Monday, April 03, 2023

Today in Comics History, April 3, 1964: And that's why Mama Bull told me to never hitchhike...

...because you might have been dead for a year when you do it! (And then you'd miss your birthday!)



from "Out of This World" in The Phantom Stranger (1969 series) #4 (DC/National, November 1969), script by Robert Kanigher, pencils and inks by Werner Roth and Neal Adams, inks by Murphy Anderson and Bill Draut, letters by Milt Snapinn (?) (or Ben Oda?)

This post was suggested by faithful reader and frequent commenter Blam, who's provided a lot of date references in comics that I'll spotlight throughout 2023 in this series. Blam also knows a lot about DC letterers and I wonder if he can clear up the "?" credit on this one!

Thanks, Blam!


2 comments:

Smurfswacker said...

I seem to remember reading this same story in Dell's Ghost Stories comic AND in the Classics Illustrated ghost comic. It must be true!

Blam said...

I think Oda’s far more likely than Snapinn here. Yeah, I say Oda a lot, but to call the guy prolific is a massive understatement. Looking at specifics can be tricky with him, I suspect because he worked so dang much certain tendencies might be heightened or muted based on his level of exhaustion, which isn’t to say that he was ever anything less than professional. The overall look in this story to me, going by the balloon shapes and most letters fitting in a square and just a general feeling, is Oda. Snapinn is pretty distinctive to me too; I can try to remember to point out indicative aspects of his stuff the next time it pops up in a post.