clash Of "The Two 'Fightingest' Gals In The History Of Comic Books!"

We're back watching Frank Borth have fun with The Spider Widow, Phantom Lady, and The Raven in the pages of Feature Comics and Police Comics back in 1943. It may be some of Borth's earlier comics work, but he's already bending boundaries as he goes.

For example, the characters know they're in comic books...



...and they know other comic books...


...and, as you can see from Raven's first word balloon, they even know in which titles they appear...




And so our heroes came together and found peace...


...but only a month or so later, Frank would be drafted to war (for the second time) and that would be the end of The Spider Widow and the strange relations between our heroic trio.


page art by Frank Borth from Feature Comics #s 69 & 70 and Police Comics #21 (1943)

08 April 2020

The Spider Widow's Boy

You may recall that we were recently looking at Frank's Girl - The Spider Widow - and left off just as The Raven was about to appear on the scene. And then as we peeked at Frank's Other Girl - Phantom Lady - we saw the same mysterious Raven showing up. The Frank in question is, of course, Frank Borth, whose work we've been enjoying around these parts. He created, wrote, and drew The Spider Widow, and both wrote and drew the episodes of Phantom Lady in question.

Let's rejoin the Spider Widow and see how this all connects, shall we?




Next time: They actually connect

page art by Frank Borth from Feature Comics #s 60-62 (1942)

07 April 2020

More Stargazing With Feg

I'm heading out on my monthly foraging run down the hill, so not a lot of words just now. Unless you count Feg's words accompanying his Stars. Here's another batch of Feg Murray's classic Seein' Stars, collected from Ace Comics and Magic Comics -



















page art by Feg Murray from Ace Comics #s 46-48, 52, & 63 and Magic Comics #s 13-15, 17, 26-28, 30, 32, & 38 (1940, 1941, 1942)