Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: crime comics, John Buscema

Cult of Killers and John Buscema's Cover for Wanted #52, at Auction

John Buscema did significant work for publisher Orbit from 1950 to 1953, including the cover for this notorious issue of Wanted Comics.

Legendary comic book artist John Buscema initially pursued a career in commercial illustration after graduating from Manhattan's High School of Music and Art and taking courses at Pratt Institute and the Brooklyn Museum. Despite his intentions, Buscema's path veered into the comic book industry in 1948 when he secured a position at Timely Comics, the company that became known as Marvel. According to his credits on GCD, John Buscema worked almost exclusively for Marvel in 1948 and 1949, but in 1950, he branched out to other publishers, including Ziff-Davis and Orbit.   Buscema worked on every Orbit comic book that was being published at this time, which included Love Diary, Love Journal, The Westerner Comics, and Wanted Comics.  There are some little-seen gems among his Orbit work, including this cover for Wanted Comics #52 (Orbit, 1953), and there's a high-grade CGC VF 8.0 copy up for auction in the 2024 October 24 – 25 Pre-Code Horror & Crime Comics Showcase Auction #40272 at Heritage Auctions.

The company we now typically refer to as Orbit consisted of the usual collection of related brands and corporations, and would come to dominate Buscema's output from 1951-1953.  Run by Ray R. Hermann, one of the few women to lead a comic book publishing company during this era, Orbit published 162 issues across seven series 1948-1955, and is best remembered for the crime title Wanted Comics. Buscema contributed to 55 issues at Orbit, and drew 31 covers for the publisher during this period.

His cover for Wanted Comics #52 ostensibly represents the interior story shocker The Cult of Killers, but Buscema may have had little guidance regarding what that story was about.  That saga, written by William Woolfolk and drawn by Harry Anderson, is an example of Pre-Code Crime at its most brutal, as a drug and sex cult stops at nothing to protect its secrets from an investigating detective.  The rest of the issue also pulls no punches.

Of course, such comic book material was then drawing fire from the critics, law enforcement, and government officials of this moral panic era.  Buscema's last work for Orbit was on the last comic book the publisher released, Love Diary #48, cover dated September-October 1955.  Like many publishers of the period, Orbit didn't make the transition into the Comics Code era.  Through the end of the 1950s, Buscema picked up work from a range of publishers who did make that transition, including Marvel.  He then left comics to do other commercial art, including a lengthy stint freelancing for New York City advertising firm the Chaite Agency

After returning to comics in 1965, Buscema helped significantly shape the landscape of Marvel Comics during its pivotal growth in the mid-1960s and 1970s. Beginning in this period, Buscema left a lasting impact through his work on major titles such as The Avengers, The Silver Surfer, and Conan the Barbarian.  Buscema's versatility was evident throughout his career, and a nicely representative issue of his Orbit work with this high-grade CGC VF 8.0 copy of Wanted Comics #52 up for auction in the 2024 October 24 – 25 Pre-Code Horror & Crime Comics Showcase Auction #40272 at Heritage Auctions.

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