Not only is Ken Bald credited for script and art on the first story page of Millie 9, but the credit is amplified in Stan Lee's book Secrets behind the Comics: Bald wrote and drew all four of the connected stories about a Paris trip, and did so while in Paris.
On Millie 7 you could take the frontispiece crediting Millie art to Ken Bald and Pete Riss as meaning that Bald pencilled and Riss inked. Or, as I have, you could ID the stories drawn in Bald's style as by Bald and the ones in Riss's style as by Riss. The fact that Bald wrote the two drawn in his art style ("Yoicks!" in both of them, the same as in Millie 9) would back up that decision. Bald might have written more stories in #2 than the one I can identify at this time.
Riss gets the sole frontispiece credit for Millie art in #8. His early issues are, in my opinion, some of his best work; obviously he's being influenced by Bald. Compare the Bald page from "Millie's Little Leopard" in Millie 7 with the Riss one from "Seeing Spots" in 12. By the end of 1948 some of Riss's people are back to the skinny scarecrows such as are seen in "A Modern Alice in Wonderland" (Superman 41, July-Aug/46).
I've left off this list backup stories such as Willie, Rusty, and Hedy De Vine, all by other artists.
Millie the Model 2, 7-15
| Oct/46 | 2 | [The Blonde Phantom Perfume] | a: Ken Bald |
| [Millie the French Model] | a: Bald | ||
| [The New Outfit] | w: Bald a: Bald | ||
| [Millie on Televison] | a: Bald | ||
| [Millie Goes to Hollywood] | a: Bald | ||
| Aug/47 | 7 | Millie's Music Maker | a: Pete Riss |
| Millie's Little Leopard | w: Bald a: Bald | ||
| Millie's Millionaire | a: Riss | ||
| The Perilous Picnic | w: Bald a: Bald | ||
| Oct/ | 8 | Millie Stops the Presses | a: Riss |
| The Model of the Golden West | a: Riss | ||
| Millie, the College Cut-Up | a: Riss | ||
| Bathing Suit Blues | a: Riss | ||
| Dec/ | 9 | Off to Paris | w: Bald a: Bald |
| Fun in France | w: Bald a: Bald | ||
| The Contest | w: Bald a: Bald | ||
| Millie's Mad Whirl | w: Bald a: Bald | ||
| Feb/48 | 10 | She Who Laughs Last | a: Riss |
| Hat Box Havoc | a: Riss | ||
| Millie for President | a: Riss | ||
| The Riddle of the Rival | a: Riss | ||
| Apr/ | 11 | Just the Type | a: Riss |
| College Knowledge | a: Riss | ||
| Babes in the Woods | a: Riss | ||
| Under the Weather | a: Riss | ||
| Jun/ | 12 | Millie's Fan Male | a: Riss |
| Millie's London Landing | a: Riss | ||
| Flicker, Flicker, Who'll Get Flicker? | a: Riss | ||
| Seeing Spots | a: Riss | ||
| Aug/ | 13 | A Peach Makes a Speech | a: Riss |
| A Whale of a Sail | a: Riss | ||
| A Look at the Cook | a: Riss | ||
| Her Rent Romance | a: Riss | ||
| Breaking Her Back at the Track | a: Riss | ||
| Oct/ | 14 | Oh, You Kid—Nappers! | a: Riss |
| Chili Misses the Bus | a: Riss | ||
| Millie Helps Out | a: Riss | ||
| Clothes Conscious | a: Riss | ||
| The Footlight Phony | a: Riss | ||
| Dec/ | 15 | Bear Scare | a: Riss |
| College Cover Girl | a: Riss | ||
| Scavenger Hunt | a: Riss | ||
| Pretty as a Picture | a: Riss | ||
| Chili Gets Chilled | a: Riss |
On this tier by Pete Riss from "She Who Laughs Last" in Millie 10, he indulges in an in-joke diluted by, probably, the use of different inkers at Timely and Quality.
Hi Martin:
ReplyDeleteIn one of her books, Trina Robbins reproduced the splash page to The Model of the Golden West from Millie #8 and attributed the artwork to Bald. ~~ Jim S.
She missed the issue's frontispiece credit to Riss. Many figures in "Model of the Golden West" are the gawky Riss stick-figures that confirm the credit.
ReplyDeleteLooking at the story on its own, it is possible to mistake some panels for Bald's, but that's if you don't discount the swipes. That side close-up of Flicker's face in the upper right of the Riss page from "Seeing Spots" shows up all over Riss's Millie work; for instance, in the second-to-the-last panel of "Golden West." Once upon a time that pose was drawn by Ken Bald, but in these two stories and many others it's second-hand Bald.