Number 1346: Al Avison’s Red Blazer

I need to get this out of the way first. To me the superhero name “Red Blazer” sounds like a sports coat.

Now that I’ve got that off my chest, Red Blazer, the superhero — not the jacket — was created in 1941 for Harvey’s Pocket Comics #1. A few years ago Heritage Auctions sold the original art, and I'm presenting the Heritage scans here.

Alfred (Al) Avison (1920-1984) is the artist attributed. Avison was a comic art journeyman, beginning in the very early days of comic books, and working for many years. He had an ability to mimic other cartoonists' styles, especially Chester Gould and Ham Fisher. Avison did most, if not all, of the covers for the Dick Tracy and Joe Palooka reprints Harvey Comics issued over the years. Pocket Comics only lasted four issues. It’s my belief that comics in a smaller format would be easier to overlook on a magazine stand, but also easier for kids to shoplift. They didn't call 'em "pocket comics" for nothing.

Cover for issue #1, drawn by Joe Simon:

The artwork is on 8" x 12.5" paper, smaller than a standard twice-up comic book page.

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Number 1047

The Green Hornet and Jolly Roger


A couple of days ago I showed you a Lone Ranger story, so it seems appropriate to show you a Green Hornet story. They came out of the same creative studio, brought to life as radio shows by George W. Trendle and writer Fran Striker. The Lone Ranger pre-dated The Green Hornet by a couple of years, with Green Hornet going on the air in 1936.

The Green Hornet character, Britt Reid, is actually the Lone Ranger's great-nephew, being the grandson of the Lone Ranger's brother. Now that we have the genealogy down, the other particulars are that Britt Reid and his faithful servant, Kato, motor around in a technologically advanced car, the Black Beauty. They are vigilantes by night; Britt is a newspaper publisher by day.

Speaking of genealogy, the Green Hornet has a long history in comics, besides having appeared on radio, in movie serials, a television show and a Seth Rogen movie from 2010. Several companies have published comics about the character. Harvey had a successful run in the 1940s. This issue, #33, which came out in 1947, is the last of the series titled The Green Hornet. The next issue it became The Green Hornet Fights Crime (crime comics having come into their own about that time). That lasted ten issues.

Al Avison, who had worked in the Joe Simon/Jack Kirby studio, drew this story of a modern pirate. In the early 1950s he drew some great early horror comics covers, before Harvey's horror comics became so infamously horrible (horrible-good, not horrible-bad, there's a difference). Throughout the 1950s Avison was busy doing covers and spot illustrations for comics like Dick Tracy Monthly, mimicking Chester Gould, and also Ham Fisher's Joe Palooka comics, where in addition to covers Avison did features like Little Max and Humphrey.

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Number 447


"C'mon you yellow Ratzis!"


As a young comics fan in the early 1960s, some of the first World War II-era comics I saw were by Al Avison and Al Gabrielle, carrying on the work of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby on Captain America. Avison and Gabrielle were part of the shop that produced those popular comics, and carried on when S & K left to go to DC. I loved the frantic action, legs flying out of panels, heroes and bad guys alike flying through the air in the endless fistfights that filled the pages. It was heady stuff for a kid raised with the more sedate post-Code comics.

Al Avison worked for many years in the industry. He was a true professional and an artist who worked in several styles, often imitating other artists. He did many covers for Harvey Comics, working in the style of Chester Gould on the Dick Tracy reprints, for instance.

The Grand Comics Database shows that "The Cobra Ring Of Death" was published in Captain America #22 from 1943, and again in The Golden Age Of Marvel Comics, a one-shot published in 1997. It doesn't show this printing, which was in Captain George's Comics World #23-24, a double issue from 1969. George Henderson, a publisher and store owner in Toronto, Canada, had gotten ahold of some black and white photostats from Timely Comics of the 1940s, and published them in his fanzine.

The Grand Comics Database guesses the writer was Stan Lee.

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