Miss America Magazine #3
Miss America Magazine #3 (on sale October 27, 1944) marks the second-ever appearance of Patsy Walker — the Timely Comics teen-humor character who would endure across three decades of publication, become one of Marvel's first titles to carry the 'MC' Marvel Comics imprint, and eventually be reinvented as the superheroine Hellcat in 1976. The issue also introduces Nancy Brown, a recurring supporting player in the long-running Patsy Walker cast, and features the debut of the Golden Age villain King Cobra as an adversary for Madeline Joyce's Miss America. As only the third issue of the hybrid magazine-and-comic format that Timely's editors pivoted to starting with #2, this issue consolidates the dual-track editorial experiment — superhero adventure front-of-book, teen romantic comedy back-of-book — that would define the title for years and help Timely stake out a lucrative niche with young female readers at a time when superhero comics were beginning to lose cultural momentum.
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Miss America Magazine grew directly out of Miss America Comics #1 (early 1944), itself a solo showcase for Madeline Joyce, one of Timely's few female superheroes. Editor Bessie H. Little — wife of the credited Patsy Walker writer Stuart Little — oversaw the dramatic reformatting that began with issue #2: the book expanded to a large-format 64-page magazine with glossy color outer wraps housing the comics sections and newsprint interior pages carrying fashion, movie, and prose-fiction content aimed squarely at teenage girls. Issue #3 continued this format under the same editorial team (Bessie H. Little as editor, Melvin D. Blum as art director, Martin Goodman as publisher), with Pauline Loth — a former Fleischer Studios animator who had also worked on the Miss America costume design — handling all interior Miss America art, and Ruth Atkinson penciling and inking the Patsy Walker strip.
Trivia · 8 facts
- On sale date: October 27, 1944 (per Grand Comics Database, sourced from the Catalog of Copyright Entries).
- Second-ever appearance of Patsy Walker, who debuted the previous issue (Miss America Magazine #2, November 1944); created by writer Stuart Little and artist Ruth Atkinson.
- First appearance of Nancy Brown, a supporting character who would recur across the Patsy Walker titles into the 1960s.
- First appearance of villain King Cobra, who clashes with Miss America (Madeline Joyce) across the book's superhero comic section in a story involving hidden bomber plans.
- The Patsy Walker story — scripted by Stuart Little, penciled and inked by Ruth Atkinson — features the continuing cast of Buzz Baxter, Hedy Wolfe, Stanley Walker, and Mary Walker alongside the newly introduced Nancy Brown; the plot concerns Patsy's rivalry-fueled attempt to get a secretarial job after seeing Hedy already employed.
- The Miss America comic section was illustrated by Pauline Loth (former Fleischer Studios animator), who drew two separate Miss America stories in this issue.
- The painted cover was by artist Louise Alston, continuing the magazine's practice of non-photo painted covers for this issue (issue #2 had used a photo cover of a costumed model).
- The issue's hybrid format — roughly 14 pages of color Miss America comics and 7 pages of color Patsy Walker comics embedded in a ~64-page teen magazine — was part of a deliberate editorial strategy that would soon shift entirely to Patsy Walker as the sole comics feature after issue #5.
Cast · 8 characters
Full credits
Full plot ⚠ may contain spoilers
▸ Reveal full plot — may contain spoilers
When Patsy thinks Buzz is showing interest in Hedy because she has a job, Patsy decides she needs to get one as well.
Plot details indexed by the Grand Comics Database (CC BY-SA).