#ray willner

Blue Beetle #18, January 1943. Ray Willner (?) cover pencils & inks.

Shark Woman, one shot heroine from Buster Brown Comics # 19, 1950

Running for 47 issues from 1949 to 1956 on no set schedule and given away in Buster Brown Shoe Stores Buster Brown Comics were all written by Hobart Donavan and drawn mostly by Reed (Golden-Age Blackhawk) Crandall and Ray (Robin Hood / Cat-Man) Willner.

They were unusual for the time in that they regularly featured stories with non WASP protagonists who were not portrayed as stereotypes or demeaning caricatures.

THE LOST ART OF RAY WILLNER: THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD By Ray Willner and Reed Crandall Edited with an Introduction by Joseph V. Procopio

Published by Lost Art Books / Picture This Press

All 14 stories collected for first time Career-spanning bonus gallery

Ray Willner was a casualty of the culture wars. With a comics career dating to 1939, Willner produced impressive work for publishers small and large throughout the 1940s. By 1949 he landed one of the only steady gigs in his career for an unusual publisher: The Brown Shoe Company. It was there that Willner found a simpatico spirit in fellow artist Reed Crandall. Although their collaboration on the Brown Shoe Co. series The Adventures of Robin Hood lasted less than a year — cancelled in the wake of the scaremongering backlash against comics in the 1950s — the seven issues produced by Willner with Crandall represent a seldom seen high-water mark in comics art. They were the last comics Willner would ever draw.

The Lost Art of Ray Willner collects these comics for the first time since their original publication in 1956 and includes an introductory essay on Willner’s life and career.

212 pages • 8½”x11” • full color

Release: Nov. 2014

Advance Praise "If Willner had worked for EC instead of a series of giveaway comics, he’d be lionized today. And rightfully so, as he was absolutely in that rarified class. The Robin Hood stories reprinted here are well written….The reproduction is very good overall, and I really like the fact that editor Procopio printed it slightly larger than the original. Often, Golden Age comics are reprinted smaller than the actual comics. But printed larger, like here, the eye can relax, and approximate the actual Golden Age/Silver Age reading experience….Fans of George Evans, Crandall and Al Williamson will definitely enjoy this book. Highly recommended!" —Michael T. Gilbert, Artist and Comics Historian

Paperback: $24.95 (ISBN: 978-0-9906932-0-8) Hardcover: $32.95 (ISBN: 978-0-9906932-1-5)