[jimmm kelly]

This is a pretty weird and entertaining comic magazine. The art on Mr. E looks like it came from the Iger Studio--but early Iger (or Eisner-Iger). Some of the art looks like early Fine or Crandall.

The two text stories are interesting. I enjoyed reading about the Return of Dr. Strange in the Dan Hastings text story.

But the date for this mag has to be all wrong. I know that the GCD also dates it as '48--but I'm pretty sure that Rucker had gone out of business in '46--when the WECA restrictions ended and American comics flooded back into Canada.

What makes me certain of this is the content in this mag which is all about the war effort, with photos to support that.

And the article on page 26 refers to the V1 bombings in England [b]"last summer"[/b]. Those bombings were in the summer of '44. That means this mag has to be from '44 or '45.

Link to the book: Lucky Coyne 01

[narfstar]

But this is a reprint. Maybe by cross referencing price and page count you could confirm your deduction.

[jimmm kelly]

It's a reprint?

I didn't see that. I'm guessing this means it was reprinted by Super Publishing in the late '40s and there was an original ARP version that Super reprinted in whole, not changing any content (since all of it seems to be from '44 or '45). But the GCD puts this book under Rucker--it doesn't list this titlle under Super Publishing.

The price and content seem to be exactly the same as they would have been for Rucker publications in '44 and '45.

I'm confused. There's not a lot of information that I've been able to find from sources about Rucker. If you have any please let me know.

[narfstar]

It was just an assumption on my part that it was a reprint. It may have been some unused Chesler material.
I have checked a little and MR E reprinted from Dynamic Comics 12 and Punch 1 and appeared in Rucker's Weekender so it would indicate the others are probably reprints also

[jimmm kelly]

Ah okay I thought you meant that LUCKY COYNE--the whole mag--was a reprint of an earlier Rucker mag, but you meant the Mr. E. material and other comics material might have been reprinted from another source by Rucker in LUCKY COYNE.

The thing is if the mag was put together in '44 or '45--which it must've been originally, given the non-comics content--and if they were using American comics content, that ought to have been against the rules imposed by the War Exchange Conservation Act. This wouldn't have been the first time that a publisher broke those rules--but it's an important historical point. Whereas in '48, the WECA no longer had any affect, so the publisher could have gotten away with that no problem, so long as the publisher doing the reprinting was itself a Canadian company. By '48, Rucker had gone out of business (I believe) and Super Publishing was reprinting some of their material in Canada (as well as exporting that overseas to the U.K.).

So I'd like to pin down if Rucker was reprinting material in '45 and breaking the rules. And also if this mag is in fact a Super Publishing reprint of a Rucker mag.

I'll be touching on some of this in my next blog--but I probably won't attempt to explain all of this there, since I'm not too clear what was going on with Rucker myself.

[narfstar]

Pretty sure it is a reprint of Weekender 3

http://www.comics.org/issue/306137/

[jimmm kelly]

Oh good, thanks. It seems like Rucker took pages from the Chesler books, combined them with magazine articles, and published them in that issue of THE WEEKENDER. Super Publishing then took that content and published it as LUCKY COYNE COMICS. I know that the cover says Al Rucker Publications, but the inside cover indicia says Super Publications, Ltd. Of course, these Canadian publishers used several different shell companies, so Al Rucker and Super might have really been the same thing. What they might have done is taken old stock of unsold WEEKENDER magazines and put a new cover on them to resell them.

[jimmm kelly]

I would also add that I can't find any Lucky Coyne story inside the comic--even though that's the name of the comic and the cover advertises a Lucky Coyne story inside. Which further leads me to believe that the cover was switched out.

[JVJ]

What you're looking at, Jimmm, is classic Harry A Chesler Shop art. The Lou Fine-ish work is very early Charles Sultan. All of this is, as was suggested by narfstar, reprints. Chesler was famous for the mileage he got out of his shop's output. St. John began his company in 1948 with some old Chesler material to accompany a gradually growing investment in new strips. Tuska, Gattuso, Gus Ricca, Astarita - all early HAC shop stalwarts.  (|:{>

[jimmm kelly]

Thanks to what narfstar told me, I figured out that this was a reprint of earlier Chesler comics, but I also figured out that it's a reprint of a reprint. The Chesler material was reprinted in the THE WEEKENDER Vol. 1, No. 3 (September '45), with the added editorial copy, and published by Al Rucker. And then that WEEKENDER was either reprinted or had a new cover put on it (using cover art that featured Lucky Coyne, even though Lucky Coyne doesn't appear inside) and it was put out again as LUCKY COYNE COMICS (circa '48), for shipment overseas, by Super Publications.