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Baker Romance
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13,509 posts in this topic

Some of Baker's best work was done on westerns.

The later issues of the Texan have extra large panels, as if they were reformatted from a Sunday strip or pocketbook format.

Anyone know the story?

His ladies tended to be tough and not just the "damsel in distress".

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But the indians were pretty tough too!

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Abileen, City of Sin

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Edited by BB-Gun
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I think Baker preferred red. He dressed up Mysta in a green dress when she traveled in cognito.

 

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Although it looks like the giant ants thought the girls in red dresses were mighty tasty. Ladies first.

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I think you're right BB...the first thing I noticed when Baker began to catch my eye was that almost every great cover he had was made with some red in it. Great observation!

 

I'm going to diagree with that observation. Chances are that Baker probably had nothing to do with the coloring decisions. I suspect color was done by a house staffer. And red is a good color choice because it's bright and catches the eye.

 

P.S. Thanks for the Mysta scans. Love 'em!

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I think Baker preferred red. He dressed up Mysta in a green dress when she traveled in cognito.

 

3309776495_3c87a63384_b.jpg

3314173190_1a17c93193_b.jpg

3313347475_aa064731de_o.jpg

 

Although it looks like the giant ants thought the girls in red dresses were mighty tasty. Ladies first.

bb

 

I think you're right BB...the first thing I noticed when Baker began to catch my eye was that almost every great cover he had was made with some red in it. Great observation!

 

I'm going to diagree with that observation. Chances are that Baker probably had nothing to do with the coloring decisions. I suspect color was done by a house staffer. And red is a good color choice because it's bright and catches the eye.

 

P.S. Thanks for the Mysta scans. Love 'em!

 

Really? I'm going to look into it deeper but I was pretty sure there was a pattern there.

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I have often wondered how much influence the artist had on the color choice.

I have seen artist notes that suggest colors, sometimes on the proofs and occasionally on the art for the engraver.

It is fun to speculate sometimes but I don't really have the answer.

But I have noted that Quality and Harvey horror comics by Jack Cole and Powell and

Romance comics with Frazetta art have had some spectacular color work on the interior.

These guys (colorists) seldom get any credit if they are doing the color on their own.

 

By the way, there was another pretty good cover posted at GA.UK. And a good Baker story too.

And again the Romance Gods choose the red skirt.

 

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3309773759_98bf501ac7_b.jpg

I like the rocket-tractor and, oh yah, the girl in the red dress. The guy is wearing green. Again there is some Baker art on the inside (I hope).

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Edited by BB-Gun
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I like the rocket-tracker and, oh yah, the girl in the red dress. The guy is wearing green. Again there is some Baker art on the inside (I hope).

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It looks like a Baker splash to me.

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And this one is in the What If category. What if the She-Wolf splash wasn't censored and it was used as the cover.

And what if she had a green dress (skirt)!

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The Original censored version

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What if

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I think Baker preferred red. He dressed up Mysta in a green dress when she traveled in cognito.

 

3309776495_3c87a63384_b.jpg

3314173190_1a17c93193_b.jpg

3313347475_aa064731de_o.jpg

 

Although it looks like the giant ants thought the girls in red dresses were mighty tasty. Ladies first.

bb

 

I think you're right BB...the first thing I noticed when Baker began to catch my eye was that almost every great cover he had was made with some red in it. Great observation!

 

I'm going to diagree with that observation. Chances are that Baker probably had nothing to do with the coloring decisions. I suspect color was done by a house staffer. And red is a good color choice because it's bright and catches the eye.

 

P.S. Thanks for the Mysta scans. Love 'em!

 

Baker did do some of his own inking but it's difficult to say which he did and which he didn't.

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Mysta was wearing the red costume before Baker worked on the strip. But someone decided to change the color of her costume when she was in disguise. Editors, artist, writer colorist? We probably don't know in this case but the change was a good idea since it helped visualize the story line.

