The Mighty Midgets were the pocket-sized currency of wartime childhood — four-by-five-inch comic books slipped into a shopping bag with a new pair of school shoes, distributed by retailers like The Big Store Co. for Boys & Girls Apparel as part of the home front's casual mobilization. Samuel E. Lowe & Co. produced the line under license from Fawcett, and the result was a curious hybrid: a real comic book by the era's working talent, repackaged as a giveaway, with a merchant's overprint stamped onto the rear cover like a receipt for a transaction the child never knew was happening.
This issue belongs to Captain Marvel Jr. — Freddy Freeman, the crippled newsboy turned silver-suited hero whose look and posture would, a decade later, find their way into the wardrobe and pompadour of a young Elvis Presley. Mac Raboy's cover is the version of Freddy that mattered: clean line, controlled palette, a V-for-Victory pose that asked nothing more of its audience than recognition. Otto Binder writes and Maurice Del Bourgo draws thirty-six pages inside. The rear cover carries both the War Bonds and Stamps cachet and the Big Store Co. overprint intact — two stamps from the same campaign, one corporate, one civic.
Honest mid-grade. Cover colors are bright and the title block remains sharp; light edge wear with corners only minimally rounded. The spine sits structurally sound. Interior pages run tan to cream throughout with no markings or tears observed. Estimated raw VG to VG/FN.
Complete, unrestored, original wraps.
Part of a trio of Mighty Midget #11 issues from the same wartime giveaway run — see also the Bulletman & Bulletgirl and Ibis the Invincible copies.
The Mighty Midgets were the pocket-sized currency of wartime childhood — four-by-five-inch comic books slipped into a shopping bag with a new pair of school shoes, distributed by retailers like The Big Store Co. for Boys & Girls Apparel as part of the home front's casual mobilization. Samuel E. Lowe & Co. produced the line under license from Fawcett, and the result was a curious hybrid: a real comic book by the era's working talent, repackaged as a giveaway, with a merchant's overprint stamped onto the rear cover like a receipt for a transaction the child never knew was happening.
This issue belongs to Captain Marvel Jr. — Freddy Freeman, the crippled newsboy turned silver-suited hero whose look and posture would, a decade later, find their way into the wardrobe and pompadour of a young Elvis Presley. Mac Raboy's cover is the version of Freddy that mattered: clean line, controlled palette, a V-for-Victory pose that asked nothing more of its audience than recognition. Otto Binder writes and Maurice Del Bourgo draws thirty-six pages inside. The rear cover carries both the War Bonds and Stamps cachet and the Big Store Co. overprint intact — two stamps from the same campaign, one corporate, one civic.
Honest mid-grade. Cover colors are bright and the title block remains sharp; light edge wear with corners only minimally rounded. The spine sits structurally sound. Interior pages run tan to cream throughout with no markings or tears observed. Estimated raw VG to VG/FN.
Complete, unrestored, original wraps.
Part of a trio of Mighty Midget #11 issues from the same wartime giveaway run — see also the Bulletman & Bulletgirl and Ibis the Invincible copies.
