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Lady Luck (comics)

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Lady Luck. Art by Klaus Nordling.

Lady Luck is a fictional, American comic-strip crime fighter and adventuress created and designed in 1940 by Will Eisner (who wrote the first two Lady Luck stories under the pseudonym "Ford Davis")[1], with artist Chuck Mazoujian. Writer Dick French then took over scripting.[2] Through 1946, she starred in a namesake, four-page weekly feature published in a Sunday-newspaper comic-book insert colloquially called "The Spirit Section". This 16-page, tabloid-sized, newsprint comic book, sold as part of eventually 20 Sunday newspapers with a combined circulation of as many as five million, starred Eisner's masked detective The Spirit and also initially included the feature Mr. Mystic,[3] plus filler material.

Publication history

Following the original team, writer-artist Nicholas Viscardi (later known as Nick Cardy) took over the feature from the May 18, 1941 strip through Feb. 22, 1942, introducing Lady Luck's chauffeur and assistant, Peecolo.[3] Though his Lady Luck stories were credited under the house pseudonym Ford Davis, Viscardi would subtly work in the initials "NV" somewhere into each tale.[4] Writer-artist Klaus Nordling followed, from the March 1, 1942 to March 3, 1946 strip, when "Lady Luck" was temporarily canceled. After briefly being replaced by the humor feature "Wendy the Waitress" by Robert Jenny, "Lady Luck" returned from May 5 - Nov. 3, 1946, under cartoonist Fred Schwab.[3]

"Lady Luck" stories were reprinted in the Quality Comics comic book Smash Comics #42-85 (April 1943 - Oct. 1949), whereupon the series changed its title to Lady Luck for five more issues. Nordling providing new seven- to 11-page stories in Lady Luck #86-90 (Dec. 1949 - Aug. 1950), with Gill Fox drawing the covers. Occasional backup features were "Lassie" by writer-artist Bernard Dibble and the humor features "The Count", by Nordling, and "Sir Roger", by Dibble or, variously, Bart Tumey.

Lady Luck was revived alongside Eisner characters John Law, Nubbin, and Mr. Mystic in IDW Publishing's Will Eisner's John Law: Dead Man Walking, a 2004 collection of new stories by writer-artist Gary Chaloner.

Character description

Lady Luck is the alter-ego of Brenda Banks, a young Irish-American socialite heiress, daughter of a mine-owner. Her costume consists a green dress, a large green hat, and a green veil in place of a mask. In some early versions representations of lucky charms hang from her hat brim. Like Denny Colt, hero of The Spirit, she does not possess any supernatural abilities.

Footnotes

  1. ^ Horn, Maurice. 100 Years of American Newspaper Comics (Gramercy Books, New York, 1996) p. 173)
  2. ^ Markstein, Don. "Toonopedia: Lady Luck".
  3. ^ a b c Wildwood Cemetery. "The Spirit Database".
  4. ^ Nick Cardy official site: Biography

References

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