Number 1098


The crimes of Matt Baker


After leaving the Iger shop where he had toiled on such features as the leggy Sky Girl, Matt Baker used a more sophisticated illustrative technique. When he went to St. John his artwork was just as recognizable and his girls as pretty, but not in the pin-up style of Fiction House. These two stories from 1950's Authentic Police Cases #10 are examples.

Of the two, the Canadian Mountie story, "The Case Of the Red Bearded Rogue," gives him more room for drawing. "Midwest Cops Smash the Crimson Gang" is written like a radio script with a lot of narration and dialogue, almost crowding his artwork off the page. He pulled it off, though. In the case of that story the real crime in this crime comic is over-writing.

Credit is given by comic book art expert Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr., to Baker alone for "Rogue" and for "Crimson Gang" pencils only, with inks by Ray Osrin.