[crashryan]

Like the other Kerry Drakes this story is good, but it presents more than a little irony. Sketch McKorn is a famous cartoonist who operates without assistants...his strip "is the exclusive creation of the genius who signs it." Alfred Andriola, on the other hand, is legendary for having had anonymous assistants write and draw "Kerry Drake" almost from the beginning while claiming credit for the entire project.

Andriola may have drawn some early strips, I'm not sure. Allen Saunders co-created and wrote the strip from its inception in 1942. In 1970 Andriola infamously accepted the National Cartoonist' Society's Reuben award for "Kerry Drake" without mentioning either Saunders or Surui Gumen, who had been drawing the strip since the mid-50s. Saunders quit the strip as a result. Even so it wasn't until the early 1980s, after Andriola's death, that Saunders' contribution was made public.

Link to the book: Kerry Drake Detective Cases 31