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From GA.UK Planet 35

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I think Baker preferred red. He dressed up Mysta in a green dress when she traveled in cognito.

 

 

 

3313347475_aa064731de_o.jpg

 

Although it looks like the giant ants thought the girls in red dresses were mighty tasty. Ladies first.

bb

 

Perhaps it would be safer to wear the green dress. Here is another example of ant cuisine.

bb

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Here are a couple more Baker covers. Not pure romance but the Authentic Police Cases always included relationships that had gone wrong.

Thanks to GA.UK I now have the entire run as electronic copies except for the two missing 100 pg issues,

which are in the crime box with my other issues of that genre.

 

Apparently it is a little difficult to scan the squarebound issues without breaking the spine.

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I think the Baker stories in Authentic Police Cases started with issue 10, which disagrees with Overstreet.

But there is a pretty good Mounty story in issue 6 that might have been Baker pencils.

Those issues, 3-9, before Baker interiors had pretty nice covers and some Cole work too which makes them very collectable.

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Some of the Baker splash pages were pretty good.

 

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Speaking of relationships gone wrong. I think this one from APC 13 was a pretty good Baker story.

 

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with the lady in the red dress in the background.

 

Which reminds me of the John Dellinger story and how he was caught outside of a theater because he wanted to see a Myrna Loy movie,

Manhattan Melodrama, with his girl friend and Anna Sage, who wore a red dress to tip off Melvin Purvis.

bb

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I think the Baker stories in Authentic Police Cases started with issue 10, which disagrees with Overstreet.

But there is a pretty good Mounty story in issue 6 that might have been Baker pencils.

Those issues, 3-9, before Baker interiors had pretty nice covers and some Cole work too which makes them very collectable.

3326576150_9bc9b307e2_b.jpg

 

 

This reminds me of that Leonardo movie "Catch me if you can".

bb

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I think the Baker stories in Authentic Police Cases started with issue 10, which disagrees with Overstreet.

But there is a pretty good Mounty story in issue 6 that might have been Baker pencils.

Those issues, 3-9, before Baker interiors had pretty nice covers and some Cole work too which makes them very collectable.

3326576150_9bc9b307e2_b.jpg

 

 

This reminds me of that Leonardo movie "Catch me if you can".

bb

 

It's even possible he read this story. The guy in Catch Me If You Can was a comic reader.

Nice stories BB

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I think there are a few differences in my list of Baker stories and covers and the article published in Alter Ego 47.

 

Alberto Becattini and Jim Vadeboncoer, Jr. Listed:

Original Baker Stories are in APC 10-18 and reprints in 35-38.

Covers by Baker were for APC 6-20, 22-24 and 27-29 and 31-38.

 

I didn't see a Baker story in issue 17 and 37. APC 35 reprints 2 stories from issue 10. APC 38 reprints a story from issue 18. APC36 reprints two stories from issue 11.

 

I agree that original stories by Baker were in issues 10-16 and 18 and the Baker covers were APC 6-20, 22-24, 27-29 and 31-38.

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I haven't checked issues 27 and 28 yet but when the cat moves, I will dig into the box and look at the last two issues.

bb

 

Hey, I am not saying that I am an expert like Jim and Alberto but since I have all the issues, I thought I would check

and double check using Alberto's article. This is definitely different from the list in Overstreet.

 

 

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Some of the Baker splash pages were pretty good.

 

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The above stories were from issues 10 and 11 which were reprinted at the end of the run.

Bullet Proof Bandits and the Kingpin story (posted earlier) were in issues 11 and 36. Crimson Gang and Red Bearded Rogue were in issues 10 and 35.

The Murder in Mink story was reprinted in APC 38 from issue 18 of APC.

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One thing that Matt Baker had in common with my other favorites, like Kirby and Kubert, was he knew how to draw the action in his strips.

I am always amazed at how hyperactive Sky Girl and Canteen Kate were.

Here are a couple more of Kate's splashes from issues 1 and 2.

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and finally, for now.

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