Tuesday, July 14, 2015

Girl's Romances #151

Girl's Romances #151 (On Sale: July 14, 1970) has a cover inked by the dreaded Vinnie Colletta.

We begin with "Busybody -- Empty Arms," also inked by Vinnie Colletta. That is followed by "Tame a Wild Heart," penciled by John Rosenberger. We end with "Unloved and Unwanted" drawn by Murphy Anderson.

Murphy Anderson was not a regular on the romance comics, so this was a treat.

Murphy Anderson  was born July 9, 1926 and worked for companies such as DC Comics for over fifty years, entering the comic book industry in 1944 drawing the "Suicide Smith", "Sky Rangers", and "Star Pirate" features for Fiction House. From 1947 to 1949, Anderson was the artist on the Buck Rogers comic book series. During the 1950s, Anderson worked for several publishers including Pines Comics, Marvel Comics, St. John Publications, Ziff Davis, and DC Comics, where he found a home.

In Strange Adventures  Anderson became the artist of the "Captain Comet" with the story "The Girl from the Diamond Planet" story in issue #12, Sept. 1951). Another Strange Adventures feature drawn by Anderson was the Atomic Knights which debuted in issue #117, June 1960 and which Anderson later described as his favorite assignment. Anderson and writer Gardner Fox launched the Silver Age Hawkman series in May 1964 and introduced the Zatanna in issue #4.The Spectre was revived by Fox and Anderson in Showcase #60 in Feb. 1966) and was given his own series in December 1967.

Most fans remember Anderson as an inker. His work over Carmine Infantino's pencils on Adam Strange were top notch, but Murphy is maybe best remembered as the inker for Curt Swan in Superman and Action Comics. in the 1970s. The fans dubbed them Swanderson. In 1973, he established Murphy Anderson Visual Concepts, which provided color separations and lettering for comic books.

Edited by Murray Boltinoff.

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