Don’t be blinded by the corniness. In 1977 this is about as cutting edge as a super hero comic could get. No matter how goofy the stories, Ragman’s existence is warranted by the haunting covers alone.

I also knew about the period problem and the use of exclamation points. I just like being a snarky modern reader and pointing out how exciting comics back then were!!!!!

http://forums.comicbookresources.com/archive/index.php/t-106748.html

Or if you’re too lazy to click on the link:

According to CBA vol. 2 #4 (which I worked on, by the way), the exact composition of the Redondo Studio is unknown, but it probably consisted of Nestor Redondo’s associates or assistants.

Nestor Redondo was one of the great Filipino cartoonists. He had two brothers, Virgilio and Frank (a.k.a. Francisco), who both worked in American comics. Nestor also used “Quico Redondo” as a pseudonym, and Nestor and Frank both used “Fred Redondo” as a pen name.

Jesus Redondo is a Spanish artist, and is apparently no relation to any of the other Redondos.

I have no idea which member of the Redondo studio did that artwork from Ragman #4, but it probably wasn’t Nestor himself. It’s not nearly detailed enough.

Such studios were actually in place during the Golden Age. Will Eisner was part of a studio (don’t recall if it was his or if he was working under someone else), as did many others at that time. The novel The Adventures of Cavalier and Clay even gives us a fictional peek at what studio life may have been like back then. And as I understand it, the studio concept has remained with us in various incarnations through the decades.
-r-

I do like the “Tatterdemalion of Justice” description on the cover though. Has a nice ring to it.

“I always thought that using “studios” for the art was a relatively modern sensation, but here we have a comic from 1977 doing it.”

Sure, I mean whoever heard of, say, the Eisner-Iger Studio from the late 1930s and early 1940s? (Note especially the following: “As Eisner and Iger’s contract work increased, the two evolved a comic book equivalent of an assembly line. A job traveled through the shop and each employee tightened a bolt or inked a line, and at the end of the line there was a completed story.”) And there were plenty of other comic book “packaging” studios both in those early days and later on, even if I can’t recall any specific names right now.

And even if you’re just referring to explicitly crediting comics to studios, in the 1970s one would sometimes see inking credits for the “Crusty Bunkers,” who were Neal Adams, Dick Giordano, and various other members and hangers-on at their studio (I don’t recall whether it was yet called Continuity Studios); and for “The Tribe,” who were a group of Filipino artists who I believe were based around Tony De Zuniga. Even art – especially inking -that was credited to a single individual often included work by assistants. For example, Wally Wood employed at various times such folks as Dan Adkins and Larry Hama. Both Terry Austin and Klaus Janson were assistants to Giordano before establishing their own inking careers. Also, a great many comic strip producers, working under very demanding deadlines, employed assistants. A particularly famous case is the work Frank Frazetta did for Al Capp on “Li’l Abner.” However, Charles Schulz famously never used assistants on “Peanuts.”

For more on Filipino comics artists and their role in both the Filipino and US comics industries, see Comic Book Artist magazine, vol. 2, no. 4.

“Kanigher never saw an exclamation point he didn’t like, apparently!!!!”

Surely you know, Greg, that back then almost all comic books (at least American comic books) avoided the use of periods, because they too often didn’t show up with the poor printing and paper of the time? I think most readers of the time just ignored the exclamation points and treated them as if they were periods (though there may have been some subliminal effect). For more modern readers, of course, the exclamation points are distracting.

As Kanigher comics go, Ragman was not nearly the collection of those excesses that some of his other work was. I think I bought the first three or four off the stands when they came out and then gave up on it… just a little ahead of DC as it happens. But it was very pretty to look at.

I know he was a Silver Age star at DC but I have never been a big Kanigher booster. He was always a B-lister for me; Kanigher books were what I read when there was nothing else to be had. To be honest, even the books that he absolutely poured his soul into — Sgt. Rock and Enemy Ace — suffer from the same thumping repetition you are talking about here. He was clearly of the ‘tell them three times’ school of writing, which is something you got a lot when I was in school.

And just to add to the whole “Redondo Studio” thing, it may be worth mentioning that Nester Redondo was only one of several extremely talented cartoonists working in the industry around that time all bearing the name Redondo (in the UK we saw a lot of work by Jesus Redondo, whose art was a little more expressionistic than Nestor’s) and all from the Philipenes. It seems reasonable to think that they may have been related, and furthermore, may have had a studio together. Just a thought.

Originally he didn’t have any superhuman powers. He was given near maximum human abilities through a freak accident that was definitely a Kanigher origin!

And is it just me, or does Teddy look like Computo in that fourth panel?

He’s tough on crime and on stains!

http://www.komikero.com/museum/index.html