Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: crime comics, golden age, l.b. cole, Star Publications

Crime-Fighting Detective #19 and the Power of L.B. Cole, at Auction

During the comic industry's boom time of the early 1950s, L.B. Cole covers were designed to stand out on the crowded newsstands.

Picture a newsstand in the 1950s, with its flurry of colors and action-packed images jostling to grab your attention.  This was a boom period for the industry, the Pre-Code early 1950s era with crime, horror and other genres on the rise. Standing out in such an environment was a problem that L.B. Cole artist strove to solve with striking use of colors and innovative design. A trailblazing artist whose style and art remains highly regarded today, there's a copy of  Crime-Fighting Detective #19 (Star Publications, 1952) CGC FN 6.0 Off-white to white pages up for auction in the 2023 April 30-May 2 Sunday, Monday & Tuesday Comic Books Select Auction #122318.

Crime-Fighting Detective #19 owes its historical legacy to not only its stand-out L.B. Cole cover but also the fascinating journey of the title and its publisher Star Publications. Initially known as Young King Cole under Curtis Publishing's Novelty Press, the title then transitioned into Criminals on the Run, eventually becoming the Crime-Fighting Detective series.  The title subsequently became Shock Detective Cases and finally, Spook.  With the heat turning up on the comic book industry in 1948, Curtis Publishing, who published comics via their Novelty Press imprint, had found themselves getting caught up in the controversy over the industry during that period.  Best known as the publisher of the Saturday Evening Post and Ladies Home Journal, Curtis decided to throw in the towel on comic books by 1949, selling their titles and inventory to Star Publications, a company formed by Cole and lawyer Gerhard Kramer.  The company leveraged this inventory, along with other reprint material from Fox Feature Syndicate titles, to create a noteworthy line of comics.  Cole's gift was repackaging the material with covers that stood out.

The man behind the striking visuals of Crime-Fighting Detective #19 possessed a unique combination of artistic prowess and commercial acumen. His early years in his grandfather's cigar factory piqued his interest in label design, eventually leading him to work for the Consolidated Lithographing Corporation. Unbeknownst to him, these formative experiences would lay the foundation for his illustrious career in the comic book industry. By the early 1940s, Cole joined the art/design staff at Louis Goodman Ferstadt's studio, which created captivating artwork for a plethora of publishers, including industry giants such as DC Comics and Quality. It was within this creative incubator that Cole honed his distinctive style, leaving an indelible mark on the comic book world.

With only nine entries on the CGC Census, and the upcoming auction featuring the highest graded copy at a CGC FN 6.0 along with off-white to white pages, this issue might fly under the radar as the highest-graded copy of a Pre-Code L.B. Cole-covered comic book.  But this gem unites rarity, history and artistic brilliance, in a way that collectors tend to appreciate, there's a copy of  Crime-Fighting Detective #19 (Star Publications, 1952) CGC FN 6.0 Off-white to white pages up for auction in the 2023 April 30-May 2 Sunday, Monday & Tuesday Comic Books Select Auction #122318.

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