MAD's "Black and Blue Hawks!" by Wally Wood (1953)

Comic Gallery: BLACKHAWK (1941-42)

Comic Gallery: BLACKHAWK (1942)

BLACKHAWK in (almost) 3-D (1952)

The 3-D craze didn't hit the movies until 1953, and comics quickly jumped in. Along with real 3-D, comic book publishers experimented with some cheesy 3-D without glasses techniques (some of which you may have seen on this blog) that never quite did the job. But here, a whole year earlier, is a piece with many panels that almost make the grade. Most issues of Blackhawk from this period featured stories by both Reed Crandall and Bill Ward (doing his best Crandall impression). This one is uncredited, but looks to me like one of the Wards.

Blackhawk, Reed Crandall and the Three Witches (1943)

There are a lot of great Blackhawk stories by Reed Crandall on comicbookplus, but this one caught my eye because it reminded me of the Old Witch from The Haunt of Fear. And this, you will note, was seven years before the witch made her EC debut. This tale appeared in Military Comics #15, dated May/June 1943, and scanned by someone known as CB+.

The BLACKHAWK SQUADRON Arrives! (1941)

Military Comics #2, from Sept. 1941 saw the first appearance of the Blackhawk Squadron and their familiar Grumman Skyrocket planes. The art is credited to Chuck Cuidera and Bill Smith. This was one was kindly posted to comicbookplus by djingo. If you missed the Origin of Blackhawk from Military Comics #1, it's HERE.