Greg Clark Noir Art

  LEGENDARY HEROES CAPTAIN AMERICA In 1940 writer Joe Simon came up with the idea of Captain America and drew a rough sketch of the character.  Beneath it he wrote "Super American", but thought there were too many heroes with Super in their name.  Captain America had a nice ring to it and Simon opted for that.  Martin Goodman, publisher of Timely Comics, gave Simon the go-ahead for a solo comic book series to be published ASAP.  Simon turned to his regular partner, artist Jack Kirby, and the two of them produced the contents of an entire comic book.  Captain America #1, cover dated March 1941, went on sale December 20, 1940 and sold almost a million copies.  This was one year before America was drawn into the Second World War and the cover of the comic book showed Captain America punching Hitler in the face.  While most readers responded favorably some took objection.  Simon and Kirby received threatening letters and hate mail.  One must keep in mind that there were German-Am

  LEGENDARY HEROES #43 BRENDA STARR, REPORTER Eternally 23 years old, Brenda Starr the "girl reporter" spent decades solving murders and mysteries, capturing jewel thieves, and thwarting international spies.  As a reporter Brenda mixed hot copy with high fashion and was always the most glamorous woman in the room.  As WWII raged Brenda parachuted into action without mussing a single red hair.  She would eventually marry the mysterious Basil St. John, an eye-patched scientist who, without regular injections of a "black orchid serum" from the Amazon, would die. Brenda Starr was the creation of Dale Messick who was born in South Bend in 1906.  At age 28 she left her hometown of Hobart, Indiana and struck out for New York City and a career in comics.  She had spent a year at Chicago's Art Institute and a summer painting bathing beauties on oilcloth tire covers, and for the first few months in NYC she survived by designing greeting cards.  The comic strip business wa

  LEGENDARY HEROES #42 THE SPIRIT It has been said of Will Eisner that he was to comics what Orson Welles was to cinema.  Eisner was the most important artist-writer-creator in the Golden Age of Comics, and he was responsible for the creation of The Spirit, Blackhawk, Sheena, Doll Man, and a dozen others all by the time he was 22 years old.  Will Eisner was born in 1917 to Jewish immigrants in Brooklyn.  His first comic appeared in WOW magazine in 1936, the same year that he graduated from high school.  In 1938 he started a studio with Jerry Iger - the Eisner-Iger Studio - which they started with $15.  Will financed the venture so his name came first and pretty soon they were flourishing.  They created original comic art for comic book publishers who didn't want to employ a stable of artists and writers.  Eisner-Iger Studio made a lot of money.  They were producing all of the content for Fiction House comics as well as some for Quality Comics, and developed a reputation for being r

  LEGENDARY HEROES #41 CONGO BILL Congo Bill was created for DC comics by writer Whitney Ellsworth and artist George Papp and was reminiscent of Alex Raymond's comic strip "Jungle Jim".  Congo Bill first appeared in More Fun Comics #56 in June 1940 where it enjoyed moderate success.  It ran in More Fun Comics until issue #67 in May 1941 and then moved to Action Comics #37 in June 1941, the same title that featured "Superman".  Congo Bill was William Glenmorgan, born in 1898 and was the son of a Scottish gamekeeper.  At one point he was a member of the IRA and during WWI he fought in the Battle of the Somme in France and Flanders Field in Belgium.  He became a spy in Austria.  After the war he was a globe trotting adventurer and for a time worked for the Worldwide Insurance Company protecting policies they had written and saving the company from fraudulent payouts.  He then settled in Africa where he befriended the witch doctor Chief Kawolo.  In Action Comics #19