Mandrake Mojo!

I was strolling through the wonderful Grand Comics Database the other day, as I am wont to do, and I came across a charming cover gallery for The Official Mandrake the Magician from Pioneer Comics. This was a slightly more than a year-long turn at getting some of the classic Lee Falk and Phil Davis Mandrake comic strips back into print and before the eyes of a potentially new readership.

To that end in the middle of the run, the editors at Pioneer eschewed the vintage cover art covers they'd been using and hired artist Brett Blevins to create a trio of fresh new images featuring the comics mage. The one above showing Mandrake holding a charming beauty in his palm with a bit of a knowing smirk on his mug is my favorite.

This one gets the nod for most mysterious as both Mandrake and Lothar are featured staring out at the reader who is getting hypnotized.

This third one shows off the exotic nature of Mandrake's setting, atop a flying carpet with another beauty in tow. That hat must wow the ladies!

A pretty neat triad of images. Soon enough though, Pioneer shifted back to vintage art and this little bubble of new images disappeared like the magic they were.

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