Dick Briefer’s Weird Science in Rex Dexter of Mars #1, up for Auction

Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: Dick Briefer, Fox Feature Syndicate, victor fox

Dick Briefer’s Rex Dexter of Mars was meant to be a multi-media star, with aspirations for movie, radio, merchandise, and syndicated strips.

Fox Feature Syndicate writer Victor Fox had excessive hopes for Dick Briefer‘s Rex Dexter of Mars from early on.  A number of months after his debut in Mystery Men Comics #1, Rex was half of Fox’s push through the Mitchell J. Hamilburg Agency to get Fox properties into movie, radio, merchandise, and syndicated newspaper strips.  A Rex Dexter radio serial was deliberate as half of the subsequent wave of Fox radio options after the launch of Blue Beetle on the radio, however Rex by no means hit the radio airwaves.  Similarly, a newspaper day by day and coloration weekly strip by Briefer was introduced and listed as accessible for syndication.  The coloration weekly appeared in a handful of newspapers as half of a Fox Feature Syndicate weekly comedian part.

Briefer’s strategy to this photo voltaic system-spanning saga could be in comparison with his extra well-known Frankenstein comedian guide work:  usually sudden, often wonderful, and at all times very bizarre.  An usually ignored Fox comedian guide by an underappreciated artist of the Golden Age, there is a Rex Dexter of Mars #1 Condition: Apparent VG+ (Fox Feature Syndicate, 1940) up for public sale in the 2023 September 28 The Fox Comics Showcase Auction #40239 at Heritage Auctions.

While it is usually mentioned that Rex Dexter attracts its inspiration from Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, there’s in all probability some extra particular inspirations that may be pointed to right here.  Given how intently Victor Fox was watching DC Comics titles like Action Comics and Detective Comics for inspiration, it is not unlikely inspiration was taken from All-American Comics for this one.  That title was working each Ultra-Man and Adventure in the Unknown in the early going.  Ultra-Man was itself impressed by Buck Rogers with the addition of a multi-generational household facet and connections to the U.S. president and authorities, that are additionally current in Rex Dexter of Mars.  Adventure in the Unknown is a proto-Challengers of the Unknown saga which was tailored for comics by its creator Carl H. Claudy from tales initially showing in the journal The American Boy 1931-1939 (elements of which had been extra famously collected into the Adventure in the Unknown guide sequence).  The first story arc of Adventure in the Unknown starting in All-American Comics #1, entails touring to Mars and returning with bizarre expertise, which additionally appears to tell Rex.  The identify of that first arc in All-American Comics, Mystery Men of Mars, additionally appears on-point for inspiring a Mars-themed character that debuted in Mystery Men Comics.

Whatever the inspiration, Briefer took it in some wild instructions of his personal, as he did with Frankenstein.  While this difficulty was half of the 1940 Fox wave of breaking out his anthology characters into their very own titles, this one did not final previous one difficulty — and curiously, bought a lot much less inside home advert advertising and marketing assist than the others.  It’s been an underappreciated half of Fox historical past ever since, there is a Rex Dexter of Mars #1 Condition: Apparent VG+ (Fox Feature Syndicate, 1940) up for public sale in the 2023 September 28 The Fox Comics Showcase Auction #40239 at Heritage Auctions.

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