Wilfred Grenfell, Comic Book HeroEver wondered how Wilfred Grenfell's harrowing tale of survival in northern Newfoundland would translate into comic book form? Wonder no longer. The good doctor already made his debut way back in Issue 10 of True Comics.
The digital collections' page of Michigan State University Libraries has this to say about the series:
"True Comics was begun in 1941 to 'counteract the wild, rowdy superhero comics,' according to comics historian Ron Goulart (The Comic Book Reader's Companion, HarperPerennial, 1993). The editors were David Marke, a historian, and later Elliot Caplin, a prolific comics writer. True Comics, it could be said, sparked a small genre of non-fiction newsstand comics. Real Heroes, from the same publisher, lasted 21 issues (1941-1946), and other publishers produced similar titles: Real Life Comics (1941-1952), and Real Fact Comics (1946-1949), for example. True Comics was the most successful, lasting until 1950 and producing 84 issues."
Click here to read the first page of the True Comics version of Wilfred T. Grenfell's Adrift on an Ice Pan.
Next week: page two of Grenfell's comic book blockbuster
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Adrift on an Ice Pan, by Wilfred Thomason Grenfell, was first published in 1909 by Houghton Mifflin Company. The unabridged audio edition of Adrift on an Ice Pan, narrated by Chris Brookes, Jay Roberts and Janis Spence, is available from Rattling Books.
