Lou Fine’s Extra Bear Cover on Hit Comics #11, Up for Auction

Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: lou fine, quality comics

Lou Fine did a number of iconic covers for the Hit Comics series, and it appears he accidentally did two covers for one issue of the series.

In previous discussions, we’ve seen that Lou Fine‘s Golden Age covers are often very closely tied to the interior stories of the issues in question. His iconic cover for Hit Comics #5 is a key moment from the Red Bee story in that issue, for example.  We’ve also seen that such covers sometimes ended up on the wrong issue, perhaps most famously on Fantastic Comics #3, where the legendary cover matches the story from Fantastic Comics #4.  Such switch-ups were not uncommon during the Golden Age for a variety of reasons.  Even so, Fine’s cover for Hit Comics #11 is a unique example of this phenomenon because it appears to be an extra Hercules cover meant for the story in Hit Comics #12.  Another great cover from Fine, there’s a Hit Comics #11 (Quality, 1941) CGC FN- 5.5 White pages up for auction in the 2024 May 30 Adventures in the Golden Age Comics Showcase Auction #40261 at Heritage Auctions.

In Hit Comics #11 in the Hercules story by Reed Crandall, the hero investigates saboteurs scuttling ships, eventually discovering the mastermind behind it runs a rival shipyard.  There are no bears in this story, but in Hit Comics #12, a gang of criminals has fled to a national park (Yellowstone, apparently) where Hercules is forced to contend with grizzly bears after the crooks’ gunfire angers them.  Notably, the cover actually used on this issue is also a scene from this story, as Hercules eventually tracks the gang to an underground cavern.  So, both of these covers were inspired by this particular story in issue #12.

Fine was an artist that even other comic book greats admired, and his cover work for publishers Fox Feature Syndicate, Fiction House, and Quality Comics is still highly regarded by collectors to this day. Will Eisner would once say about Fine, “I had respect for his towering kind of draftsmanship. He was the epitome of the honest draftsman. No fakery, no razzle-dazzle — very direct, very honest in his approach,” while Joe Simon recalled, “My favorite artist was Lou Fine. He was also Jack Kirby‘s favorite artist. I know that Jack was a fan of and greatly influenced by Fine’s work.”

Fine is credited with nearly 90 covers during the Golden Age by GCD, many of them considered iconic by modern collectors. His Hit Comics #11 is part of a great cover run on the title, and there’s a Hit Comics #11 (Quality, 1941) CGC FN- 5.5 White pages up for auction in the 2024 May 30 Adventures in the Golden Age Comics Showcase Auction #40261 at Heritage Auctions.

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