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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, Matt Baker
Matt Baker's Sky Girl in Fiction House's Jumbo Comics, Up for Auction
Matt Baker would draw 60 Sky Girl stories for Jumbo Comics 1944-1948, and the feature is essential to understanding his artistic evolution.
Jumbo Comics #69 is widely considered as containing the first published comic book artwork from legendary artist Matt Baker. An artist whose name has become synonymous with beautiful women in comic book art, this issue would contain two stories that Baker contributed to, Sheena and Sky Girl. While Baker's contributions to the iconic jungle girl Sheena would be brief, Sky Girl, whose adventures had started the prior issue in Jumbo Comics #68, would be a character that he would quickly make his own. Baker would draw 60 Sky Girl stories for Jumbo Comics 1944-1948, and the feature is essential to understanding the evolution of the artist's style in his early years. Sky Girl contains some of the most obvious comic book cheesecake art of the Golden Age over that period, and there are several examples of comics featuring Matt Baker's work on the character which ranges from Jumbo Comics #69 to #130 up for auction in the 2023 October 19 The Fiction House Comics & Comic Art Showcase Auction #40235 at Heritage Auctions.
As noted in the essential Baker reference Matt Baker: The Art of Glamour, "Ginger's legs were the real plus in these stories. Baker drew them from every conceivable angle, in positions that were often ungainly. Deliberately so. In fact, Baker was the first comic artist who had the courage to draw a beautiful pair of legs in an unaesthetic if natural way to increase the general humorous effect. Needless to say, he was hugely successful. Baker's last 'Sky Girl' story appeared in the August 1948 issue of Jumbo.
Matt Baker contributed to over 150 stories for Fiction House according to current GCD, and his work on Sky Girl helped put him on the map early in his career. The feature certainly helped show the comic book industry what Baker was capable of, and there are several examples of comics featuring Matt Baker's work on the character which ranges from Jumbo Comics #69 to #130 up for auction in the 2023 October 19 The Fiction House Comics & Comic Art Showcase Auction #40235 at Heritage Auctions. Bleeding Cool is doing an ongoing deep dive into the history behind Fiction House in the run-up to this auction. If you've never bid at Heritage Auctions before, you can get further information, you can check out their FAQ on the bidding process and related matters.
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