Matt Baker Archives

One exception is Strange Mysteries #19, which contains the spectacular story Was He Death-proof? reprinted from Journey into Fear #1 and credited to Matt Baker Superior understood what the market wanted here, and delivered some classic Pre-Code Horror covers and stories for this series.  There are several issues of Strange Mysteries up for auction in[...]

John Publications launched to take advantage of the crime comics boom of that pre-Code era.  The series is best remembered today for its Matt Baker covers on issues #2-3, and aside from the covers, is composed entirely of reprints from Chesler comic book material with some of the better-known characters renamed.  Lucky Coyne from Red[...]

Lily Renée's spectacular Werewolf Hunter from Rangers Comics also makes some appearances here, as does Ghost Squadron from Wings Comics.  Later issues seem to have significant non-reprint material. In addition to Maurice Whitman, a premiere Fiction House cover-artist who is deserving of much more credit than he has received, the title features work from notables such[...]

John comic book series is best remembered for its Matt Baker covers today. Cinderella Love #26 (St John, 1955) While the Disney-propelled interest in Cinderella-style love stories likely helped make the series one of the few Ziff-Davis comic book successes, the publisher's brief foray into comics was a pretty dismal failure Of the nearly 60 comic book[...]

John, 1952) featuring Reform School Girl story and Matt Baker cover. Curiously, the year after Avon published this one-shot title, St John chose to do its own version of Reform School Girl, titled exactly that, to help launch its Teen-Age Temptations romance title.  Drawn by artist Ric Estrada from a script by an unknown writer, in[...]

John, included photos of beautiful women along with illustrated fiction, cartoons, and other features targeting a male audience.  As the magazine's submission guidelines in Author and Journalist stated, Nugget's fiction material focused on "off-beat stories with strong writing an plots to appeal to adult male audience, also earthly and humorous stories." Of course, Matt Baker[...]

The name Matt Baker has become synonymous with beautiful women in comic book art, so it's fitting that his likely first work was on iconic jungle girl Sheena in Jumbo Comics from Fiction House.  Between the period in 1944 that he worked on that 12-page Sheena, Queen of the Jungle story for Jumbo Comics #69[...]

Matt Baker's cover for Cinderella Love #25 (St John, cover-dated December 1954) is considered among his best pieces of cover artwork, and it's easy to see why.  A festive, celebratory theme, a budding romance in the background, and a beautiful woman in the foreground who clearly has something on her mind.  Like much of Baker's[...]

If there's such a thing as an underappreciated Matt Baker-related series, St John's Authentic Police Cases might just be it.  While many collectors focus on Baker's romance from the St John era, and deservedly so, there are quite a few seemingly overlooked Baker covers in the Authentic Police Cases run.  This series lasted 1948-1955 for[...]

An artist who became legendary for his cover artwork in particular, Matt Baker had only done six of them before his first South Sea Girl cover, on Seven Seas Comics #3.  What's more, this piece is his first true Good Girl cover, on a series that very likely helped raise his profile in the comic[...]

Legendary artist Matt Baker edged into contributing to the Quality Comics romance line at a pivotal moment in his career.  Most of his comic book output had been for publisher St John Publications 1949-1955, but his assignments for St John took an abrupt dip in early 1954.  It's likely that in the wake of the[...]

John appears to have been preparing his company to roll with the changing tides of 1954 and beyond. While a Matt Baker cover paired with at least one interior feature by Baker proved a potent excellent formula at St John throughout much of his tenure there, his covers from 1954-1955 are unique.  In keeping with St[...]

That issue's Mountain Dew Murder centers around exactly that. The Mountain Dew Murder story in this issue was drawn by artist Antonio Canale.  Matt Baker's cover this issue is very loosely inspired by Murder, Inc.'s #1 Boy, a story drawn by Gene Colan.  A rarity for Authentic Police Cases in that it features a well-known real-life gangster,[...]

John.  It initially took over the Ziff-Davis numbering, with issues #12-14 having painted covers from unused Ziff-Davis inventory.  Matt Baker's first cover for the series is on Cinderella Love #15.  The series then pauses and returns five months later with Cinderella Love #25, taking over the numbering from the series Romantic Marriage (another Ziff-Davis acquisition). Baker's[...]

