Number 2009: From north of the border: Thunderfist!

Thunderfist was a character created for Canadian comic books after American comics were banned from Canada in the early days of World War II as “non-essential imports.” Thunderfist was drawn by Murray Karn in an Alex Raymond-Hal Foster style. There are some crudities in the art, a problem shared by many American comics. Karn was young; he joined Bell Features of Canada when he was 18. After the war and the end of the Canada comics industry he emigrated to New York and had a career in advertising.

For economic reasons these early comics were printed with four-color covers and black line interiors, and are known as Canadian whites.

Thunderfist is described in an article on Karn in the website Southampton Artists by Hope Nicholson and Rachel Richey: “. . . The artwork by Murray Karn made [Thunderfist] the slickest of all the Canadian costumed heroes. Thunderfist was actually Randy Steele, who worked tirelessly on strange electrical inventions. He created, for instance, ‘a bullet-proof uniform charged with hundreds of electric volts powerful enough to kill a dozen men at once’ Thunderfist featured an uncanny mythology of technology and weaponry, which he used as the keys to world salvation.”

From Active Comics #2 (1942):

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