Today In Comics History: The First Appearance of The Spirit
Today in 1940, newspaper readers in Philadelphia, Chicago, and a handful of other major US cities opened their newspapers to find something unusual --- a new color comic supplement that, rather than appearing in the usual tabloid dimensions of the Sunday funnies, was effectively a comic book unto itself. A dapper gentleman in a blue suit grinned out from the first panel, his visage floating over a graveyard and a distant cityscape.
The story that followed was a quick read, the tale of Detective Denny Colt who is apparently killed by the villainous Dr. Cobra, but cheats death thanks to being soaked in some mysterious chemical, and brings the evildoer to justice as the mysterious Spirit.
