John Rosenberger - Jaguar 7 pg 11

Shown here is the splash page from the story "The Jaguar is Missing" from The Jaguar #7 with a cover date of July 1962.

Come with me to a different time. In August of 1959, Archie Comics began publishing "Adventures of the Fly". It was odd since superhero comic sales had declined during the '50s, although DC had begun to reintroduce characters from the Golden Age, like the Flash and Green Lantern, and were becoming popular again. Another curiosity was that Archie Comics, known for their many titles featuring Archie Andrews and his friends from Riverdale hired Joe Simon, who then recruited Jack Kirby to draw his new creation, The Fly. Kirby only drew a few issues and was followed by such artists as Joe Simon, Jack Davis, Bob Powell, Bill Vigoda, and John Giunta. One of Neal Adams' first works appeared in The Fly.

Beginning with issue 11 (March 1961), John Rosenberger took over the feature. I have never seen an explanation as to how Rosenberger was chosen. Before this, he had never done superhero comics. After leaving Archie, he worked primarily on DC's line of Romance Comics, then Lois Lane, and had just taken over Wonder Woman when he died of cancer at the age of 58. Still, not an obvious choice.

Back to the story. Not only did Rosenberger take on the Fly, but he also drew the second of Archie's superhero book, The Jaguar, which hit the newsstands in September of 1961, long before the Batman TV show in 1966 which caused an explosion of aomiscs titles. So two full books a month for over 2 years (both ended in 1963).

I discovered both titles as a 9-year-old and was immediately captivated. Sure, looking at them now, the stories were derivative, but I was floored by Rosenberger's art. Certainly, some characters had better villains, but few had prettier ones than Rosenberger's Jaguar. And that is why I purchased this story, and the splash summarizes it nicely... Jill Ross, who was the secretary for Jaguar's secret identity Ralph Hardy, the Cat-Girl, and Kree-nal, a sea circe. You can say what you want about Rosenerger's dragons, or aliens, or robots... but his women. They were always beautiful, especially in the Jaguar. What else could a 9-year-old comic geek want in 1962?