HARVEY COMICS, BY REQUEST....

[peur_evol.insanejournal.com]

The Black Cat (aka. Hollywood starlet Linda Turner), had a long run in Harvey’s Speed Comics, and was finally given her own title in 1946.The series was praised by comics historian Trina Robbins for its "logical" and "straightforward" approach, in contrast to more fantasy-oriented titles like Wonder Woman.
Black Cat ran 65 issues, lasting nearly two decades (with a hiatus or two). It may be best remembered for a couple of iconic horror covers, but it started out as a squeaky clean Golden Age superhero book.
Lee Elias didn't create the character, nor did he draw the entire series from start to finish, yet he is the one artist most fans associate with her.

This story is from BLACK CAT #7, August 1947:





















A few years back, Alan Harvey was republishing the wonderful Black Cat comics. Alan asked Mark Evanier to cobble up a new adventure with artist Murphy Anderson, which is readable online here.

Comments

[foxhack.insanejournal.com]

Hat-cha-cha-chaaaaaaa.

Nice story. :D

[aaron_bourque.insanejournal.com]

She kicks ass barefoot.

Considering Diana in the DTD movie also does this, that needs to be a tag.

[perletwo.insanejournal.com]

Oh man, how I loved Diana kicking ass barefoot in that movie...gotta love a girl who doesn't postpone the super-heroics just to go find some fetish footwear!

[mullon.insanejournal.com]

Hey look! In that fourth-to-last panel, it's the Pathetic Fallacy.

[psychop_rex.insanejournal.com]

Boy, they were really trading on the movie star aspect of this, weren't they? Jimmy Durante, Boris Karloff, Bing Crosby - I'm surprised they didn't throw in John Wayne and the Marx Brothers, too.
Still, they did throw in a good story into the bargain - the Black Cat seems to be a pretty effective heroine here.

[dr_hermes.insanejournal.com]

Excellent post, infomative and well laid out. The Black Cat deserves to be better remembered. I had forgotten the cameos by Hollywood celebrities of the time. All I can add is that the comic changed emphasis a few times, becoming BLACK CAT WESTERN and BLACK CAT MYSTIC, going for Western and outright horror stories and dropping Linda Turner for stretches.

As I understand it, publishers did this sometimes to avoid having to pay a new registration fee for a second-class mailing permit. BLACK CAT MYSTIC was in theory the same comic as the super-hero title. For an issue or two, Golden Age CAPTAIN AMERICA COMICS became CAPTAIN AMERICA'S WEIRD TALES (of all things.

[besamim.insanejournal.com]

Yes, and at EC, for the same reasons, the superhero comic Moon Girl and the Prince became Moon Girl, then the more hard-boiled Moon Girl Fights Crime, then the romance title A Moon, A Girl...Romance (which after one issue no longer featured the superhero at all), and finally Weird Fantasy, all within the same numbering sequence. Eventually the USPO got wise to this sort of trick and told magazine and comic publishers that a new title was a new title and thus they had to pay the registration fee.

[dr_hermes.insanejournal.com]

I love stories like that. Roy Thomas wrote about how crushed he was as a little kid when he got his subscription copy of ALL-STAR COMICS in the mail. Instead of the Justice Society, it was now ALL-STAR WESTERN.

[volksjager.insanejournal.com]

Good stuff.