ACG also known as Avalon is a Canadian publishing outfit run by Roger Broughton. The nigh-mythical Broughton acquired a bunch of old comic plates from Charlton, essentially everything but the Action Heroes which were sold to DC and Thunderbolt which reverted to Pete Morisi and E-Man which was bought by First Comics and eventually came into the possession (mostly) of Joe Staton. Also no Hanna-Barbera or King Features things show up either for obvious reasons. Broughton also had a bunch of vintage ACG comics from the 60's.
Through the 90's and early in this century material was reprinted under all sorts of titles and packaged and repackaged. One thing that Broughton must've gotten at some point was the rights to Johnny Comet a comic strip drawn by Frank Frazetta, either that or it's in public domain.
Frazetta created the race car comic strip "Johnny Comet", later called "Ace McCoy". The strip featured Johnny, his girl Jean , and Mom and Pop Bottle. Peter DePaolo, an actual race car driver and winner of the Indy 500 in 1925 was the scripter, so there's no denying the pedigree of the this comic. But it was not terribly successful; the strip was started in 1951 and was cancelled in 1953.
ACG put out five Johnny Comet comics, and in an odd move which I've only seen this company do, they published trades by taking the remaindered comic books themselves, re-cutting them and binding them together. I have several of these trades and they are unusual with the comics, cover and all, bound tight together. That's how I have Johnny Comet.
It's a reasonably entertaining comic strip and Frazetta's artwork is pretty lush as you can see by this original. Unfortunately lots of that great line work and detail is lost in the ACG volumes. But the story is there, and that's something.
Oh and does Johnny Comet remind you of anyone?
I thought so.
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