Wild Night

While the entire Count del Morte story is short, its episodes are very graphic, and have a storyboard quality—the sequence seems as if it would translate very nicely to live action. Near the end of the comic strip’s run, plans were afoot for a television adaptation; sadly, this never came to fruition.

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Now back to our story!

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With one of his pursuers no longer a threat, Brett is not yet out of danger.

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The story ends with Kevin admonishing Brett for his carelessness, and neatly segues into a new adventure.


Need a great gift idea?

Call me biased, but I think you’d be hard pressed to find a more charming collection of Golden Age comics than The Lost Art of Kreigh Collins: The Complete Mitzi McCoy. 

Drawn as well as scripted by Collins, Mitzi McCoy showcased the artist’s skill as an illustrator and storyteller. His picturesque landscapes, lovely character designs, and thrilling action sequences brimmed with detail and charm, and the strip’s ensemble cast rotated in and out of the spotlight taking turns as protagonists in the dozen story arcs collected in this volume. The last story collected here is the narrative bridge that set Collins and his characters off on a new journey, beautifully told for the next couple of decades in the much-lauded adventure strip Kevin the Bold.

Edited and restored by the artist’s grandson, Brian E. Collins, with an introduction by Eisner Award-winning author Frank M. Young, an Afterword by comics columnist Ed Catto, and a recently-inked tribute illustration of Mitzi by Butch Guice

Available HERE from Lost Art Books.

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For more information on the career of Kreigh Collins, visit his page on Facebook.

The Count del Morte

In Kreigh Collins’ NEA career, his typical story arcs contained 12–15 episodes. The previous sequence, featuring Prince Rupert, was an extremely lengthy exception, running for 33 weeks. Basically a horror story, “The Count del Morte” was another outlier—it had only five episodes. Each of these is illustrated with nice half-page examples from the Chicago Tribune.

The action begins with Kevin and Brett sailing into port, where they will be laid up for a short while. As they take note of a foreboding local landmark, the episode’s throwaway panel provides crucial foreshadowing that a tabloid version of this comic would lack.

Kevin has to take care of business aboard the ship, while Brett is feeling stir crazy and needs to go ashore.

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Brett quickly finds himself in quite a predicament, and the episode’s final caption hammers the point home in a scolding tone.

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Out of the frying pan and into the fire, things look especially grim for poor Brett!


The Complete MITZI McCOY

During the short run of Kreigh Collins’ “Mitzi McCoy,” its 11 story arcs featured various overall moods or themes—among them goofball, noir, adventure, and historical reënactment—but never horror. The Lost Art of Kreigh Collins: The Complete Mitzi McCoy collects them all and is available here. Pick up a copy and see for yourself!

Mitzi cover final



For more information on the career of Kreigh Collins, visit his page on Facebook.