Kerry Drake

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Kerry Drake is the title of a comic strip created for Publishers Syndicate (later Publishers-Hall Syndicate) by Alfred Andriola as artist and Allen Saunders as uncredited writer. It debuted on Monday, 4 October 1943, replacing Dan Dunn, and was syndicated continuously through 1983. Among Andriola's many assistants or ghosts over the years, specifically in drawing, were artists Hy Eisman, Jerry Robinson, Fran Matera, and most notably Sururi Gumen, the last of whom worked on the strip for 30 years and shared credit with Andriola from 1976 to 1983.

When the strip began, Drake was a criminal investigator for the district attorney. Later, after the murder of his fiancee, he left the DA's Office and joined his city's police force. His stories had plenty of suspense, action, and danger, but unlike Dan Dunn, who had followed early Dick Tracy in often explosive shoot-out resolutions of crime, the emphasis was on how Drake traced clues with up-to-date crime analysis tools to solve complex cases that gradually unfolded and intrigued readers. White-haired Drake was attractive and intelligent, while his nefarious opponents were initially drawn with facial distortion (an evil-is-ugly convention for villains that was also found in the cartooning of Pete Hoffman and Chester Gould). Under Gumen, however, the artwork became more consistently photorealistic. Meanwhile, Drake advanced in his career and developed in his personal life as Saunders combined action with male "soap": in 1958, Drake married a police widow (Mindy), and when they had quadruplets, he had to balance the conflicting demands of work and family. His younger brother, Lefty, (a private eye) then took over more of the adventuring and case resolution.

In 1970, Andriola received a Reuben Award for "Kerry Drake by Alfred Andriola," without acknowledging that it was written by Saunders and ghost-drawn by Gumen (Marschall 1986, p. 5). Saunders quit shortly after that, at which point Andriola became the official writer, although even then, according to Markstein, he hired ghost authors. When he died in 1983, Drake ended with him. After the strip no longer was produced for American newspapers, a comic book version was produced by the Swedish publisher Semic Press from 1984 through the late 1990s. Many of the earlier episodes had also been republished in comic book form by Harvey Comics, and later by Blackthorne Publishing in its Reuben Award Winner Series.

[edit] References

Markstein, Don. Toonopedia: Kerry Drake
Marschall, Rick. 1986. Kerry Drake. Nemo — The Classic Comics Library. No. 19, June 1986.
Strickler, Dave. Syndicated Comic Strips and Artists, 1924-1995: The Complete Index. Cambria, CA: Comics Access, 1995. ISBN 0-9700077-0-1.
NCS Awards