The December 16, 1951 comic is another beauty. Wonderfully drawn and superbly reproduced, Kevin and Stub are quite relaxed despite the impending danger. In fact, Stub seems more interested in Kevin’s love life than his imminent battle with Baron von Blunt.
Whereas Kevin stands for honor, von Blunt represents treachery. Knocked from his mount by foul play, Kevin must face the Baron on foot. However, his hours of training with Stub will prove to have paid off.
The trick of the thrown claymore was demonstrated a year earlier, in one of the earliest “Kevin the Bold” episodes. Despite its success, Kevin still faced the daunting task of facing von Blunt, this time armed with a dagger. He has kept his cool, and perhaps the Baron has underestimated Kevin yet again.
Stay tuned — next week features the battle’s dramatic conclusion.
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Kreigh’s Comics 
Kreigh Collins is at his best in these 1951 strips. He threw himself all kinds of challenges as an artist. The repeating aerial views, for example. Having to draw horses, armor, period costumes, etc. is a big enough task. To do so from a variety of cinematic angles–it’s nuts! But it gives this sequence a richness that feels like a big-budget Technicolor movie. We’re still seeing some layouts that don’t parse well into the tabloid format. The 12/23/51 strip is a puzzle. Without importing the strip into Photoshop and playing with it, I can’t see how in the heck it would be converted. The usual throwaway panel (panel 4) is connected to panel 3, and contains important information that couldn’t be lost.
Perhaps there was an abridged version of the fifth panel… it would have been an awkward crop, though.
Pardon me… getting a little OCD on comics formatting here. All in a Sunday morning!
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In this case, I believe the throwaway was the closeup of von Blunt in the bottom row. Unfortunately, I don’t have any examples from the Detroit News or other papers to compare it to
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