Number 1213: The short Danger Trail

DC's Danger Trail lasted five issues, from #1, dated Jul-Aug 1950 to #5, Mar-Apr 1951. I have no idea why it had such a short life. It had good covers and interior art, and interesting characters in action-filled stories of intrigue. The artists, among them Carmine Infantino and Alex Toth, were some of DC's best. I don't know if sales were bad, or because editor Julius Schwartz was debuting a new title, Strange Adventures, with a first issue dated Aug-Sep 1950. In the wings was a sister publication, Mystery In Space, the first issue dated Apr-May 1951, which coincided with the last issue of Danger Trail. Science fiction was Schwartz's entry into magazine editing, after all. Read more about editor Julius Schwartz.

King Faraday, starring in this Robert Kanigher-scripted story from Danger Trail #2 (1950), had an even shorter career than the comic book. He appeared in the first four issues. He was brought back years later by DC in one of their revisionist versions of old and obscure characters, but that’s outside the scope of this blog. The story I'm showing here is a little caption heavy, but well drawn by Infantino and Frank Giacoia.

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Number 1020


The second-string singing cowboy


I don't want to disparage the memory of Jimmy Wakely, who died in 1982, but I never heard of him before I saw DC's Jimmy Wakely comic book series. The comics lasted longer than Wakely's career as a movie singing cowboy, which was ending as DC's series began. The comics continued on until 1952.

I have a story from the last issue of the series, featuring a knock-off Ghost Rider, at Pappy's #666. It seems appropriate; Wakely was Monogram studio's knock-off of Gene Autry, with whom Wakely was inevitably compared. Wakely did have a good singing voice, appeared in other stars' western movies with his band, and had several hit records in the 1940s, but, unlike Autry, six decades after Wakely's career in movies ended he's not a household name.

Alex Toth and Frank Giacoia aren't household names, either, unless you live in my house, or the house of Golden Age comic fans. I've featured Toth several times in this blog, and hopefully many more times before my career, like Wakely's, comes to its end.

"Jinx Town Lives Again" is from Jimmy Wakely #1, 1949:

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Number 981


Dale and Sierra


Dale Evans was married to Roy Rogers, but apparently the marriage bonds didn't exist between comic book licenses. Roy's was with Dell, Dale's with DC, so neither appeared in each others' comics.

Roy's comic book career lasted much longer than Dale's, and even Roy's horse, Trigger, got a comic book.

Unlike Roy's comic book persona as a Western hero, Dale was presented by DC's Dale Evans Comics as being a movie star who got into adventures, much like the similarly-themed Alan Ladd Comics, also from DC. (See Pappy's #721.)

These stories, a Dale Evans adventure, and also the back-up strip, "Sierra Smith, Western Detective," are from Dale Evans Comics #1, 1948. The Dale story is drawn by Maxwell Elkans "and others", according to the Grand Comics Database. The script is credited to W. Ryerson Johnson, a pulp magazine writer who did some Doc Savage adventures under the Kenneth Robeson byline. The Sierra Smith story is drawn by the duo of Alex Toth and Frank Giacoia.

In "Readin', Robbin' and Six-Gun 'Rithmatic" there's no explaining why a bunch of grown men would willingly go to school, or why they were required to do so (despite Willie being illiterate, that is, which figures into the plot). It's all rather silly, really, but I like the "hot for teacher" sub-theme.



















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Jordi Bernet is a European comic artist, best known in the U.S. for his Torpedo 1936 strips starring a hired killer. His style owes a lot to both Toth and Joe Kubert, two artists he greatly admires.

Alex Toth did the atmospheric sequence above in 1948, in an era when film noir was at its peak in the U.S. cinema.


I don't like his character, the psychopathic killer, Torpedo, but I love the noir touches Bernet gives to his artwork:

The book, Bernet, edited by Manual Auad, is well worth having. It's available from Amazon.com and other booksellers.

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Number 939


Secret City/Images of Doom


Here's a two-part Flash story from the 1940s, taken from two sources: a reprint from Flash Super-Spectacular #229 from 1974, reprinting the first part, "The Secret City," from All-Flash Comics #31, 1947, and my tear sheets of the second part, "Images of Doom," originally from Flash Comics #94, 1948.

For those of you who came in late to this blog, I've told of my box of tear sheets several times. Over 30 years ago a customer of the bookstore where I worked gave me a box of pages he'd cut from old comic books. He bought comics in the late 1940s, almost all DC, and saved only stories by artists he liked. Carmine Infantino, Joe Kubert, Lee Elias, artists working in the DC house style of the day. I had hundreds of loose pages and I reassembled the stories. As you can see, some of the pages are brittle and damaged.

Both stories were drawn by Carmine Infantino and Frank Giacoia, and written by Robert Kanigher.

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