Marvelous Maneely
or: It's Just a Scratch
Once again we don our blindfold and plunge into the Long-Box of Mystery to reveal... Fantasy Masterpieces #11. Fantasy Masterpieces was, along with Collectors' Item Classics and Marvel Tales, a reprint book featuring stories from their early days as Timely and Atlas.
To be honest I had little interest in the golden age Timely stuff. The Altas material was another matter. Quirky little stories by the likes of Ditko and Don Heck were big favorites. The one strip that really bit me in the eye was the Arthurian era Black Knight by Joe Maneely who we see here thwarting the plans of the menacing Mordred.
Supposedly, Joe could draw as many pages a day as Jack only Joe's pages were inked too. The mind reels. I later became more familiar with his work across a variety of genres but, to my mind, the Black knight was his crowning achievement.
Happy Trails
Smitty