Number 1813: “The Pen is...” nearly as mighty as the policewoman

Both Sally O’Neil, Policewoman, and Pen Miller, cartoonist-detective, debuted in National Comics #1. They were both back-up features, yet both lasted much longer than the lead feature for National, Uncle Sam, who didn’t last through the end of World War II.

Sally is smart, Sally is beautiful, Sally is tenacious, Sally can handle a gun, Sally can handle men. Now that is a great character. According to the website, Public Domain Superheroes, Sally was created by Frank Kearn, Toni Blum, and Chuck Mazoujian.

Pen Miller is a successful cartoonist who lives in a penthouse with a man servant. As Don Markstein remarked on his Toonopedia web page, Pen was the “cartoonist’s ideal self-image.” Indeed. Since cartooning for a living is a full-time job, one would think Pen would not have time to do a successful comic strip and still solve murder mysteries. But that would be part of the “ideal,” or at least a stereotype among non-cartoonists that all cartoonists do is sit around, knock out a few funny pictures, then haul in the big bucks.

Pen also has a name that leads to my speculation that it may be a private dirty joke. The second caption of the story says “‘Pen’ is busy . . .” The letterer must be careful of letter-spacing in a sentence like that. The talented Klaus Nordling, who also did Lady Luck, is the artist.

These are their first stories, from National Comics #1 (1940).

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