The Black Cat is a comic book adventure heroine published by Harvey Comics from 1941 to 1951. Harvey also published reprints of the character in both the mid-1950s and the early 1960s.
The character's creation is claimed by the Harvey family to have originated with publisher Alfred Harvey, but there is no corroborating evidence for this. The Black Cat debuted in Pocket Comics #1 (Aug. 1941), an experimental digest-sized comic book published by Harvey., and was illustrated by artist Al Gabrielle. The character was ranked 41st in Comics Buyer's Guide's "100 Sexiest Women in Comics" list.
Publication history
After the demise of Pocket Comics, the Black Cat became one of the features in the anthology Speed Comics, lasting until that title's demise in 1947. By 1946, Black Cat had also gained her own title, which published her adventures until 1951 before changing its content to horror stories (the title was subsequently known as Black Cat Western Comics, Black Cat Mystery Comics, Black Cat Western Mystery, Black Cat Western Comics, and Black Cat Mystic, before reverting to Black Cat for the final three issues, #63-65). Black Cat also appeared in a separate Harvey anthology, All-New Comics, in issues 6, 9, and 15. Writers on the Black Cat series are not positively known. Artists who worked on the feature after Al Gabriele include Pierce Rice, Arturo Caseneuve, Bob Powell, Jill Elgin and Joe Kubert. Lee Elias, occasionally inked by John Belfi, provided the art from 1946 until the feature's end in 1951.
Fictional biography
Linda Turner is the daughter of silent film Western actor Tim Turner and a former Hollywood stunt woman. Linda has successfully made the transition from stunt woman to lead actress. During the filming of an unnamed picture, Linda suspects the film's director, Garboil (no first name given), of being a Nazi spy or at the very least an American Bund member. In order to follow him and gain corroborating evidence, she disguises herself in a backless blue blouse, red shorts, blue flared gloves, red buccaneer boots and a blue opera mask and calls herself The Black Cat. While following Garboil, Black Cat meets Rick Horne, a reporter for the Los Angeles Globe who has been assigned to investigate rumors of a Nazi spy ring in LA. Initially disdainful of each other, the pair are forced to work together and discover that Garboil is planting secret information in his motion pictures. Using her knowledge of the studio, Black Cat sneaks into the editing room and changes the edit of the picture to render the information useless. When they are discovered, Rick and Cat physically overpower the gang and turn them in. Garboil escapes and Linda decides to maintain her Black Cat identity in order to keep watch over his activities. In 1944, The Black Cat’s costume was modified slightly, becoming a one piece blue bathing suit with buccaneer boots, flared gloves and opera mask all in blue, and a red belt. This look would remain for the rest of her career.
