Big Ben Bolt Dailies Volume One

John Cullen Murphy's Big Ben Bolt - Dailes Volume One by John Cullen Murphy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

John Cullen Murphy's Big Ben Bolt - Dailies Volume One collects the daily Big Ben Bolt newspaper strips from February 20, 1951 to May 24, 1952.

I'm on a newspaper strip kick lately and this one caught my eye like Big Ben Bolt's left jab.

So Big Ben Bolt was raised abroad, the son of diplomats, who comes to America to find his way in life. He meets Spider Haines, a former boxer, on the boat and his path is set. Spider guides Ben down the road of a prize fighter and together they have some adventures in the world of boxing.

That's pretty dry. I did not expect to get so invested in a 70 year old comic strip about a boxer. I've never been into boxing but I could not put this down. The art is as good as it gets for early 1950s newspaper comics and the dialogue is great, particularly Spider's dialogue peppered with boxer slang. Ben is a likeable innocent and Spider is his world weary guide in the world of boxing.

The stories are great. Ben and Spider run afowl of a crooked boxing promoter, meet a former world champ, go all the way to Alaska to fight, work with some at-risk youths, and finally head out West to gear up for a fight with the world champ. My main regrets with this were that I read it all in two sittings and that Volume Two has yet to be published, if ever.

I liked this so much I kept the boxing puns to a minimum in my review. Five out of five stars.

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