Tom Mix (1940 Ralston-Purina) 7

Cover by Fred Meagher. Stories and art by Charles Biro, August Froehlich, Stan Schendel, and Fred Meagher. When movie cowboy Tom Mix's radio show hit it big, sponsor Ralston Purina offered Tom Mix Comics by mail for two boxtops of any Ralston cereal. The art, often uncredited, is exceptionally nice in this series. Tom must protect the experimental XP-80 plane from saboteur Doctor Goliath, in a story that contains an impressive splash page of a train explosion, and another scene of Tom lassoing a plane in flight (!). Miserly Uncle Amos decides the Fumble family's pet pig would be a cheap source of bacon, but luckily he's a lousy shot, in a story with art by comics legend Charles Biro. Outlaws trap Jane and Pop Johnson in a burning cabin, but luckily, she's got her Tom Mix Straight Shooter telegraph set. Plus activities pages and magic tricks. And a page praising "Clean, High-Grade" Tom Mix Comics, and emphasizing that they have no "blood-curdling horror, gangster heros, glorification of war " or "cheap, badly drawn illustrations, to debase young readers' conceptions of form and proportion." (!) An early salvo in the comics culture wars. Action-packed cover by Fred Meagher has a little bit of everything. The Train That Vanished from the Face of the Earth; The Fumble Family with Amos Q. Snood; My Favorite Magic Tricks; Sure as Shootin'; Great Straight Shooters: Teddy Roosevelt; Jane's Page; Jane of Dream Castle; Stubby and His Straight Shooter Pals; Teepee of the Plains Indians; Tom Mix and the Cry for Help! 32 pages, Full Color.