Captain Midnight Illustration Original Art (1947)

18" x 15" image area. Ink over graphite on Bristol board. Captain Midnight Original Art (1947). Dan Barry.

Barry was on a roll in the high-adventure comics trade following World War II, even though the funnybooks' superhero genre was fading. Before retrenching in the newspaper comic-strip business with the likes of Tarzan and Flash Gordon, Barry delivered a run of definitive Captain Midnight stories for Fawcett Comics. This fine stand-alone montage depicts the character in a variety of poses.

Originally owned by David P. Wigransky, this was a personalized piece with inscription as Barry writes to Wigransky, a schoolboy at the time, who would later become one of the earlier outspoken champions of comics as literature.