Vic Flint

Created by Michael O’Malley & Ralph Lane

VIC FLINT was one of a mere handful of hard-boiled private eyes, in the tradition of Hammett, Chandler, et al., to appear on the comic pages of North American newspapers. A typical hard-boiled shamus, complete with wise-cracks and a perpetual cigarette in his yap, he appeared in both daily and Sunday page continuities. He was a good-looking guy, blonde (or sometimes red-headed, in later, colorized, comic book reprints); an ex-Marine with a taste for herringbone suits and dames in trouble, and of course a snappy line of patter.

Too bad he never quite pulled it off.

According to Ron Goulart in The Encyclopedia of American Comics, the strip was full of “cigar-chomping cops, oily gangsters, blond showgirls, crooked politicians, glittery nightclubs and dark alleys…a watered-down version of the period’s typical film noir setting.”

Sounds like they really tried to get it right, right down to the first-person narration of the strip, a rarity in comics but a staple of the Shamus Game. The very first strip began with Vic letting us know “The whole thing started late one afternoon. I was sitting in my office reading the papers about a killing. And then my door opened…”

Some of the strips were reformatted, colourized and reprinted in comic book form in St. John Publishing’s Authentic Polices Cases between 1948 and 1955, and he even briefly landed his own title, Vic Flint, Crime Buster. It ran for five issues in 1948, although once again they were reprints of the strips. And finally, in 1956, Argo Publications took a shot with their own Vic Flint title. They one lasted two issues.

So, hardly a multimedia sensation, although there was a little interest.

But honestly? All good intentions aside, the strip was nothing exceptional, never quite catching fire. To its credit the daily did manage to hang on for ten years. The Sunday feature lasted a little longer, limping along for several more years, although it changed tack in 1956, becoming The Good Guys, and adapting a new, humourous approach that impressed nobody. The NEA Syndicate had the mercy to finally pull the plug in March 1967.

And so it goes. While other private eye strips of the post-war period, most notably Rip Kirby and Johnny Dynamite, have risen from the ashes of obscurity, Vic Flint quietly slipped into the public domain, rarely surfacing, except in sometimes dubious “collections” and places like Comic Book Plus.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michael O’Malley was apparently the house name used by NEA Syndicate editor Ernest “East” Lynn and several other staff writers. The strip was originally drawn by Ralph Lane, who was followed by Dean Miller in 1950, Art Sansom and finally John Lane, Ralph’s son.

UNDER OATH

• “Too routine, too stereotyped, too much the victim of a plot without interesting co-stars, to last.
  — Richard Marschall (The World Encyclopedia of Comics)

COMIC STRIPS

• VIC FLINT
  (1946-1956, NEA Syndicate)
  Daily
  Written by Michael O’Malley (pseud. of Ernest Lynn, others), Jay Heavilin
  Drawn by Ralph Lane, Dean Miller, Art Sansom, John Lane
• VIC FLINT
  (1946-65, NEA Syndicate)
  Sundays
  Written by Michael O’Malley (pseud. of Ernest Lynn, others), Jay Heavalin
  Drawn by Ralph Lane, Dean Miller, Art Sansom, John Lane

COMIC BOOKS

• AUTHENTIC POLICE CASES
  (1948-55, St. John Publications)
  38 issues
  Some featured reprints of the Vic Flint strips
• VIC FLINT, CRIME BUSTER
  (1948-49, St. John Publications)
  5 issues
  

• • (August 1948, #1) | Kindle it!
  • (October 1948, #2)
  • (December 1948, #3)
  • (February 1949, #4)
  • (April 1949, #5)

FUGITIVES FROM JUSTICE
(1952, St. John Publications)
5 issues
Issues 2-5 featured reprints of the Vic Flint strips

• VIC FLINT
  (1956, Argo Publications)
  2 issues
  Reprints of daily strips
  

• • (February 1956, #1) | Buy the comic | Kindle it!
  • (May 1956, #2) | Buy the comic | Kindle it!