Blue Ribbon Comics #19
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeBlue Ribbon Comics #19 (December 1941) marks a clear editorial turning point for MLJ Magazines: with this issue, Captain Flag — the publisher's last-launched Golden Age superhero — assumed sole dominance of the cover, signaling MLJ's attempt to reposition its flagship anthology around a single patriotic hero at the height of the WWII-era patriotic-superhero boom. The issue hit newsstands the same month that Archie Andrews made his debut in Pep Comics #22, a coincidence that underscores how dramatically MLJ's priorities were about to shift away from the superhero format entirely. It also serves as the final chapter for two long-running Blue Ribbon features — Inferno the Flame-Breather and Loop Logan — closing out the title's broadest anthology era before the series pivoted and eventually folded with issue #22.
In "The Botanist of Death," a diver meets a mysterious end when cyanide fumes claim his life during a salvage operation on a sunken hulk, prompting Inferno to dive into the mystery. As he investigates, he uncovers a payroll truck buried beneath the harbor, its presence hinting at a dangerous secret hidden in the depths. Written by Joe Blair and illustrated by Irv Novick, with a cover by Lin Streeter, this 1941 thriller blends suspense and the eerie allure of the sea.
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The entire Blue Ribbon Comics run was edited by Harry Shorten, the managing editor whose fingerprints touched virtually every MLJ title of the period. Issue #19's cover was penciled and inked by Lin Streeter, the artist who co-created Captain Flag with writer Joe Blair starting in #16. The "Blue Ribbon" name itself was a legacy of the pulp-magazine imprint used by MLJ principals Louis Silberkleit and Maurice Coyne before they entered comics, and by late 1941 the branding had become so diluted — the words 'Blue Ribbon' had shrunk to near-invisibility on covers — that beginning with #19 MLJ pushed Captain Flag's name and image into the logo space in an apparent attempt to give the title a clearer superhero identity in an increasingly crowded market.
Trivia · 10 facts
- Cover date: December 1941; published by M.L.J. Magazines Inc. (indicia publisher), the precursor to Archie Comics.
- Cover art by Lin Streeter, who also drew the interior Captain Flag story; Harry Shorten served as editor.
- Captain Flag (Tom Townsend) assumes sole cover-feature status for the first time with this issue, displacing the shared cover arrangement with Mr. Justice that ran from #16–18.
- Issue #19 is the final appearance of the 'Inferno the Flame-Breather' solo feature, which writer Joe Blair and artist Paul Reinman had run from #13 through #19.
- Issue #19 is also the final appearance of the 'Loop Logan' aviation-ace feature.
- The Captain Flag story introduces the one-issue villain The Mad Botanist, whose plot involves a plant with tentacle-like vines killing an inventor; the villain dies within the issue.
- The Mr. Justice story, titled 'Royal Wrath,' features the ghostly hero confronting Satan and a one-appearance villain named Ribo.
- Stories from this issue were later reprinted in Gwandanaland Comics #277 (Captain Flag collection, March 2017) and #727 (Blue Ribbon Comics Volume 4, March 2017).
- The issue hit newsstands the same month as Pep Comics #22 — the historic debut of Archie Andrews — a moment that would soon redirect MLJ's entire publishing strategy away from superheroes.
- The full Blue Ribbon Comics run (22 issues, 1939–1942) was a 64-page anthology; this issue continues that format at the standard Golden Age price point.
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Reprints
Reprinted in Gwandanaland Comics #277 (2017), Gwandanaland Comics #727 (2017)
Key issues in Blue Ribbon Comics
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