Number 1539: Blackhawk and the hatchets of Hongo

This is day two of our Week of Quality, today featuring Quality’s long-running and successful leatherboys, Blackhawk and his gang.

Sinister “orientals” who use hatchets for murder (shades of the lurid tales of Tong wars and hatchet killers from tabloids and pulps of the first half of the twentieth century!), and who extort honest silk dealers are the villains. But unlike the grotesque stereotype of Chop-Chop, the comedy relief of the Blackhawk team, these Asians are at least presented as looking human. Or at least more human than Chop-Chop (or the stereotyped Connie or Big Stoop from Terry and the Pirates.) The Chop-Chop caricature was later toned down, but when this story was published in Blackhawk #15 (1946), he was a clownish and freakish little fat man speaking pidgin English. My apologies to those among you who may be offended.

The Grand Comics Database credits Harry Harrison for the pencils, but doesn’t make a guess as to an inker.