[ This was the highest grade 1940’s comics I have seen so far: the pages were supple, color was untarnished, the pages were undamaged, the spine was intact, no discoloration. Excellently preserved – a man’s father’s personal collection. Glad to have a handful of vintage Jack Kamen’s covers, to study and share with people – the Golden Age and Pre-Code comics are not all digitally documented, and often the ones that are scanned on archives, are in mid grade, or poor condition, affecting the visibility of the artist’s original creations – faded, potentially lost – to the ages, and out of sight. These comics, to me, are refreshing, and have what comics for decades have lacked – a certain naturalistic, and rawness, that are fascinating and wonderful – in a way that gritty, and newer comics, are lacking.

The crisp, boldness- in exchange for metallic industrial backgrounds, that aren’t as existentially pleasing, as ‘subjects’, with jungle backgrounds – which are pleasing and transporting in and of themselves, to a place someone would want to see; rather than dirty urban, polluted, and sterile civilization, which people would rather go on vacation from. Realism, applied to the unappealing, perhaps, creating vividly, unappealing imagery?

Something viewers can experience, when revisiting these classic covers, are how powerful, ‘simple’ subjects can be, when delivered with hand drawn artistry, bold colors, and dynamic scenes – making the trees and animals, more dynamic, than super heroes and villains doing the impossible. The modest short-skirted good girl art, in it’s context, more risque, than the thonged, virtually nude/ body paint costume, how -to-draw- style super heroines. The expressions have more impact the more human they look, and with stylization, eradicating many facial muscles, bones, the articulation of expressions is reduced to hyperbole*.

*(all look like Kate moss with implants ; made boring, by stylization, with lack of distinguishing characteristics).