Reading Room: PHANTOM LADY "Case of the Robbing Robot"

It's Maiden of Mystery against Monster of Metal...

...as our favorite barely-clad heroine takes on her first cyber-criminal in this tale from Phantom Lady #22 (1949)

The usual scripted wackiness by Ruth Roche and full pencil/ink art by Jack Kamen who seems to have finally gotten the knack for both storytelling and rendering.
It's not quite on the level of Matt Baker, but close enough.

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Reading Room: PHANTOM LADY "Substitute Cinderella"

The Phantom Lady gives new meaning to the phrase...

..."If the shoe fits, wear it!", as seen in this tale from All Top Comics #15 (1949).

Of course, the old "evil twin nobody knows about" trick!

Story, such as it is, probably by Ruth Roche.

The art is a mixed bag, there's some inking by Matt Baker, but the penciling and most of the inking is unusually-stiff and awkward.

Perhaps it was Jack Kamen's first art job, but it didn't see print until after several of his later assignments had been published!

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Reading Room: PHANTOM LADY "Case of the Criminal Chessman"

Some people compare the War on Crime to a chess game...

...but the pulchritudinous Phantom Lady is nobody's pawn!

Lipstick?

Don runs into Sandra's bedroom, finds the Phantom Lady trussed up to a bedpost, and the only thing he notices on the unmasked woman's face is her lipstick?

Believe me, Sandra, you don't have to change lipstick!

Hell, you could wear a nametag saying "Sandra Knight" while in your Phantom Lady garb, and Don wouldn't put 1+1 together!

BTW, if the villain's name is familiar, that's because "Algernon Blackwood" was one of the premier ghost story writers of the late 19th/early 20th Centuries!

He was not short, so I presume Ruth Roche's use of his name here was just a "tip of the hat" to the spooky story author.

The art for this never-reprinted story from Phantom Lady #21 (1948) is unusual.

Pages 1 and 2 are totally Matt Baker.

The remainder of the story appears to be Jack Kamen, retouched by Baker.

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Reading Room: PHANTOM LADY "Jack-in-the-Box-Murders"

Last time we saw a villainess in a Phantom Lady costume...

 ...this time the roles are reversed as the Phantom Lady dons an evildoer's garb!

Both Senator Knight and Don Borden see Sandra in the Jack in the Box costume, yet both of them call her "Phantom Lady"!
You may notice a difference of art style in this story from Phantom Lady #21.
That's because the story is penciled and partially-inked by Jack Kamen with touchups by Matt Baker.
Kamen was being phased in as Baker's replacement as Matt moved on to other projects.
Baker's retouching grew less frequent as Kamen picked up the style, so by the end of the runs of both Phantom Lady and All Top Comics, the art was entirely Kamen.

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Reading Room: PHANTOM LADY "Copy-Cat Killers"

Question: What's more fun than watching a scantly-clad Phantom Lady in action?

Answer: Watching two scantly-clad Phantom Ladies in action!

How dense is Don?
He spends hours sitting next to a woman who doesn't even wear a mask and can't figure out she's not Phantom Lady?
But then Don doesn't realize Sandra Knight is Phantom Lady when she's right in front of him...
While the story is typical of the type of slightly off-kilter plot Ruth Roche came up with, the art is another matter entirely.
While the inking style looks like Matt Baker, the layouts and pencils definitely are not.
Most people think it's Jack Kamen, who did a couple of Phantom Lady covers and stories later in the book's run.

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