Contact Comics was pretty much your standard issue Golden Age aviation comic book, notable mostly for it’s attractive covers by L.B. Cole. For for the most part those covers were completely lacking in human figures, a sign these comics were intended for the plane crazy kids of the WWII era. This was yet another late entry from another small publisher, Aviator Press, who published twelve issues of Contact Comics between 1944 and 1946. In it’s final issue it took an odd turn towards the science fictional but for most of it’s run it’s primary bread and butter was that Golden Age comic book staple, the military subcontractor I like to call the independently owned and operated airplane driver.

I suppose it speaks volumes about me that I am not posting the fairly interesting post-war story featuring Black Venus who is not to be confused with Air Fighters Comics Black Angel. Though it would be painfully easy to, seeing as how they were both female aviators with ‘black’ in their names that fought evil in skintight fetish gear. See for yourself:

Images “courtesy” (i.e. see I swiped them from there) of the Public Domain Superhero Wikia website — God bless her and all those who sail upon her.

The story is about crooks who prey on returning servicemen (a plot that had a “torn from today’s headlines” quality then so it saw quite a bit of action in post-war comics) drawn by Harvey Kurtzman of all people. If you’re into that sort of thing you can check out Steve Thompson’s Four Color Shadows:

http://fourcolorshadows.blogspot.com/2012/03/black-venus-harvey-kurtzman-1946.html),

Being me I’m naturally much more interested in Golden Eagle, a painfully obvious but quite attractive Blackhawks ripoff drawn by Rudy Palais, an artist who’s output ranged from Classics Illustrated to The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves. I mean, seriously, it’s like the guy blew his big tryout for the team on Blackhawk Island, got pissed off and on his way out swiped one of their flight suits from a locker, had it dyed gold and somehow hoped nobody would notice.

Atomic Kommie Comics commented on this aspect of Contact Comics:

The cover is one of a trilogy of superb poster-style pieces by LB Cole paying tribute to the air arm of a different service (The Air Force as a separate branch didn’t come about until after World War II) The other two covers were Contact Comics #9 (Marines), and #10 (Army).

Here’s what those covers looked like altogether…