Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: Lily Renée, St. John Publications

Lily Renée on St. John's Abbott and Costello Comics #2, Up for Auction

St. John's Abbott and Costello Comics featured artwork by the legendary Lily Renée and well-written stories by John Graham.

Bud Abbott and Lou Costello were among the most popular comedy teams of the 1940s and 1950s. The duo first performed together in 1935 and had their own radio show by 1940. That same year, they made their film debut in One Night in the Tropics and starred in 36 subsequent films from 1941 to 1956, beginning with their first starring roles in Buck Privates.  They joined the regular host rotation of The Colgate Comedy Hour on television in 1951 and had their own tv show which ran from 1952 to 1954. Comic book publisher St. John launched Abbott and Costello Comics in 1948.  The series debuted with an adaptation of their 1947 film The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap.

By the numbers, Abbott and Costello Comics was among St. John's most successful comic book titles, lasting 40 issues from 1948 to 1957, which is nearly the entirety of the lifespan of the company itself.  In its early days, the series was a surprisingly charming mix of inventive art by Lily Renée, scripts by John Graham and text features ostensibly written in character by Abbott and Costello, though likely written by Graham or a St. John editor.  A regular letter column called The Readers Writhe, in which Abbott and Costello answered reader comments by insulting each other, rounded out a fun and well-produced package.  There's a stand-out example of the series with Abbott and Costello Comics #2 (St. John, 1948) Condition: VG- up for auction in the 2024 June 16-18 Sunday, Monday & Tuesday Comic Books Select Auction #122425.

Archer St. John entered the magazine publishing business in 1941 with wartime aviation magazine Air News, and later with Flying Cadet.  Flying Cadet is notable for occasionally containing some comic material.  St. John got into the comic book business proper with two different newspaper strip reprint titles, Comics Review and Treasury of Comics which both hit the newsstand around April 1947.  In September 1947, St. John took over the Terry-Toons Comics license from Marvel, which featured the comic book adventures of Mighty Mouse and other Terry-Toons characters.  That same month, St. John added a third newspaper comic strip reprint title, Pageant of Comics.  By the time Abbott and Costello Comics joined this lineup in early 1948, Authentic Police Stories was still the publisher's only non-licensed title launch.

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.

St. John attempted to expand on its comedian-based comic books the next year with the launches of Three Stooges and Laurel and Hardy, though neither of these achieved the success of Abbott and Costello Comics.  Featuring one of the best covers of the series by an unknown artist and interior stories by the legendary Lily Renée, there's a copy of Abbott and Costello Comics #2 (St. John, 1948) Condition: VG- up for auction in the 2024 June 16-18 Sunday, Monday & Tuesday Comic Books Select Auction #122425.

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