Gwandanaland Comics #942

This Gwandanaland Comics reprint brings back the complete first issue of Bold Stories — a March 1950 anthology promising 144 pages of humor, crime, and "gorgeous dames" for just 25 cents. The cover sets the tone perfectly: a redheaded woman strikes a startled pose at what appears to be Clancy's Carnival Afternoon Show, as a rotund figure in a red coat gleefully fires a dart at balloons, with two wide-eyed onlookers below reacting to the spectacle. It's a wonderfully chaotic snapshot of mid-century pulp comics energy, now neatly preserved in a single affordable 2019 volume.