Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: fiction house, golden age

Lily Renée and Matt Baker in Fight Comics #40, Up for Auction

Fight Comics #40 (Fiction House, 1945) features Señorita Rio by Lily Renée, Tiger Girl by Matt Baker, and a collector-favorite Señorita Rio cover.

Señorita Rio was one of the premiere female spy thrillers of the Golden Age of comic books, drawn by a historically important artist Lily Renée and running through most issues of Fight Comics #19-71. The Fight Comics Señorita Rio feature appeared from 1942 to 1950 starring the titular character fighting Axis agents conducting espionage throughout South America.  The character, named Rita Farrar in the story, was a Hollywood actress whose fiancé was killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor.  As chronicled in the debut story in Fight Comics #19, Rita faked her own suicide to become a spy against the Nazis in response to this.  A popular feature by a historically important artist, there's a beautiful high grade CGC VF+ 8.5 copy of Fight Comics #40 (Fiction House, 1945) cover-featuring Señorita Rio and also featuring Tiger Girl by Matt Baker up for auction in the 2025 July 18 Golden Age Comics Century Showcase at Heritage Auctions.

Some references have noted that the Señorita Rio character may have been inspired in part by actress Dolores del Río, who is considered the first female Latin American crossover star in Hollywood with her film work in the 1920s and 1930s.  About the feature, Lily Renée said, "I just wanted to say with all these comic strips and also this name Senorita Rio, it's sort of like a fantasy. Senorita Rio got clothes that I couldn't have, you know, she had a leopard coat and she wore these high-end shoes and all of this and had adventures and was very daring and beautiful and sexy and glamorous and all of that."

Lily Renée Phillips (1921-2022) was born in Vienna, where her father was an executive with the Holland America steamship line. After the Nazis annexed Austria in 1938, her family sent her to England, and she eventually reunited with them in New York City. She took classes at the Art Students League and the School of Visual Arts, and responded to a newspaper ad from Fiction House looking for comic artists. She spent the bulk of her comic book career initially at Fiction House and later at St. John Publications, and is perhaps best remembered as the artist of Señorita Rio.

Señorita Rio appeared on a handful of covers for Fight Comics by Lily Renée, sometimes in collaboration with Joe Doolin.  There has been some debate over the artist of the Fight Comics #40 cover, which has alternatively been attributed to either Renée or Doolin, with current opinion settling on Doolin.  To my eye, it's obviously not pure Doolin or pure Renée, and more likely some combination of both.  That said, the cover was also obviously inspired by the painted cover of the pulp Jungle Stories vol. 2 #6, from April 1943 by George Gross.  This was likely done under the direction of publisher Thurman T. Scott, who was known to closely supervise the publisher's covers.

The Fight Comics #40 cover features a trifecta of collector-favorite elements which include a beautiful woman in bondage, skulls, and the WWII theme, and the interior stories include material by Lily Renée and Matt Baker.  There are only three higher-graded copies on the CGC census of this beautiful high grade CGC VF+ 8.5 copy of Fight Comics #40 (Fiction House, 1945) cover-featuring Señorita Rio and also featuring Tiger Girl by Matt Baker up for auction in the 2025 July 18 Golden Age Comics Century Showcase at Heritage Auctions.

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