Number 1570: Sea Devils — the devil’s in the details

Despite dropping almost all my DC Comics purchases in '61-'62 after Marvel introduced The Fantastic Four and the rest of their early hero lineup (a fickle fan, wasn’t I?), an exception was DC’s Sea Devils. I bought it because of Russ Heath’s artwork. It’s telling that I stopped buying the book after issue #10 when other artists took over. It wasn’t that they were bad artists, just that I was buying the book because of Heath.

Looking at #1 after 50+ years makes me wonder if I just looked at the artwork without reading the stories, because I don’t remember them. Like this first story from issue #1, about a movie with a robot Octopus Man who roams the ocean floor walking a huge octopus on a leash. Then a real Octopus Man shows up. Next to this The Fantastic Four seems almost non-fiction. But there is that Russ Heath artwork, and that makes up for the implausibilities and overall silliness of editor Robert Kanigher’s scripts.

From Sea Devils #1 (1961).

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Number 1238: Sea Devils sing-a-long with Circe

I was disappointed when artist Russ Heath left Sea Devils after issue #10. He and editor/writer Robert Kanigher had created the characters for Showcase, and after a brief tryout the regular series began in 1961. Heath, one of my favorite artists of all time, was the reason I bought and read the comic book.

This story, from Sea Devils #3 (1962), is one that sticks out in my mind from my original reading. In my adolescent eyes Circe was pretty hot, Comics Code or not. Wouldn’t you love to own the original art for the splash page or cover?

Something I like about Kanigher’s comics is that girls and women figure in, not just as eye candy but significant characters. Judy is a strong and resourceful woman, and of course the jocks she swims around with don’t appreciate her enough.

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