The shoe shine boy remained a red headed Caucasion throughout the Duke stories. My belief is that the morphing was not so much to make him look African American as much as part of the stylistical changes in Joe’s drawing that I mentioned. Similar cheeks and noses show up on some (but not all) other boys as well.

If you can believe GCD and include the unlisted Black Cat #5, there were a total of 9 Danny Dixon stories. They come in two groups; an earlier one from Boy Explorers and Black Cat #4 to #6 and a later set BC #10 to #14. I have seen all the earlier ones and believe they are all done by Ken Riley. I also believe that they are all left over material from the sudden demise of Boy Explorers. There is about an eight month gap before the second Danny Dixon set but I have seen none of those. I find it hard to believe that they also were part of the original effort. For one that would mean that Ken did a lot more advance work then anyone else involved in those S&K titles. A second point is that while the last Dixon in the first set was for BC #6, other left over material continued to be published up to BC #8; I would think that if there was more left over Dixon Harvey would not have waited until BC #10 to use it. Ken was primarily an illustrator, his comic book work was a sideline and somewhat of a favor to Joe. I suspect the later Dixon stuff was by another artist.

I’ll ask Joe next time I see him, but I would not expect much from that. Previous experience has shown me that Joe does not remember the sort of details that some of us fans are interested it. He remembered that Riley did some work for him on Danny Dixon, but not what issues it appeared in. I have also stopped asking confirmation questions, you know did so and so do the work in this issue? I have come to believe that this “poisons the well”. Joe remembers many of the artists that worked for him as well as what projects he worked on but is not necessarily very good at combining the two. But when you come to him with your own information you take the risk that information will become part of Joe’s memory. I do not think this is a problem of Joe’s alone, I believe that everyone’s memory is more open to suggestions then many people realize.

Harry

Unfortunately, I have not seen all the Duke of Broadway’s, but I do love the Damon Runyon touches. It appears (in the b&w reprinting in Joe’s book) that Red- the shoe shine boy morphed from a red headed Caucasion into an African American. Is this born out in the coloring in the actual comic book? If so, I applaud Joe for doing so.
It’s fun to see how Jack and Joe’s visions of New York City differ. Jack’s always seemed Lower East Side, while Joe’s was more Uptown- Manhattan (?)

Joe has said that the Danny Dixon strip was created by S&K as a vehicle for Ken Riley. Yet the Danny Dixon strip continued for quite a while. At least 7-8 installments. Can you check with Joe and see if Riley stayed with Harvey after the boys went over to Hillman and Prize? Or the possibility that another Harvey artist took over the strip and continued it.

Thanks
Stan