Best Comics
Entry updated 9 March 2026. Tagged: Comics, Publication.
US Comic (1939-1940). Better Publications. 4 issues. Artists include George West (Red Mask). Script writers include Kerry McRoberts (Chab) and George West (Red Mask). McRoberts is a House Name; West might be a pseudonym. 68 pages, with 7-8 sets of strips per issue, plus 1-2 short text stories.
Best Comics was an Anthology of newspaper strips, each featuring several from a series, all but one Humorous. The exception is The Adventures of the Red Mask, originally a 36-part syndicated strip first published in 1936. Here Colonel Trent and his ward Nina are searching for Jason Armitage, a missing friend in the South Seas, during which their ship rescues a native on a sinking boat: he is Maui, an "unjustly banished" prince. The ship's owner Robert Fear, not wanting to find Jason, sinks the ship, carrying off Nina in a motorboat; Maui, now in a red mask, climbs aboard and throws Robert to the sharks (he survives). The Red Mask takes Nina to an island grotto to show her some jewels, rescuing her when she is carried off by a large red reptile (see Monsters). #2 and #3 are mainly jungle escapades (the location now seems to be Africa), but in #4 the Red Mask is taking her to an "enchanted City" in what appears to in an Arabic setting, when a giant bird attacks their aeroplane.
Though clearly dark-skinned on the cover of #1 and mostly so in the strips (there is some fluctuation, particularly in #2), the covers for #2-#4 portray the Red Mask as light-skinned: Robert Fear describes him as a "half-breed native". Though the stories are unremarkable, the Red Mask is important as one of the earliest Superheroes of colour (see Race in SF). Though otherwise normally attired – save in #1 where he briefly has a feathered cap – he wears a red mask, is strong and athletic, and there is a brief suggestion of Superpowers when in #1 Nina sees a red mask hovering outside her porthole.
The Red Mask is evasive about his true identity, perhaps not wanting people to know he is "Maui the native"; but possibly a twist ending was intended, revealing him to be a disguised Jason – never seen, though the Red Mask twice states he is still alive. Best Comics' text stories included Chab of the Jungle in #1 and #2 – where "Africa takes a white boy to its bosom and teaches him the mysteries of animal wisdom" (see Tarzan). [SP]
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