June Tarpé Mills

Born June Tarpé Mills on 25 February 1918 in Brooklyn, New York, she signed her work by her middle name "Tarpé" to conceal her sex. She also used the pseudonyms "Edgar Allen, Jr." and "Nella."[3]

Mills worked as a model while helping to support her deceased sister's children and her widowed mother along with her academic studies.[4] She attended Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn, New York, and she received her higher education at the Pratt Institute in New York.[1]

Mills' professional career began as a fashion illustrator.[5] She created several action comics characters ("Devil's Dust", "The Cat Man", "The Purple Zombie" and "Daredevil Barry Finn") before creating her most remembered character, "Miss Fury," in 1941.[6] Mills also wrote original scripts, penciled, and inked stories for these comic book series prior to Miss Fury: Funny Pages, Star Comics, Amazing Mystery Funnies, Amazing Man Comics, Masked Marvel, Prize Comics, Target Comics, and Reg'lar Fellers Heroic Comics.[7]

Miss Fury ran until 1952, when Tarpé Mills mostly retired from the comics industry.[2] She briefly returned in 1971 with Our Love Story for Marvel Comics and in 1979 began work on a Miss Fury graphic novel which would remain unfinished.[8]

She died on 12 December 1988 in Brooklyn, New York, and is buried in Forest Green Park Cemetery in Morganville, New Jersey.[1]

June Tarpe Mills was inducted into the ComicCon Eisner Hall of Fame on July 19, 2019.

The Bell Syndicate first published the Miss Fury comic strip (then titled The Black Fury) on April 6, 1941, predating the first appearance of Wonder Woman by six months.[9] The strip "ran in full color in the Sunday comics pages for 351 consecutive weeks from 1942 through 1949, and was also collected in comic book form by Timely Comics."[10] Circulation included over 100 newspapers at its most popular stage.[11] As the Miss Fury strip became more popular, it eventually became public knowledge its creator was a woman.[12]

Miss Fury, the alter ego of socialite Marla Drake, was a character based loosely on Mills' own appearance.[12]

During World War II, "Miss Fury" was painted on the nose of three American warplanes in Europe and the South Pacific. Two of the recurring villains were the Nazi agents Erica Von Kampf and General Bruno. Mills' own white Persian cat Perri-Purr was introduced in the strip, and during World War II Perri-Purr became an unofficial mascot of the American troops.[6][13]

Mills' art in Miss Fury was modeled on the work of Milton Caniff.[18] Her portrayal of action across multiple panels, as well as the natural poses and facial expressions of her characters, has been described as "cinematic,"[19] echoing the film-noire style.[18][20] Mills' characters also possessed a "pinup quality."[19]

Dean Mullaney, editor and publisher behind Eclipse Enterprises, wrote that “[Mills’] art is drawn very traditionally—no surprises, no ah-ha moments.”[21]

Evie Nagy for The Los Angeles Review of Books remarked that “the flow of Mills’s sequential art feels completely organic."[19]

June Mills' legacy as the first woman to create a female action hero in comics was contextualized by Victoria Ingalls for the American Psychological Association. Out of a list of hundreds of female “superheroes” surveyed in her abstract, Ingalls identified only eleven as being created by a woman not working in a team with a male writer. Mills' Marla Drake is the chronological first of these eleven heroes.

According to Mike Madrid in his book The Supergirls, Marla Drake belongs to the “Debutante” caste of early comics female heroines, who include Sandra Knight (Phantom Lady), Dianne Grayton (Spider Widow), Diana Adams (Miss Masque), and Brenda Banks (Lady Luck). These characters form a ‘sorority’ of heiresses and socialites who had been forced into lives of propriety, submission, and “tedious leisure.” “Putting on a cape and mask liberated these women” to embrace their own identities, fight crime, and trade their “entitled boredom” for thrills.[22]

Madrid wrote, “Mills’ approach to a secret identity seemed more realistic, injected with a feminine practicality.”[22]

• Funny Pages (1936)
  • "Diana Deane in "White Goddess"" vol. 3, #8[25]
  • "The Third Episode of Diana Deane in "White Goddess"" vol. 3, #9[26]
  • "White Goddess [conclusion]" vol. 4, #1[27]
• Star Comics (1939)
  • "Diana Deane in Hollywood" vol. 2, #5 and #7[28]
  • Phantom Rider #18[29]
  • It takes heavy artillery to win a water pistol fight! #23[30]
• Amazing Mystery Funnies (1939)[31]
  • Daredevil Barry Finn vol. 2, #4-5, #9, #11-12, and vol. 3 #1
• Amazing Man Comics (1939)
  • "The Coming of Cat-Man" #5[32]
  • "The Ivy Menace" #6[33]
  • "The Return of the Cat Man" #8[34]
• Masked Marvel (1940)
  • "The Vampire" #2[35]
• Prize Comics (1940)
  • "Birth of a Barnstormer" vol. 1, #1[36]
  • "The Rescue of Lt. Andre" vol. 1, #1[36]
  • "The Diamond Smuggler" vol. 1, #2
  • "The Lost City of Tsol" vol. 1, #2
  • "Murder of a Mail Pilot" vol. 1, #3[37]
  • "Marco Hawk's Big Score" vol. 1, #3[37]
  • "Mamba Island" vol. 1, #4[38]
  • "The Witch Doctor's Waterloo" vol. 1, #5[39]
  • "The Search For Kalobi" vol. 1, #6[40]
• Target Comics (1940)
  • "The Maskless Axeman" vol. 1, #1[41]
  • "Ninety Seconds For No. 91" vol. 1, #2[42]
  • "Devil's Dust" vol. 1, #2[42]
  • "Dance of Death" vol. 1, #3[43]
  • "The Music Monster" vol. 1, #4[44]
  • "Ezekiel's Ark" vol. 1, #5[45]
  • "The Blue Zombie" vol. 1, #6[46]
  • "Boomerang" vol. 1, #9 and #11[47][48]
  • "Sword of Destiny" vol. 1, #10[49]
  • "Satan's Colors" vol. 1, #12[50]
  • "The Three Mutineers" vol. 2 #1[51]
• Reg'lar Fellers Heroic Comics (1940-1942)[52]
  • Issues 1-4 and 7-12
• Miss Fury (1941-1952)
• Our Love Story (1969)
  • "Model With a Broken Heart" #14[53]
• Unpublished and unfinished Miss Fury graphic novel (1979)[8]

• Tarpe Mills at the Grand Comics Database.