Showing posts with label Ruth Roche. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ruth Roche. Show all posts

Friday, January 13, 2012

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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featuring goodies emblazoned with cover art that Fredric Wertham railed against in Seduction of the Innocent.

Friday, January 6, 2012

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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featuring goodies emblazoned with cover art that Fredric Wertham railed against in Seduction of the Innocent.

Friday, November 25, 2011

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.

featuring goodies emblazoned with cover art that Fredric Wertham railed against in Seduction of the Innocent.

Friday, November 18, 2011

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.

featuring goodies emblazoned with cover art that Fredric Wertham railed against in Seduction of the Innocent.

Friday, November 11, 2011

Reading Room: PHANTOM LADY "Ace of Spades"

The Damsel of Darkness meets her first costumed villainess...
in this Western-themed, never-reprinted tale from Phantom Lady #20!
Phantom Lady takes a couple of tricks, horsemanship, lassoing and sharpshooting, from another Golden Age heroine, the Black Cat, who was secretly movie actress/stunt girl Linda Turner, and thus had a reason to be skilled in those talents, which most modern women didn't perform.
Curiously, Sandra Knight had never demonstrated proficiency in any of those skills before...
Script probably by Ruth Roche, art definitely by Matt Baker.

featuring goodies emblazoned with cover art that Fredric Wertham railed against in Seduction of the Innocent.