Greg Clark Noir Art

  LEGENDARY HEROES #24 KING OF THE ROYAL MOUNTED "King of the Royal Mounted" was a comic strip based on a short story by Zane Grey.  Grey (1872-1939) was one of the best known writers of western literature at the time.  "Riders of the Purple Sage" was his bestselling book of the 90 novels that he wrote.  His total book sales have surpassed 40 million copies and have been reprinted numerous times.  From 1917-1926 Grey was in the top ten bestseller list nine times.  When paperback books began reprinting his novels sales exploded.  He was such a prolific writer that after his death in 1939 his publisher, Harper & Row, had so many manuscripts stockpiled that they were able to publish a new title every year until 1963.  His books and stories were made into 112 movies and a TV series - "Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater".  And in 1935 Zane Grey was entering the comic business. While Grey's story was the inspiration, it was up to Romer Grey (Zane'...

  LEGENDARY HEROES #23 TERRY AND THE PIRATES "Terry and the Pirates" was created by Milton Caniff in 1934.  Captain Joseph Patterson, editor of the Chicago Tribune-NY News Syndicate, had admired Caniff's work on the children's adventure strip "Dickie Dare" and hired Caniff to create this new adventure strip.  Patterson provided Caniff with the title and locale and Caniff went to work creating one of the greatest comic strips ever.  Caniff (1907-1988) was born in Hillsboro, Ohio.  Uncertain if he wanted to be an actor or a cartoonist, he was advised "Stick to your inkpots, kid, actors don't eat regularly".  Caniff moved to New York City in 1932 and provided illustrations to the Associated Press and he assisted on the comic strip "Dumb Dora".  In 1933 he created his own comic strip "Dickie Dare" which brought him to the attention of Patterson.  Noel Sickles was a self taught illustrator in Ohio where he met and shared a studio...

  LEGENDARY HEROES #22 MANDRAKE THE MAGICIAN Some regard Mandrake the Magician to be the first comic strip "superhero".  Mandrake was created by Lee Falk (1911-1999) who was born Leon Harrison Gross in St. Louis.  His father died when he was a young boy and his mother remarried a man named Albert Falk Epstein.  After leaving college he adopted the name Lee Falk.  Falk was a cartoonist, writer for the pulps, theater director, and producer.  He had a fascination for stage magicians ever since he was a boy, and through this he developed the idea of Mandrake.  He sketched the first strips himself and was asked years later why Mandrake resembled himself, to which Falk replied, "Well, of course...I was alone in a room with a mirror when I drew him".  When Falk went to New York City to pitch the idea of his strip to King Features it was the furthest he had ever travelled from St. Louis.  King Features liked the idea and Falk teamed with cartoonist P...

  LEGENDARY HEROES #21 DON WINSLOW OF THE NAVY Frank V. Martinek (USNR) was a fingerprint, handwriting and crime detection expert, a former Naval intelligence officer in WWI, and a Chicago-based agent of the Department of Justice, when an Admiral complained to Martinek about the lack of naval recruiting in the midwestern states.  Martinek came up with a solution...a comic strip that focused on the Navy's tradition and courage that would entice America's youth.  Frank Knox, later Secretary of the Navy, helped sell the idea to the Bell-McClure Syndicate.  Leon Beroth and Carl Hammond shared the art duties while Martinek supplied the stories.  The stories centered around a single principle - Don Winslow was approved of by the Navy and could not do anything contrary to the ideals, motives and traditions of the Navy.  The strip debuted on March 5, 1934 as a daily with a Sunday page following a year later on April 21, 1935.  The strip was carried in 75 Ameri...

  LEGENDARY HEROES #20 SECRET AGENT X-9 "Secret Agent X-9" was a comic strip created by writer Dashiell Hammett ("The Maltese Falcon") and illustrator Alex Raymond ("Flash Gordon") and distributed by King Features for 62 years from January 22, 1934 until February 10, 1996.  X-9 was a nameless agent working for a nameless government agency.  He used the name Dexter in the first story explaining "It's not my name, but it'll do", but in the 1940s he acquired the name Phil Corrigan.  Decades later the strip would be renamed "Secret Agent Corrigan" and the secret agency would become the FBI.  Hammett's writing had all the hardboiled banter of his novels.  In one exchange a killer femme fatale tells X-9 "I like you.  I really do", to which he responds "I don't like you.  I really don't".  Hammett wrote the first four stories in the series and was followed by Leslie Charteris who also wrote "The Sai...