Mr. Mystic is a comics series featuring amagician crime-fighter, created byWill Eisner and initially drawn byBob Powell. The strip featured in four-page backup feature a Sunday-newspapercomic-book insert, known colloquially as "The Spirit Section". It first appeared in 1940, distributed by theRegister and Tribune Syndicate.[1]
Mr. Mystic, whosealter ego was an American diplomat named Ken, gained hissuperpowers inTibet, where he was chosen by the mysterious Council of Seven Lamas to fight against evil.[2] The council gives him a tattoo of an arcane symbol on his forehead, and he dresses instage magician clothing: a business suit, with a cape andturban.[1] Among his abilities were the power to transform into animals and to grow to giant or minute sizes.[3] After receiving these gifts, he returns to the United States to fight crime.
Along with the seriesLady Luck, theMr. Mystic strip followed the seven-page lead featureThe Spirit in a 16-page,tabloid-sized, newsprint comic book sold as part of eventually 20 Sunday newspapers with a combined circulation of as many as five million copies. "The Spirit Section" premiered on June 2, 1940 and continued through 1952.[4]
In 1941, Mr. Mystic had a sharp-tongued fiancee, FBI agent Penny Douglas. Later on, he took on a comedy sidekick named Chowderhead.[5]
Fred Guardineer filled in for Powell on the strip for three weeks in October 1943, but Powell resumed the strip and continued until its end on May 14, 1944.[6]
Unlike the newspaper seriesThe Spirit orLady Luck,Mr. Mystic was not later reprinted in standard comic books by publisherQuality Comics, and considered the least successful, it was the first of the three series to end.[1]
During the 1970s and 80s, severalMr. Mystic stories were reprinted in the black-and-whitemagazineThe Spirit, during theKitchen Sink Press portion of the magazine's run. In 1990,Eclipse Comics published a one-shot comic book reprinting the first fiveMr. Mystic stories.
Mr. Mystic also appears as a regular character inWill Eisner's John Law: Dead Man Walking (2004, IDW), a collection of stories that features new adventures by writer/artist Gary Chaloner. The book features other Eisner creations includingLady Luck, John Law and Nubbin, the Shoe Shine Boy.
AfterThe Spirit, perhaps the best drawn feature in the section was Powell'sMr. Mystic. Eisner created Mr. Mystic by retooling his Yarko the Great, which had been syndicated overseas. After running through Eisner's scripts, Powell wrote and drew the feature until he was drafted a couple of years later. A very good artist, Powell was a journeyman writer who tried but never managed to sell Eisner on someSpirit scripts, a situation that rankled Powell for some time.
— Heintjes, Tom[7]