Number 1159: That rockin' Rocketman

Rocketman was a Farrell comic from 1952, which looks to have been drawn several years earlier. The Grand Comics Database claims it is an Iger Shop job.

"Rocketman" has been inserted in the balloons and captions where another shorter name was whited out. Although claiming it as a shop job, GCD also guesses it's drawn by Chas. ("Cat-Man") Quinlan.

Who knows? It's an anomaly, a one-shot, and no more issues were produced. It's also a lesson in how quick styles in comics changed. Rocketman looks to be from the mid-forties, but by 1952 the art style seems archaic. As late as 1953 Fiction House, just before shutting down, was reprinting stories from the forties and the same thing applied. But then you go back to 1940 and there was a whole other style then, too. Comic books have been a living, growing thing, and have gone through many different periods and styles. With practice an art-spotter can just about guess the year in which a story was drawn.

OK, I'm getting away from the story, which is totally silly science fiction hokum. It's set in the year 25,000 (!), and includes a girl getting away from her captor by slamming his nose in a steamer trunk lid. I kid you not.