THE SPIRIT "Vietnam '50"

Before America took a direct hand...

...Vietnam was, to pop culture fans, just another exotic locale for high adventure!

Written by Will Eisner (with Jules Feiffer assisting), penciled and inked by Eisner and his studio, this tale published in November 5, 1950 Sunday newspapers uses the then-current Indo-China War as the nominal location for a story about a criminal who tries to evade justice, only to be done in by his own avarice!
Eisner would revisit the locale decades later in the Dark Horse graphic novel Last Day in Vietnam.(2000)

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Last Day In Vietnam

by Will Eisner

and/or

The Spirit Archives

Volume 21

(which contains the tale re-presented here!)

IT RHYMES WITH LUST "Chapter 4: Indecision"

We Have Already Seen...

Newspaperman Hal Weber discovers his lover and secret employer Rust Masson doesn't like it when her own stepdaughter attempts to lure Hal away from her...

To Be Continued...Tomorrow...

at

Seduction of the Innocent!

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It Rhymes with Lust

Deluxe Reprint Edition

IT RHYMES WITH LUST "Chapter 2: Caught in the Web"

When Last We Left Our Hero...

Newspaperman Hal Weber takes over Copper City's "The Express", ostensibly a legit news-source, but secretly the PR tool of Rust Masson, Weber's former lover and head of a criminal cartel that controls the town's government and underworld!

But meeting Audrey Masson, Rust's lovely, innocent step-daughter, makes Hal reconsider his mercenary task...

To Be Continued...MONDAY

at

Seduction of the Innocent!

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It Rhymes with Lust

Deluxe Reprint Edition

JOHNNY DYNAMITE "Wire Trap"

Did you know there was a Johnny Dynamite prose story?

Told in hard-boiled style, of course...

This never-reprinted short by Ken Fitch (with a Pete Morisi spot illustration) from Comic Media's Dynamite #8 (1954) makes us regret Fitch never tried doing a Johnny Dynamite novel.

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Johnny Dynamite

by Max Allan Collins and Terry Beatty

JOHNNY DYNAMITE "Eye for an Eye!"

We showed you Johnny's premiere...

...but this cover should tip you off that a major change would occur in his second issue!

There's hard boiled...and there's HARD BOILED!

This was HARD BOILED!

If there was any doubt Johnny Dynamite was the equal to Mike Hammer or any of the other private dicks of the era, this story wipes it out!

Co-creator/writer Ken Fitch worked in comics from the earliest days (National Allied Publications' [Later DC Comics] New Fun Comics in 1935) to the early 1960s at Dell Comics doing movie and TV adaptations!

Along the way, he co-created several characters besides Johnny Dynamite including DC's Tex Thompson: AmeriCommando, and HourMan!
Be here tomorrow for a one-of-a-kind text story starring Johnny Dynamite !

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Johnny Dynamite

by Max Allan Collins and Terry Beatty

JOHNNY DYNAMITE "I'll Find That Killer!"

The closest Golden Age comics came to Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer was...

...Johnny Dynamite, who, appropriately-enough, appeared in Comic Media's Dynamite!

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From this first appearance in Dynamite #3 (1953) onward, writer Ken Fitch (using the pen-name "William Waugh") and artist Pete Morisi went full-tilt hard-boiled/film noir in comic book form.

(In the pre-Comics Code days, you could do this sort of thing.)

But, this was nothing compared to what was coming in the very next issue, as you'll see tomorrow!

For more background on the short-lived, but still popular shamus go HERE!

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Johnny Dynamite

by Max Allan Collins and Terry Beatty