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| Matt Baker with publisher Archer St. John |
I'm old enough to remember when comics covered every genre. And not
just superheroes. There were detective comics, westerns, jungle
adventures, horror, humor, romance, and space opera. Among others. The
ones that I wasn't able to catch first hand were
the "grind house" comic books from publisher Archer St. John and
St.Johns Publications.
These were romance comics. But with a little extra kick to them.
The stories were straight out of a grind house movie theater. They were
about wild parties, ruined reputations, good girls led astray, and bad
girls on the loose.
My own favorites were the ones that showed the darker side of show
business. The stories were as old as Hollywood itself. Some small town
girl with stars in her eyes is taken in by a smooth talking sharp-shooter.
The best of these tales were illustrated by Clarence Matthew Baker (1921- 1959). Matt Baker was one of the few African-American artists
working in the industry during the Golden Age of Comics. And was an
undisputed master of Good Girl Art.
The term Good Girl Art is generally defined as artwork featuring attractive women in comic books, comic strips, and pulp magazines. The term has nothing to do with the morality of the women themselves. Some of the "good girls" were quite bad. Femme Fatales, gun molls, teen delinquents, or whip wielding dragon ladies. And of course damsels in distress. One of Baker's most famous illustrations was of the Phantom Lady and used as an example of "headlight comics" in Dr. Wertham's book Seduction Of The Innocent.
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