Lot 1630: ADVERTISING POSTER MANDRAKE THE MAGICIAN PHILIP DAVIS LOTHAR COMIC STRIP

Original vintage advertising poster for the comic strip hero Mandrake the Magician - Hold on Lothar I'm coming! Published by United Book Guild, 65 4th Avenue in New York City, NY (NYC). Philip Davis (March 4, 1906 – 16 December 1964), better known as Phil Davis, was an American artist who illustrated Mandrake the Magician, written by Lee Falk. Davis was born in St. Louis, Missouri. Growing up with one sister and one brother, Davis became interested in drawing when he was six years old. "I had a mania for parades," he recalled. "I drew every parade I could see. My family neither encouraged nor discouraged me. They just accepted my dark fate." While attending Washington University in St. Louis, Davis had a part-time job as a draftsman with the technical department of the local telephone company. By 1928, he was working in the art department of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He left the newspaper to do magazine illustrations and advertising art. In 1933, Davis met St. Louis advertising agency executive Lee Falk, and the two began their collaboration on Mandrake the Magician. Falk asked Davis to do a dozen panels on spec. Davis did so, and in 1934 Falk went to New York and pitched the concept to King Features Syndicate. The strip was launched June 11, 1934 with Davis illustrating and Falk scripting. One of Davis' assistants was Ray Moore, who later became the first artist on Falk's other comic strip, The Phantom, also distributed by King Features. Mandrake the Magician was a syndicated newspaper comic strip, created by Lee Falk (before he created The Phantom). Mandrake began publication on June 11, 1934. Phil Davis soon took over as the strip's illustrator, while Falk continued to script. The strip is distributed by King Features Syndicate. Mandrake, along with the Phantom Magician in Mel Graff's The Adventures of Patsy, are regarded by comics historians as the first superheroes of comics. Comics historian Don Markstein writes, "Some people say Mandrake the Magician, who started in 1934, was comics' first superhero." Davis worked on the strip until his death in 1964, when Falk recruited current artist Fred Fredericks.[3] With Falk's death in 1999, Fredericks became both writer and artist. The Sunday Mandrake strip ended December 29, 2002. The daily strip ended mid-story on July 6, 2013 when Fred Fredericks retired, and a reprint of D220 "Pursuit of the Cobra" from 1995 began on July 8, 2013. Good condition, tears and creases in margins. County: USA, year of printing:1960s, designer: Phil Davis, size (cm): 132x81.5