TITLE-Blue Bolt Volume 07 issue #02
PUBLISHER-Novelty Press
I got this issue at the same time as the other issue of Blue Bolt. Now the cover up at the top is from the scan of the issue at the Digital Comics Museum. Here is mine.
As you can see their copy is in much better shape. I did post both my issues covers at their forum. Mentioned what I paid and got told I got a good deal normally it would be 2 to 3 times what I paid per issue for the shape my copies are in.
But back to the cover. Pretty sure that is Blue Bolt with the blonde hair and red hat on the cover. As I said in the other issue review by this time Blue Bolt had gotten rid of his costume and his powers.This cover is signed by Tom Gill. Never heard of him before but I do like this cover. Hell my copy is already framed and hanging on my wall.
This issue starts off with the first part of a new Dick Cole story. Him and Simba Karno are going with Ted Todley to an island in the Caribbean.Where Ted's millionaire father has a castle.
Jim Wilcox handles the art chores and it is damn good. This feels a bit like a slightly longer weekly comic strip.
Krisko and Jasper are dog catchers. And this is a fairly short humor strip. The humor has aged fairly well. The art is by Jack A Warren,no clue who that is,but it looks decent for the era and a comedy strip.
Blue Bolt is now a pilot for a magazine. And this is a storyline called "Mystery of the Vanishing Totem Poles".Tom Gill handles the art. I like that this is set iin British Columbia.
Sniffy is a one page gag strip about what appears to be a homeless mutt of a dog. Think Benji's great great grandfather. The strip is signed by a Milt Hammer. I guess that is who wrote and drew it. But that is just a guess.
Up next is Fearless Fellers. A boy gang strip. Kind of like say the Newsboy Legion or any of the other youth gang strips Kirby created. No clue who does this. The art is decent. I was a bit surprised at how ,considering the time this issue came out in,good the one African-American member of the Fellers is written. But then there is the villains in this issue. Who are all Chinese. With yellow skin. And all the other racial tropes of that time.
Now it's time for my favorite strip in this issue. Sergeant Spook art by Don Rico. This ghost cop fights crime with the help of his living teenage sidekick. In these later issues of Blue Bolt Sergeant Spook is the closest you will get to a real superhero. The art is really good. I like the story. But your enjoyment of it will depend on how much you can handle all the golden age comic cliches.
Edison Bell is a Tom Swift like boy genius. It has no signature,but whoever did the art well... it is the worst of the art in this issue. It isn't bad really. But it has this flat plain look that some Golden Age art will have.
After that there is a one page Sniffy strip and a few ads and the issue is over. 52 pages,including covers,for 10 cents back then. Shit I got this for less than a 50 page comic from DC or Marvel would cost you now.
So is it worth buying? For me it is. Even though I can goto
Digital Comics Museum----Free public domain comic scans and download a legal scan of the entire issue,the comic geek in me just gets too much enjoyment of owning a comic that is 70 years old.
Blue Bolt volume 07 issue #02 gets a buy.
