Ben Webster was an early comics adventure hero. Early titles of the comic strip include "Bound to Win" and "Ben Webster's Career". The original star of Bound to Win was another boy hero, Phil Hardy, whose comic was distributed by Bell Syndicate from 1925-26. It was during September of the latter year that Williams/Alger traded Phil for Ben as its hero, but Phil continued to star in a "Bound to Win" series of novels.
Ben rescued many innocent women, young and old, from distress of various kinds. A favorite type of villain was what is now called a "bankster", whose modus operandi back then, before the days of massive government bailouts of institutions run into the ground by managers who escape with millions, was the simple manipulation of mortgages.
Ben tended to use a mutt named Briar as his sounding board for dialog, just as The Chicago Tribune's Annie had used Sandy and King Features' Annie had used Zero.
Bell continued to distribute Ben's strip for well over a decade. The Sunday Page was originally called Ben Webster's Page, and featured stories about the lives of famous men, but these eventually gave way to Ben's adventures.
The strip was reprinted in All-American Comics, starting with its 1939 first issue, along with Skippy, Reg'lar Fellers and Mutt & Jeff. That ended in 1941, when both it and Believe It or Not were ousted in favor of a non-reprinted feature, Dr. Mid-Nite. By that time, the comic book was his only remaining venue. Bell had dropped it in 1940. (source:toonpedia) |
