King Comics #15
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeKing Comics #15 (1937) is a representative installment of one of the earliest American comic book anthology series to reprint King Features Syndicate newspaper strips in standard comic-book format, helping establish the commercial viability of the medium in its pre-Golden Age years. The Edgar Allan Poe reference in this issue appears not as a fictional story but as a single illustrated factoid within a recurring non-fiction feature called 'News in Pictures' — placing Poe inside a comic book page a full decade before Classics Illustrated would make literary adaptations a genre staple. That a writer of Poe's stature was already being mined for illustrated trivia in a ten-cent newsstand comic in 1937 reflects how broadly popular culture was beginning to intersect with the nascent comic-book medium. The issue also continued the series' role as an early mass-market showcase for major strip artists and storytellers who would define the pre-superhero era.
An anthology issue featuring multiple heroes. Captain Future must protect a woman named Agatha from the evil Doctor Holanza, using his super-speed powers to intercept enemies and retrieve a note revealing Holanza's whereabouts before pursuing the villain. Mystico, an invisible magician, takes down armed criminals and a gang leader after overhearing radio reports of danger to the nation. The Fighting Yank battles Nazi agents on water, rescuing a man from drowning and later engaging in a firefight at a police station to stop the Nazi operatives from escaping with a captive.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
King Comics launched in April 1936 as David McKay Publications' vehicle for collecting King Features Syndicate newspaper strips into standard comic-book format, with the series running through 1952 for a total of 159 issues. The editorial voice of the series across this period was Ruth Plumly Thompson — best known as the successor author of the Oz book series — who scripted non-fiction features and editorial material under her own name and the pseudonym 'Jo King.' Issue #15 (1937) fell squarely in the series' early monthly run, and cover art was handled by Joe Musial, who served as the series' regular cover artist during this era. The anthology format was assembled from pre-existing syndicated material rather than original content, making McKay an aggregator and packager rather than a creative originator.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published in 1937 by David McKay Publications as part of the King Comics anthology series, which ran from April 1936 through February 1952 (159 issues total).
- The Edgar Allan Poe 'appearance' is a single illustrated non-fiction panel within the recurring 'News in Pictures' feature — specifically the anecdote that Poe was dismissed from West Point for appearing at dress parade without his trousers.
- The 'News in Pictures' sequence was scripted by Ruth Plumly Thompson (the Oz series continuator) and penciled and inked by Marge Buell, who was simultaneously developing the character that would become Little Lulu.
- The issue reprints strips from more than a dozen King Features properties, including Flash Gordon (written by Don Moore, drawn by Alex Raymond), Thimble Theatre (E.C. Segar's Popeye), Mandrake the Magician (Lee Falk/Phil Davis), The G-Man, Ace Drummond, Henry, Brick Bradford, King of the Royal Mounted, The Little King (Otto Soglow), Little Annie Rooney, Ted Towers, and Bringing Up Father (George McManus).
- Cover art was by Joe Musial, the series' regular cover illustrator during this period.
- The series was edited by Ruth Plumly Thompson, sometimes credited internally under the pen name 'Jo King.'
- The Hall of Fame of the Air feature in this issue — a non-fiction aviation strip — was associated with World War I ace Eddie Rickenbacker and illustrated by Jack Burnley.
- King Comics #1 (1936) had established the series' format by being among the first standard comic books to reprint strips featuring Flash Gordon and Popeye; issue #15 continued that anthology structure with no original comic stories.
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Reprinted in Four Color #25 (1942)
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