Rusty Riley was an American comic strip which ran from 1948 to 1959. It was created and drawn by Frank Godwin for King Features. The line work in Rusty Riley shows an obvious influence of James Montgomery Flagg and Charles Dana Gibson although he used a variety of styles in his book and magazine illustrations. Contemporaries such as Hal Foster, Milton Caniff, and Alex Raymond continue to be reprinted with regularity, while Godwin's strips are difficult to find. He receives more attention in Europe, specifically France, athough even there it is quite sparse. Rusty Riley wasn't the most popular comic strip King Features ever had, and it was far from the longest lasting. But the quality of its illustration would rival practically anything put out by any syndicate, ever. Rusty was an orphan, along the lines of Little Orphan Annie except he didn't move around as much. He went straight from the orphanage to a job as a stable boy on a Kentucky horse farm, where his melodramatic adventures, like the murder mystery novels of Dick Francis, revolved around the world of racing. Later, he broadened his horizons and started having adventures in other settings, but melodramatic adventures still made up the strip's fare for its entire duration. The man with the brush was Frank Godwin, whose earlier work included a lot of miscellaneous art for The Philadelphia Ledger, DC Comics, and other comics producers, and who was already famous for one superbly drawn strip, The Ledger Syndicate's Connie. It was Godwin who developed the scenario for the strip, although he did bring in a writer, Rod Reed (Captain Marvel) to script the actual stories. The daily strip began January 26, 1948 and the Sunday version (written by Reed's brother, Harold) began on June 27 of the same year. With art by Godwin and scripts by Rod Reed the first Rusty Riley daily appeared on January 26, 1948. The storyline follows the adventures of a redheaded orphan youth, Rusty Riley, who flees the orphanage with his faithful fox terrier, Flip. In the Bluegrass region of Kentucky, he is hired as a stable boy by wealthy racehorse owner Mr. Miles, owner of Milestone Farm. Encountering crooks and corruption as he grows up in the world of horse racing and horse breeders, Rusty's goal is to establish himself as a jockey. Rusty's girlfriend is Patty Miles, the daughter of his boss. The strip was running in more than 150 newspapers when Godwin died of a heart attack in 1959 at his home in New Hope, Pennsylvania. The final strips were drawn by Bob Lubbers, who recalled, "In 1959 Frank Godwin, the artist who did Rusty Riley, died. Sylvan Beck at King Features asked if I'd do the last two weeks in Godwin's style to end the series. I admired his book illustrations and was honored to have the privilege to do it." Another nice publication from Comic Preserves.

First Year Dailies & Rusty Ryan tryout strip: 1948 is 11x8, softcover fanzine, 180 black & white pages, $12.95
Dailies: 1949 is 11x8, softcover fanzine, 160 black & white pages, $12.95
Dailies: 1950 is 11x8, softcover fanzine, 160 black & white pages, $12.95