Joe Palooka #113

Ham Fisher's cover for this December 1959 Harvey Comics issue sets the stage perfectly: the bold "Prison Break!" banner says it all, as Joe Palooka lands a haymaker on a numbered convict (prisoner 9X3462) beneath a spotlight circle, while silhouetted guards and muzzle flashes light up the prison wall above them. It's a tense, well-staged scene that captures everything you'd want from a story titled "The Escaped Convict" — danger, action, and Joe right in the thick of it. At a dime a copy, this was exactly the kind of pulse-quickening entertainment that kept Joe Palooka boasting over 40,000,000 readers in 1959.