62. FANTASTIC COMICS #1 (December 1939) Comic Book Plus
"Stardust"
"Space Smith"
FANTASTIC COMICS #2 (January 1940) Comic Book Plus
"Stardust"
"Space Smith"
FIGHT COMICS #1 (January 1940) Comic Book Plus
"Big Red McLane"
JUNGLE COMICS #1 (January 1940) Comic Book Plus
"Tabu, Wizard of the Jungle"
FANTASTIC COMICS #3 (February 1940) Comic Book Plus
"Space Smith"
"Stardust"
FIGHT COMICS #2 (February 1940) Comic Book Plus
"Big Red McLane"
JUNGLE COMICS #2 (February 1940) Comic Book Plus
"Fantomah"
PLANET COMICS #2 (February 1940) Comic Book Plus
"Tiger Hart of Crossbone Castle on the Planet Saturn"
.FANTASTIC COMICS #4 (March 1940) Comic Book Plus
"Space Smith"
"Stardust"
FIGHT COMICS #3 (March 1940) Comic Book Plus
"Big Red McLane"
JUNGLE COMICS #3 (March 1940) Comic Book Plus
"Fantomah"
FANTASTIC COMICS #5 (April 1940) Comic Book Plus
"Space Smith"
"Stardust"
FIGHT COMICS #4 (April 1940) Comic Book Plus
"Big Red McLane"
JUNGLE COMICS #4 (April 1940) Comic Book Plus
"Fantomah"
DARING MYSTERY COMICS #4 (May 1940) Marvel Unlimited
"Whirlwind Carter"
FANTASTIC COMICS #6 (May 1940) Comic Book Plus
"Yank Wilson"
"Space Smith"
"Stardust"
FIGHT COMICS #5 (May 1940) Comic Book Plus
"Big Red McLane"
JUNGLE COMICS #5 (May 1940) Comic Book Plus
"Fantomah"
DARING MYSTERY COMICS #5 (June 1940) Marvel Unlimited
"Whirlwind Carter"
FANTASTIC COMICS #7 (June 1940) Comic Book Plus
"Stardust"
FIGHT COMICS #6 (June 1940) Comic Book Plus
"Big Red McLane"
JUNGLE COMICS #6 (June 1940) Comic Book Plus
"Fantomah"
FANTASTIC COMICS #8 (July 1940) Comic Book Plus
"Space Smith"
"Stardust"
FIGHT COMICS #7 (July 1940) Comic Book Plus
"Big Red McLane"
JUNGLE COMICS #7 (July 1940) Comic Book Plus
"Fantomah"
PLANET COMICS #7 (July 1940) Comic Book Plus
"Buzz Crandall of the Space Patrol"
FIGHT COMICS #8 (August 1940) Comic Book Plus
"Big Red McLane"
JUNGLE COMICS #8 (August 1940) Comic Book Plus
"Fantomah"
FANTASTIC COMICS #10 (September 1940) Comic Book Plus
"Stardust"
FIGHT COMICS #9 (September 1940) Comic Book Plus
"Big Red McLane"
Last Big Red
JUNGLE COMICS #9 (September 1940) Comic Book Plus
"Fantomah"
FANTASTIC COMICS #11 (October 1940) Comic Book Plus
"Stardust"
JUNGLE COMICS #10 (October 1940) Comic Book Plus
"Fantomah"
FANTASTIC COMICS #12 (November 1940) Comic Book Plus
"Stardust"
JUNGLE COMICS #11 (November 1940) Comic Book Plus
"Fantomah"
FANTASTIC COMICS #13 (December 1940) Comic Book Plus
"Stardust"
JUNGLE COMICS #12 (December 1940) Comic Book Plus
"Fantomah"
BIG 3 #2 (January 1941) Comic Book Plus
"Stardust"
FANTASTIC COMICS #14 (January 1941) Comic Book Plus
"Stardust"
JUNGLE COMICS #13 (January 1941) Comic Book Plus
"Fantomah"
FANTASTIC COMICS #15 (February 1941) Comic Book Plus
"Stardust"
JUNGLE COMICS #14 (February 1941) Comic Book Plus
"Fantomah"
FANTASTIC COMICS #16 (March 1941) Comic Book Plus
"Stardust" (Racist images and language)
Last Stardust
JUNGLE COMICS #15 (March 1941) Comic Book Plus
"Fantomah"
Last Fantomah
GREAT COMICS #1 (November 1941) Comic Book Plus
"Moe M. Down"
Inventory story: Big Red story redrawn and repurposed
GREAT COMICS #2 (December 1941) Comic Book Plus
"Moe M. Down"
Big Red McLane stories with faces redrawn by Seymour Reit (GCD), this one is directly from FIGHT COMICS #9
I wanted to read some Fletcher Hanks "Stardust" stories after seeing Van Jensen's STARDUST tribute book crowdfunding on Zoop last year. Unfortunately, the definitive collection of Fletcher Hanks TURN LOOSE OUR DEATH RAYS AND KILL THEM ALL!: THE COMPLETE WORKS OF FLETCHER HANKS, edited by Paul Karasik and published by Fantagraphics, is long out of print.
Luckily, public domain site Comic Book Plus ended up having all of Fletcher Hanks comic stories from Fox and Fiction House Comics uploaded (with two stray Timely stories found on Marvel Unlimited). Thanks to them, and Grand Comics Database who had a list of all Hanks published work, for making this reading marathon possible.
I had looked through the first Fantagraphics Hanks collection many years ago at the local library and wasn't that interested. It definitely benefits the reader to experience all of Fletcher Hanks, as his work is intense and uneven at it's best and lethargic and incoherent at it's worst. He repeats himself endlessly which is fine when you are Liefeld-ing and using shortcuts to draw faster, like showing Stardust from the back when he's flying or space battles from an extreme distance where Hanks is basically drawing abstract patterns of dots. These work better when you compare the beauty of Fantomah's human form and the detail in the jungle background alongside the deep well of creativity in the creation of all His weird creatures and aliens. It's a balancing act, not exactly linear, as Fletcher Hanks doesn't necessarily evolve or improve but rather creates a bunch of stories in a flurry then stops! He obviously cared more for some series than others, in my opinion anyway, on reading his work he put more effort into the art of "Fantomah" yet he didn't even bother to plot "Big Red McLane" for most of it's run and the drawing on that feature was unenthusiastic (to put it kindly) compared to his other work. Stardust had some complex stories and had a minor continuity later with the Fifth Columnists, but so many were absolutely incoherent ("Tiger Hart" is another example). I guess other people thought these stories were bad in a good way, maybe this is what lead to Art Spiegelman, Francoise Mouly, and Paul Karasik (future Hanks historian) to snatching Hanks from obscurity and re-introducing him in RAW #5 (March 1983).
I don't know overall what I think of Fletcher Hanks and all the work he left behind, but I have to lean toward a positive opinion of these comics as 86 years later they still don't make comics that look like whatever was going on in Hanks brain back then.
(All illustrations from Comic Book Plus scans, except Pop Art from Marvel Unlimited)
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