Electricmastro

Jack Alderman drew for Crime Does Not Pay from 1943-1947. He apparently didn’t draw any covers for the series, but it’s unfortunate he didn’t. Going by his interior art, I think he would have gone on to become a more appreciated artist as opposed to a more underappreciated one had he drawn more of them.

I get the feeling most people tend to judge Golden Age art, at least interior art, by Joe Shuster, Bob Kane, and Jack Kirby’s art, which I’ve seen tends to lead to people dismissing Golden Age art altogether in spite of the respect people have for artists like Shuster otherwise, because of how “plain” it comes off to them. At least in terms of war comics, one series that caught my attention and led me to think can serve as a good example of people wanting to get a good idea of solid comic book art from the time, I’d then recommend looking through Contact Comics: L. B. Cole: John Giunta: Nina Albright: George Appel: Rudy Palais: Alvin Hollingsworth:

Well yeah, the 1951 series that continued starting with issue 5.

Charles Quinlan’s art is pretty effective as well. Would have made for more interesting covers I feel.

Crime Does Not Pay #25 (January, 1943):

I had browsed through that series and enjoyed Orestes Calpini‘s art, whom I wasn’t familiar with before. This page he drew from Punch and Judy Comics #v2#5 (December, 1946) stuck out to me in particular:

Youthful Magazines: Walter Johnson (Indian Fighter #1, May 1950): Wally Wood (Captain Science #1, November 1950): Gustav Schrotter (Captain Science #2, February 1951): John Sink (Buffalo Bill #4, February 1951): Manny Stallman (Indian Fighter #6, March 1951): Keats Petree (Buffalo Bill #5, April 1951): Joe Orlando (Captain Science #4, June 1951): Tex Blaisdell (Captain Science #6, October 1951): Harry Harrison (Captain Science #7, December 1951): Vince Napoli (Stamps Comics #3, February 1952): Roy Krenkel (Attack #4, November 1952): Vic Carrabotta (Atomic Attack #6, March 1953): Steve Kirkel (Chilling Tales #17, October 1953):

Speaking of which, the rule of “Ridicule or attack on any religious or racial group is never permissible.“ is definitely the comics code rule that can’t be reasonably argued against, Judge Murphy’s idiotic case with EC aside. Seeing as how people like Wertham were right to condemn racism, as well as cases of delinquent white kids attacking other kids for being black, it’s make it all the more ashame that Wertham essentially let any good intentions against racism, including racism in comics, get pushed aside by his overreacting emotions towards biting off more he could chew by trying to find any crime and horror comics he could out of desperation in trying to lessen criminal tendencies, with little to no regard to factual based research and solid evidence. I still don’t see him as a bad man, and maybe somewhat of a good man, but if I’m truly not allowed to call him good, then I see him as a confused man who really desperately thought he knew the solutions that should be had when he really didn’t. Also how many publishers seemingly tried not to take more risks with race by showing black people less and less in comics in the late 50s and early 60s, with perhaps the biggest exception being Tiny from Harvey Comics, who even got his own feature, and then of course Black Panther came along in the mid-60s.

It was also suggested that L. B. Cole penciled Toytown Comics, but going by what you said and the HC here, then Cole probably didn’t pencil any of this at all, and that he never changed up his penciling style that much, even when going by his Frisky Animals covers.

I wasn’t too familiar with Bob Powell’s work to begin with until I saw his western art, which stuck out to me:

From Silver Streak Comics #20 (April, 1942):

Recently checked out Magazine Enterprises and their western comics, which they seemed to focus on the most and put a lot of care into, having artists such as Fred Meagher, Joe Certa, Bob Powell, and DickAyers working on Tim Holt, Straight Arrow, Charles Starrett as the Durango Kid, and the like. These samples in particular are from Best of the West #1 (September, 1951): There’s also Frank Bolle (Tim Holt #22, February 1951):