So I was browsing Don Markstein’s Toonopedia looking for 1930’s adventure comics, and it turns out there was a whole squadron of aviators in the papers around this time! Here’s a few that caught my interest…

Connie Kurridge – I’ll bet you didn’t know there was a girl aviator in the newspaper funnies, did you? Okay, to be honest, I didn’t know about her, either, until today. Seems she holds the honor of being the first female hero in American adventure comics. Ain’t that something! What little art I can find looks gorgeous. It has the same level of realistic rendering as you might find in other contemporary adventure strips, but with a refreshing looseness in the inking.

Scorchy Smith – I’ve heard of this comic before. Scorchy managed to keep flying years after his contemporaries had retired to the hangar. Like other legacy comics, it passed through the hands of a number of artists. Apparently there’s a book about one artist’s revolutionary stint on the comic. I should probably read that before I say anything more about it.

Brick Bradford – Aviation is just one of the many tools at Brick’s disposal, though it’s not necessarily the focus of his eponymous strip. He started out as an aviator, but quickly found himself thrown into a wide variety of incredible science adventures. Aliens, robots, morlocks, dinosaurs, Brick has tussled with all of them and lived to tell the overblown tale.

Tailspin Tommy – Here’s another I just learned about. Tailspin Tommy hails from a small town outside of Denver, CO, where he lived with his widowed mother and worked on repairing cars in his garage (some surprising parallels with Kitty, there), dreaming of flying. He finally gets his chance when an aviator in trouble needs help fixing a plane engine. Tommy does such a good job, the fellow invites him to join the company, delivering goods and getting into trouble.

That’s all for this Spotlight. Let me know if I missed anything important about these folks, or what other characters you’d like to see me cover in a future Spotlight.