''Johnny Hazard'' is an action-adventure comic strip created by cartoonist

Frank Robbins Franklin Robbins (September 9, 1917 – November 28, 1994) was an American comic book and comic strip artist and writer, as well as a prominent painter whose work appeared in museums including the Whitney Museum of American Art, where one of his p ...

for

King Features Syndicate King Features Syndicate, Inc. is a American content distribution and animation studio, consumer product licensing and print syndication company owned by Hearst Communications that distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editoria ...

. It was published from June 5, 1944, until August 20, 1977, with separate storylines for the

daily strip A daily strip is a newspaper comic strip format, appearing on weekdays, Monday through Saturday, as contrasted with a Sunday strip, which typically only appears on Sundays. Bud Fisher's ''Mutt and Jeff'' is commonly regarded as the first daily c ...

and the

Sunday strip The Sunday comics or Sunday strip is the comic strip section carried in most western newspapers, almost always in color. Many newspaper readers called this section the Sunday funnies, the funny papers or simply the funnies. The first US newspap ...

. Ron Goulart. ''The Funnies:100 years of American comic strips''. Holbrook, Mass. : Adams Pub., 1995. (pp. 150, 218-19) Patrick Gaumer and Claude Moliterni, ''Dictionnaire Mondial de la Bande Dessinée'', Paris : Larousse, 1997 (p. 353).

Day before D-Day

After work in advertising, Robbins took over the daily strip ''

Scorchy Smith ''Scorchy Smith'' is an American adventure comic strip created by artist John Terry that ran from March 17, 1930 to December 30, 1961. Scorchy Smith was a pilot-for-hire whose initial adventures took him across America, fighting criminals and aid ...

'' from

Noel Sickles Noel Douglas Sickles (January 24, 1910 – October 3, 1982) was an American commercial illustrator and cartoonist, best known for the comic strip '' Scorchy Smith''. Sickles was born in Chillicothe, Ohio. Largely self-taught, his career beg ...

in 1939 with a Sunday page added in 1940. King Features then asked Robbins to do ''

Secret Agent X-9 ''Secret Agent X-9'' is a comic strip created by writer Dashiell Hammett ('' The Maltese Falcon'') and artist Alex Raymond (''Flash Gordon''). Syndicated by King Features, it ran from January 22, 1934 until February 10, 1996. Premise and publ ...

'', but Robbins instead chose to devise an aviation comic for the syndicate, and ''Johnny Hazard'' was launched on Monday, June 5, 1944, one day before

D-Day The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D ...

. While working on the strip during the 1940s, Robbins contributed illustrations to ''

Life Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energ ...

'', '' Look'', ''

The Saturday Evening Post ''The Saturday Evening Post'' is an American magazine, currently published six times a year. It was issued weekly under this title from 1897 until 1963, then every two weeks until 1969. From the 1920s to the 1960s, it was one of the most widely c ...

'' and other magazines. Robbins stopped drawing ''Johnny Hazard'' in 1977 and retired to Mexico in order to devote himself to painting full-time.

Characters and story

The strip followed the globe-trotting adventures of aviator Johnny Hazard, initially as a member of the

United States Army Air Corps The United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) was the aerial warfare service component of the United States Army between 1926 and 1941. After World War I, as early aviation became an increasingly important part of modern warfare, a philosophical r ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, later as a

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

secret agent. Comics historian

Don Markstein Don Markstein's Toonopedia (subtitled A Vast Repository of Toonological Knowledge) is an online encyclopedia of print cartoons, comic strips and animation, initiated February 13, 2001. Donald D. Markstein, the sole writer and editor of Toonop ...

described the transition: :As the story opened, Johnny, like most American men of his generation, was fighting World War II. But his gig with the Army Air Corps didn't last long, as D-Day came when the strip was only a day old. But the only effect civilian life had on him was to enlarge the scope of his adventures—as a freelance pilot, Johnny ranged throughout the entire world. (An early focus, tho, was China, putting him head-to-head with the rival

Chicago Tribune Syndicate Tribune Content Agency (TCA) is a syndication company owned by Tribune Publishing. TCA had previously been known as the Chicago Tribune Syndicate, the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate (CTNYNS), Tribune Company Syndicate, and Tribune Media S ...

's ''

Terry and the Pirates ''Terry and the Pirates'' is an action-adventure comic strip created by cartoonist Milton Caniff, which originally ran from October 22, 1934, to February 25, 1973. Captain Joseph Patterson, editor for the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate, ...