Although the title seems unusual to us today, Seven Seas Comics was inspired by the South Sea Island films of the 1930s-1940s.  Movies featuring a beautiful sarong-wearing South Sea Island girl were practically their own genre in the decade leading up to the debut of Matt Baker's South Sea Girl in Seven Seas Comics[...]

Much more often than not, Matt Baker's covers for St John Publications were reflective of one of the interior stories of the issue in question, and even when they weren't, the mismatch can often be traced to an editorial mix-up.  But on St John's giant editions, such coordination was sometimes impossible since those issues were[...]

John's Blue Ribbon Comics can be considered a test bed ahead of a series launch, perhaps something along the lines of the DC Comics' title Showcase.   Two of these test issues feature Matt Baker covers, and the one of these, Blue Ribbon Comics #2 (St John, 1949) CGC VG/FN 5.0 Off-white to white pages is[...]

Matt Baker's brief work for D.S Publishing corresponds with the period during which he left Iger Studio to work freelance (he also continued to freelance via Iger during this period).  This transitional period was still busy time for Baker.  He was still getting regular work from Fiction House and Fox, but his St[...]

The title never did make it to the planned monthly release schedule.  That was just the beginning of what seems to have been a somewhat problematic production for the series, and that might help explain the mystery behind the cover of The Saint #4.  An iconic late Golden Age cover, there's a The Saint #4[...]

John comic book, starting in 1948 and ending with the arrival of the Comics Code.  That's largely because of the talents of Matt Baker, whose first work on this title is the cover of Authentic Police Cases #6.  A highly regarded and important Baker cover with inks by Ray Osrin, there's a copy of Authentic[...]

Matt Baker embarked on what is perhaps the most important part of his career in mid-1948 with St John Publications.  The cover of Crime Reporter #2 was the first St John work by Baker to hit the newsstand, with a June 26, 1948, on-sale date (per Library of Congress copyright records).  This was followed by[...]

Most of Matt Baker's earliest comic book work was for publisher Fiction House via the Iger Studio.  But despite contributing work to about 130 issues from the publisher on titles including Jumbo Comics, Wings Comics, and Fight Comics among others, Baker apparently did no covers for the publisher (according to GCD data).  The publisher did[...]

 There's a Kid Kane story that is classic Matt Baker, a wonderfully strange feature story called The Atomic Blondshell by Jack Kamen (probably) and others from Iger Studio, and a memorably unusual cover attributed to Baker featuring the character Lucky Wings (the Atomic Blondshell in this story) being threatened by an atomic energy projector.  A[...]

And while the issue #1 cover looks for all the world like a Jane Arden leftover, the covers of the rest of this short-lived series are another matter entirely.  Of course, there's no Jinx Jordan in sight on these covers, but rather Matt Baker's beautiful women rendered as he was entering the peak of his[...]

Cole's tried-and-true magic formula for his Star Publications titles here a few times before.  Cole would assign Jay Disbrow a new story to package into a new comic with his acquired inventory material, and typically, he would create a new cover based on Disbrow's story.  But Terrors of the Jungle #19 is something special in[...]

As we've recently noted, 1953's Sweethearts #119, with its Marilyn Monroe cover, is the most sought-after issue of that title from the Fawcett era of the series.  By the end of that year, Fawcett had sold all its comic book titles "except the Marvels" to Charlton, where Sweethearts and others continued.  Through a series of[...]

Cole Showcase Auction #40224 at Heritage Auctions. Girls' Love Stories #40 (DC Comics, 1956). Romance titles are often underappreciated by collectors, and typically contain work by some of the greats of the era in question.  The issues of Girls' Love Stories on offer in this listing include work by Matt Baker, Alex Toth, Carmine Infantino, John Romita,[...]

Cole Showcase Auction #40224 at Heritage Auctions. #42 (Atlas, 1955) The series featured a number of familiar stand-out Marvel artists of the era, along with a few surprises.  John Romita, Jay Scott Pike, Mike Sekowsky, Russ Heath, and Jack Kirby were all contributors to issues available here.  Romance and good girl comics legend Matt Baker contributed to[...]

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[...]

John realized they needed a different tactic. With the final issue of Nightmare, they went in a more classic horror-suspense direction with the series covers: Matt Baker to the rescue.  Loosely based on the interior story The Devil from the Deep and with sea monsters clearly inspired by Creature from the Black Lagoon, the final issue[...]