Kerry Drake

Kerry Drake is a determined plainclothes detective whose crime-fighting adventures were chronicled in the classic newspaper comic strip by Alfred Andriola, beginning in 1943. With no superhuman abilities, Drake relied on sharp instincts and dogged police work to pursue criminals.

Few characters can claim a Golden Age birth and a publishing life stretching nearly eight decades, but Kerry Drake is one of them — a detective who first stepped onto the comics page in Famous Funnies #104 in 1943, brought to life by J. Carroll Mansfield. Over the years he'd anchor his own showcase in Kerry Drake Detective Cases and become a fixture in The Menomonee Falls Gazette, rubbing shoulders in the same pages as icons like Superman, Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, and Robin. That kind of enduring company speaks to a character who found a lasting place in the collector's world, and with 78 years of publication history behind him, Kerry Drake is a Golden Age original well worth tracking down.