Mister 8

Marc Patten has a nice tribute (drawn from personal experience) to the late Dick Giordano at Comic Book Resources, but he makes a little slip when he says, “Subsequent issues were written by Joe Gill, while Giordano himself supplied the artwork for all 8 issues of the series before it was transformed into a secret agent title (called “Secret Agent”) following Giordano’s departure.”

In reality, the team of Bill Montes and Ernie Bache began creating art for issues of Sarge with the fifth issue. The Montes/Bache issues are decidedly more globe-trotting, and starting with issue six, for which they also provided art, Sarge Steel: Private Detective became Sarge Steel: Special Agent, before, as Patten notes, the title was changed to just Secret Agent. The working conditions at Charlton Comics weren’t always the most ideal, and I agree with our new friend Scott M. when he writes of an issue of Fightin’ Five at Seduction of the Indifferent that, “I tend to be of two minds when it comes to the Montes/Bache art team.Sometimes, they can be inspired, using interesting layouts and drawing characters and scenes with a real depth. Other times, especially in action sequences, it can come across as rushed.”

When I tried to start a Sarge Steel fansite almost eight years ago now, I was contacted by the son (I’m ashamed to not remember) of one of the two artists. I tried to set up an interview, but what I really should have done was to procure some biographical information. There’s virtually nothing out there on the web about the pair (though I will say that my favorite work by them was for the Tyro Team story in Charlton Premiere #1). In lieu of being able to share that background information with you, I’ll present instead some original artwork from Secret Agent #9 (which took over numbering from Sarge Steel #8, and, as you can see from the cover above is sort of a greatest hits of Sarge villains).  This isn’t their greatest work, but I turned up this art on Heritage Auctions (an amazing resource for comic art fans, and it’s free to join!) and couldn’t resist. I’ve scaled them down here, but the massive size images are available at Heritage.

Without further ado, pages 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, and 20 of Secret Agent #9: