Ghost pirates sound like Pirates Of the Caribbean, but this tall tale of a ship full of specters comes from Fiction House's Ranger Comics #54, published in 1950.
The moody, dramatic and cinematic adventures of Dr. Drew, the ghost hunter, were done in the style of the Eisner studio, drawn by Will Eisner assistant Jerry Grandenetti.
Jerry Grandenetti did the "Secret Files of Dr. Drew" strip for Fiction House's Rangers Comics, different enough in style and subject matter from the rest of the book that it makes us wonder why it's there in the first place. Fiction House had only a few years to live when the feature was produced, and maybe it was a way to jog interest in a fading comic book line.
"Dr. Drew," a psychic investigator, didn't last long. Only 14 episodes were created, but they are visually stunning, done closely in the Will Eisner studio style, where Grandenetti was an Eisner assistant. Apparently they were produced in studio, even using Abe Kanegson's lettering.
Jerry Grandenetti shed his Eisner-clone style and did some excellent work over the years. He had a distinctive and eccentric style which fit in perfectly with Warren's Creepy and Eerie, and I really enjoyed his stories for the DC mystery comics of the 1970s, presided over by editor Joe Orlando.
Grandenetti may have gotten a little too tricky with the top tier of panels on the last page of this Dr. Drew entry, making the action hard to decipher. Despite that, the best lesson Jerry learned from Eisner was that everything on a comic book page should be integrated into the visual storytelling, including the lettering.
I posted another Dr. Drew story, a reprint from The Monster #1 in Pappy's #571. This particular entry in the series is from Rangers Comics #52, 1950:
