Greg Clark Noir Art

LEGENDARY HEROES #33 SGT. PRESTON OF THE YUKON Following the success of "The Lone Ranger" and "The Green Hornet", WXYZ radio in Detroit decided to create one more radio drama for their listeners.  Station owner George W. Trendle insisted that he wanted a show with a dog as the hero, and not a dog like Lassie but a working dog.  Writer Tom Dougall decided upon a Husky and then made the dog's owner a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.  This gave owner Trendle some pause for concern.  After they had created "The Lone Ranger" it came to their attention that western writer Zane Grey had published a novel years before titled "Lone Star Ranger".  Now they were doing a show about a RCMP officer and his dog, and Zane Grey had recently launched a comic strip called "King of the Royal Mounted", and to make matters worse writer Dougall named the dog in their new series Yukon King.  But everything worked out well for the station.  The ...

LEGENDARY HEROES #32 RED RYDER Fred Harman (1902-1982), creator of Red Ryder, had an interesting life.  At the age of two months old, Fred came with his family to Pagosa Springs, Colorado in Archuleta County located in the Blanco Basin of the San Juan Mountains.  Fred's father was a lawyer who was torn between ranching and practicing law.  Except for two interludes with a Kansas City law firm, ranching won out and Fred grew up in the Pagosa Springs region.  During the first World War Fred ran away to enlist but at age 15 the best he could do was the National Guard and he spent several months guarding the Kansas City waterworks against potential trouble.  After the war he arrived back in Colorado with $3 in his pocket which he spent on staples like salt, lard, and flour and spent the next four months living off the land and sleeping in the woods.  Then he got a job as a cow hand on a ranch and supported himself for several years as a cowboy.  One winter...

LEGENDARY HEROES #31 CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT Captain Midnight was created for radio in 1938 by Robert M. Burtt and Wilfred G. Moore.  Both Burtt and Moore had been flying aces in WWI and they wanted to bring the thrill of aviation to young people.  The first show aired on October 17, 1938 and began as a syndicated program, which meant that it was only carried by a handful of regional Midwestern stations.  The show was recorded on 16" glass discs in the offices of an ad agency - Blackett, Sample and Hummert - in an office building at the corner of LaSalle Street and Wacker Drive in Chicago.  The discs were then distributed to participating radio stations.  The show was sponsored by Skelly Oil and the show's announcer urged kids to be sure that dad went to the gas station to get their premiums.  Premiums consisted of rings, telescopes, and a Flight Patrol Newspaper.  This lasted until the spring of 1940 and then Captain Midnight went national with a new sponsor...

  LEGENDARY HEROES #30 SUPERMAN Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster met in 1932 while attending Glenville High School in Cleveland, Ohio and they shared an interest in science fiction.  Jerry wanted to be a writer and Joe wished to be an illustrator.  Jerry Siegel printed his own stories in a mimeographed paper he called "Amazing Stories" that he distributed to fellow students, and Joe Shuster began providing drawings for the tales.  Siegel was lying in bed one night in 1932 when he conceived a character like Samson and Hercules all rolled into one, only more so.  He leaped out of bed and wrote down his idea.  In January 1933 the Siegel and Shuster story titled "The Reign of the Superman" was printed in their self-published paper.  Siegel and Shuster were hardly the prototype of their creation (they stood 5'6" and 5'2" respectively) as they were shy, near-sighted, and fragile - the type of individuals that bullies picked on. After graduation the two shift...