The comics of Virigil Finlay are few but showed possibilities. Pulp artists, such as Joseph Doolin, Harry Kiefer, Vincent Napoli, John Giunta, Harry Parkhurst and many others, moved into comics as the Pulp publishers experimented with the format in 1940s. Virigil Finlay, the master of the fantastic illustration, was no exception. But unlike these others, he tried it– perhaps did not like the work –and gave it up by 1954. Instead he returned to magazine illustration for the SF magazines and astrology publications.
DC Comics was the place for a Pulpster to find work in the 1940s. The top editors were old Pulp editors, Julius Schwartz and Mort Weisinger. Writers they had pulled away from the SF Pulps included Edmond Hamilton, Otto Binder, Gardner F. Fox, Manly Wade Wellman, H. L. Gold and Alfred Bester. Virgil Finlay had illustrated most of these writers and others in Weird Tales.
I should be careful here. Finlay tried out comics in 1946 but he was hardly out of work. He was painting the covers for Mary Gnaedinger’s Famous Fantastic Mysteries as well as illustrating stories there and in Thrilling Wonder. Soon he would move into illustrating hard cover books as publishers gained an interest in Science Fiction.
Virgil started in DC’s Real Fact Comics #4 (September-October 1946) with a series of two-page fillers about different fantastic ideas called “Just Imagine”. These were written by Jack Schiff, Mort Weisinger and Bernie Breslauer (another Pulpster). “Time Traveling Into the Past and Future!” was the first.
“If the Oceans Dried Up!” (Real Fact Comics #5, November-December 1946)
“If the Sun Went Out!” (Real Fact Comics #6, January-February 1947)
“If Man Controlled Gravity!” (Real Fact Comics #7, March-April 1947)
“If the Moon Fell!” Real Fact Comics #9, July-August 1947)
“If An Invading Sun Menaced Earth!” (Real Fact Comics #11, November-December 1947)
“Another Ice Age!” (Real Fact Comics #12, January-February 1948)
These pieces were used as filler in the 1950s in Superman and Strange Adventures. Their shortness made them good for filling a two page vacancy.
Looking at these images now they are recognizably Virgil Finlay, but are they the best of his work? I think not. The two page splash format allowed him to draw larger images than most comics but I feel Virgil felt constrained by the requirements of comics. The first couple seem better than what followed. By contrast here is an illustration VF did for Seabury Quinn’s “Roads” around the same time. (Maybe it is the coloring process that weakens his art? His startling contrast loses something with the muddy color.)
All of these comics are available for free at Hot Comic.
Next time, we will look at the actual story comics of this Science Fiction master which give an even more accurate feel for how Finlay did comics.
