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Weird Menace: The 1930s rise of the Shudder Pulps followed by the rise of the forces that ended them and transformed horror on the newsstand.
Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: fiction house, golden age
Lily Renée's Wolf-less Werewolf Hunter in Rangers Comics, at Auction
The Werewolf Hunter feature in Rangers Comics was one of Golden Age artist Lily Renée's early assignments at Fiction House.
Article Summary
- Explore Lily Renée's unique take on the Werewolf Hunter saga in Rangers Comics.
- Discover how Renée transformed the feature without werewolves.
- Trace Renée's journey from Vienna to iconic Golden Age comic artist.
- Uncover the legacy of Renée's Werewolf Hunter and her transition to St. John.
The Werewolf Hunter feature in Rangers Comics was one of Golden Age artist Lily Renée's early assignments at Fiction House. Professor Armand Broussard, the Werewolf Hunter, was an occult investigator whose adventures brought him up against a wild variety of supernatural creatures, exotic sorceresses, and artifacts of dark magic. Lily Renée brought inventive and detailed design work and unique page layouts to her work throughout her run on the feature. The entire Werewolf Hunter saga is an overlooked entry in the realm of Golden Age comic book horror, with Lily Renée channeling the supernatural subject matter in unique and innovative ways for the comic book page. One of the best supernatural sagas of the Golden Age, there are a number of issues of Rangers Comics featuring Lily Renée's Werewolf Hunter at the 2024 July 7-9 Sunday, Monday & Tuesday Comic Books Select Auction #122428 at Heritage Auctions.
Fiction House's Werewolf Hunter saga had begun in Rangers Comics #8, and cycled through a number of artists over the next few issues, including George Tuska. According to Lily Renée in an interview with Trina Robbins, she was given the Werewolf Hunter assignment beginning with issue #14 because nobody else wanted it, and in a 2009 Alter Ego interview explained that because she didn't like drawing wolves, she convinced the (unknown) writer to make it about other supernatural creatures. She ultimately did 19 installments of the Werewolf Hunter series, ending with Rangers Comics #40. The feature ended the next issue, with several installments later reprinted in Fiction House's Ghost Comics at the height of the Pre-Code Horror boom.
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.
Lily Renée's last work on Werewolf Hunter in Rangers Comics #40 would also be her last work at Fiction House. She would move to St. John next, doing an improbably fantastic job on Abbot and Costello Comics before moving on to the St. John romance titles. But the Werewolf Hunter — sans Werewolves at her request — is an incredibly underappreciated part of her comic book work. A surprisingly innovative saga of comic book horror, there are a number of issues of Rangers Comics featuring Lily Renée's Werewolf Hunter at the 2024 July 7-9 Sunday, Monday & Tuesday Comic Books Select Auction #122428 at Heritage Auctions.
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