The Lost Art of Ray Willner

Collected for the First Time
All 14 Beautifully Restored Stories in an oversized format

Ray Willner was a casualty of the culture wars. With a comics career dating
to 1939, Willner produced impressive work for publishers small and large throughout the 1940s. By 1949 he landed one of the only steady gigs in his career for an unusual publisher: The Brown Shoe Company. While working initially on their Buster Brown Comic Booka giveaway created to drum up business in stores selling Browns footwear for kidsWillner found a simpatico spirit in fellow artist Reed Crandall. Although their collaboration on the Brown Shoe Co. series The Adventures of Robin Hood lasted less than a yearcancelled in the wake of the scaremongering backlash against comics in the 1950sthe seven issues produced by Willner with Crandall represent a seldom seen high-water mark in comics art. They were the last comics Willner would ever draw.

The Lost Art of Ray Willner collects all of those Robin Hood stories for the first time since their original publication in 1956 and includes an introductory essay on Willners life and career.