Here’s an oddity, in 1945 Magazine Enterprises published six issues of Keen Teens. From these kinds of covers…

…you might well expect a punch of Archie type comics, or at the very least some teen skewing features and photos of then popular stars. Which is exactly what you got…starting with Keen Teens #3.

The contents of #1-2 included a collection of forgotten comic strips, like Dotty Dripple, Babs and Gertie O’Grady, Claire Voyant as well as this original feature Kitty Hawke. It’s basically a standard issue ‘jungle girl’ story updated to the then contemporary Phillipines; publisher Jim Hawke and his ‘crack-brained’ daughter are trapped there during the Japanese invasion. Somehow young (and fully clothed) Kitty becomes the queen of a group of Filipino guerilla fighters. ”Badass” is a term that’s been incredibly overused of late but no question, Kitty Hawke is something of a Badass.

It’s a fairly handsome feature, full of strange jive jargon some of which I’m hoping was invented…

…and it touches on some unpleasant realities of race during the WWII era.

And, finally, here’s a nice chunk of Claire Voyant by Jack Sparling, It’s one of those features I’ve heard about for decades and it’s surprisingly good.