©2019 Ken Quattro Comic book defender, Josette Frank of the Child Study Association of America (CSAA) and Edwin Lukas, Executive Director of the Society for Crime Prevention, were in the audience on March 2, 1948, for the radio broadcast of “America’s Town Meeting of the Air.” A panel comprised of drama critic John Mason Brown, writer Marya Mannes, cartoonist Al…

©2019 Ken Quattro New Yorkers like to claim that it’s their water that makes their pizza and bagels taste better than anywhere else. I’m not about to get into that debate, but I will say there must be something in their environment that produces comic creators. Of course, the proximity of the comic book industry to the NYC schools has…

©2019 Ken Quattro It was 1941 and the debate about the effects of comic books on the youth of America had been raging in earnest for over a year. Sterling North’s article, “A National Disgrace,” published on May 8, 1940 had jump-started the discussion and the comic book industry had been on the defensive ever since. Within the comic book…

I couldn’t just scan the one Joe Simon and Jack Kirby illustration from MARVEL STORIES vol. 2 #2 that accompanied the text of “Cycle” from my last post. That just wouldn’t be right So, as a special treat, below you will find scans of each Simon and Kirby illustration appearing in that issue. And don’t overlook the bonus scan at…

Some years back, I first wrote this partially tongue-in-cheek article as a response to one of the most enduring arguments among comic book fans and historians, “Who was most responsible for the creation of the Fantastic Four?” Like everyone else who wasn’t in the room with Jack Kirby and Stan Lee–I can’t say for certain. But that hasn’t ended the…

Will Eisner was the Colossus of Comics. With a career that began at the inception of the modern American comic book era back in the 1930s and spanned the history of the medium into the 21st Century, he both preceded and outlasted most of his contemporaries and was still producing quality work right up until the day he died in…

“The truth is never pure and rarely simple.” — Oscar Wilde Welcome! Or, if you’ve stumbled across me before, welcome back! My name is Ken Quattro and I am THE COMICS DETECTIVE of this blog’s title  and simply put: I study, research and write about the history of the comics medium–comic books, comic strips and everything related to them. I’ve…