Number 706

Looks fishy to me

The radio show, Land Of the Lost, created, written and narrated by Isabel Manning Hewson, was on the air from 1943 to 1948. A book based on the show, illustrated by Olive Bailey, was published by Whittlesey House in 1945. Max Gaines licensed the show for Educational Comics in 1946, and hired Ms. Hewson as writer and Ms. Bailey as artist. This may be the only time I can think of during the 1940s that a female writer-artist team had a series.* The comic book went nine issues.

This is the first story from issue #1. As you can see, Bailey had a style which calls to mind an earlier era of storybooks and illustrated children's literature. Hewson's story is whimsical...the Land Of the Lost is the place where all of the lost artifacts of our daily lives go, into the ocean to be kept in storage in Davy Jones locker.

The fish character, Red Lantern, must've made Gaines smile, since it was his All-American Comics line, published by DC Comics, that introduced the popular superhero, Green Lantern.

Land Of the Lost was published until 1948 and then dropped. Max Gaines died in 1947. It's unknown to me whether the comic was canceled because of sales or because Max Gaines' son, Bill, was taking EC in another direction.

*There was Toni Blum, who wrote for the Iger comic book shop. Some of her stories were undoubtedly illustrated by one or more of the female artists in Fiction House comic books. Unlike the Iger shop, the Land Of the Lost connection between writer and artist was touted in the comic books themselves, as you can see by the inside front cover of issue #1.

The next few postings will feature early EC, before the notorious New Trend comics EC is famous for.