It's almost Halloween, so let's present a scary private eye story...
...from the 1950s, the era when horror comics were all the rage!
Ken Shannon started in 1950 when Police Comics dropped all their superheroes (including Plastic Man and The Spirit) in favor of crime stories.
Beginning with #103, Ken took the cover and lead story slot until #126.
Simultaneously, Ken received his own title, which ran for 10 issues.
As you can see from the story, Ken was the typical hard-boiled private dick with an internal monologue, obviously patterned after already-popular detectives like Sam Spade and Mike Hammer.
His only distinctive characteristic was that he was of Irish descent.
(In fact, his premiere tale was called "The Mad Irishman"!)
The art for almost all his tales (including this one) was by Reed Crandall, one of the best illustrators in the business who went on to become one of the mainstays of EC Comics, handling horror, war, romance and sci-fi with equal panache.
Simultaneously, Ken received his own title, which ran for 10 issues.
As you can see from the story, Ken was the typical hard-boiled private dick with an internal monologue, obviously patterned after already-popular detectives like Sam Spade and Mike Hammer.
His only distinctive characteristic was that he was of Irish descent.
(In fact, his premiere tale was called "The Mad Irishman"!)
The art for almost all his tales (including this one) was by Reed Crandall, one of the best illustrators in the business who went on to become one of the mainstays of EC Comics, handling horror, war, romance and sci-fi with equal panache.
