Fight Comics #57

History

Fight Comics launched in January 1940 as one of three titles Fiction House debuted simultaneously, with publisher Thurman T. Scott relying on the Eisner & Iger packaging shop to supply content. By 1948, the book was edited by Jack Byrne (managing editor) and Joseph V. Daffron, with S.M. Iger still credited as art director — a direct line back to the original packager. The stories were produced through the Iger Shop, where artists worked pseudonymously (the GCD records house pen names such as 'Rollin W. Bell,' 'Chuck Walker,' and 'Stuart Drake' for this very issue), making precise individual attribution difficult to this day. Fiction House employed a notably diverse roster of artists, including Matt Baker, widely cited as the first prominent African-American artist in comics, and Austrian émigré Lily Renée, who had been the primary Señorita Rio artist from 1943 until approximately 1948 — the year this issue was published.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Fight Comics #57 was published by Fiction House (indicia publisher: Fight Stories, Inc.) in 1948, ran 52 pages, and carried a cover price of ten cents.
• Tiger Girl (Princess Vishnu) is the cover feature; she first appeared in Fight Comics #32 (June 1944), created by Robert Webb, and had taken over as the series' cover character beginning with issue #49.
• Tiger Girl's origin — a princess of Indian descent raised in Africa by her father Rajah Vishnu after the death of her Irish mother — was established in Fight Comics #33 and is the context for her adventures in this issue.
• The Tiger Girl story from this issue was later reprinted in Jungle Comics #156 (December 1952), with five pages edited out — one of the clearest documented reprints tied directly to this issue.
• Señorita Rio (civilian identity: Rita Farrar) appears in her continuing spy serial; the character debuted in Fight Comics #19 (June 1942), created by Nick Cardy (then working as Nick Viscardi), and ran through issue #71, skipping only #69.
• Señorita Rio is recognized as one of the earliest female lead characters and one of the first Latina protagonists in American comics, with her origin — a Hollywood actress who fakes her death after her fiancé is killed at Pearl Harbor to become an Allied spy in Latin America — established at her debut.
• The GCD credits the Kayo Kirby story with probable pencils by Matt Baker and/or Jack Kamen (Iger Shop), and the Captain Fight story with pencils by Jack Kamen, reflecting the shop's practice of assigning multiple artists to a single issue under house pseudonyms.
• Kit Carson appears in this issue as a non-fiction text piece (typeset, non-illustrated story), distinguishing it from the fictional adventure strips that fill the rest of the book.

Cast · 5 characters

Full credits

Key issues in Fight Comics

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#19 1st appearance — Señorita Rio

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#25 1st appearance — Rip Carson