''.) Johnny dealt with spies, beautiful women, smugglers, gorgeous dames, sci-fi style menaces, fabulous chicks and all the other kinds of folks a two-fisted adventurer of his calibre would be expected to deal with. As he did, unlike many fictional two-fisted adventurers, he matured—not as quickly as real people, but after a third of a century or so, he was quite gray at the temples. And a third of a century was as long as the strip ran. It was popular enough at first, and ran far longer than most post-war adventure strips, but the times were against it. Newspaper editors were more interested in daily gags than continuous stories, and ''Johnny Hazard'' succumbed to the trend in 1977.

International Distribution

''Johnny Hazard'' was reprinted in the British comic ''Rocket'' during the 1950s. The strip was also translated into nine other languages, and was widely published in Western European newspapers.

Reception

According to biographer

Mark Evanier Mark Stephen Evanier (; born March 2, 1952) is an American comic book and television writer, known for his work on the animated TV series ''Garfield and Friends'' and on the comic book ''Groo the Wanderer''. He is also known for his columns and bl ...

Jack Kirby Jack Kirby (born Jacob Kurtzberg; August 28, 1917 – February 6, 1994) was an American comic book artist, writer and editor, widely regarded as one of the medium's major innovators and one of its most prolific and influential creators. He gr ...

expressed admiration for ''Johnny Hazard''. Comics historian

Ron Goulart Ronald Joseph Goulart (; January 13, 1933 – January 14, 2022) was an American popular culture historian and mystery, fantasy, and science fiction author. He published novelizations and other work under various pseudonyms: Kenneth Robeson, Con ...

described ''Johnny Hazard'' as "an impressively drawn and scripted feature."

Reprints

Robbins' ''Johnny Hazard'' comic book was published by

Standard Comics Standard Comics was a comic book imprint of American publisher Ned Pines, who also published pulp magazines (under a variety of company names that he also used for the comics) and paperback books (under the Popular Library name). Standard in t ...

from August 1948 to May 1949. The Sunday strips were reprinted in a full-color volume published by the Pacific Comics Club. Other reprints were published by Pioneer Comics and

Dragon Lady Press Dragon Lady Press was the publishing wing of the Toronto-based comic book store Dragon Lady Comics, operating from 1985 to 1988. The company was known for its reprints of classic newspaper comic strips in various forms.George Kovacs & C. W. Mars ...

. In 2011, Hermes Press announced a hardcover archive reprint series, with separate volumes for daily and Sunday strips.

1963–66 story arcs

Daily strip continuities

*"Wheel and Deal" (4 Feb 1963 – 27 Apr 1963) *"My Son the Millionaire" (29 Apr 1963 – 20 Jul 1963) *"The Mink-Lined Nest" (23 Jul 1963 – 12 Oct 1963) *"Mysterious Friend" (14 Oct 1963 – 4 Jan 1964) *"A Gift for Florian" (6 Jan 1964 – 28 Mar 1964) *"Extortion Inc." (30 Mar 1964 – 27 Jun 1964) *"Traders in Death" (29 Jun 1964 – 19 Sep 1964) *"Alphabet Soup" (21 Sep 1964 – 26 Dec 1964) *"Operation Beardles" (28 Dec 1964 – 20 Mar 1965) *"Tell It to Telstar" (22 Mar 1965 – 29 May 1965) *"Operation Trojan Horse" (30 Aug 1965 – 20 Nov 1965) *"Rescue Inc." (22 Nov 1965 – 19 Feb 1966) *"The Many Faces of Henry Clay" (21 Feb 1966 – 21 Mar 1966)

Sunday strip continuities

*"Capone Squadron" (6 Jan 1963 – 13 Jan 1963) *"Operation Bodyguard" (20 Jan 1963 – 5 May 1963) *"The Diamond Mountain" (12 May 1963 – 25 Aug 1963) *"Disaster Area" (1 Sep 1963 – 8 Dec 1963) *"Head-Locked Secret" (15 Dec 1963 – 22 Mar 1964) *"Sentimental Journey" (5 April 1964 – 19 Jul 1964) *"Fatal Lure" (26 Jul 1964 – 8 Nov 1964) *"Commando Isle" (15 Nov 1964 – 7 Mar 1965) *"Tea for Two?" (14 Mar 1965 – 20 Jun 1965) *"The Big Gamble" (4 Jul 1965 – 3 Oct 1965) *"Cargo Cult" (17 Oct 1965 – 30 Jan 1966) *"The Kono Affair" (6 Feb 1966 – 27 Feb 1966)

References

External links

Around in Europe with Johnny Hazard''Johnny Hazard'' Flying Toy Airplane
{{Portal bar, Comics 1944 comics debuts 1977 comics endings Adventure comic strips Hazard, Johnny American comic strips Aviation comics Characters created by Frank Robbins Hazard, Johnny Hazard, Johnny Fictional United States Army personnel Hazard, Johnny Comics set during World War II Comics about Nazi Germany