ANOTHER REX MASON

Rex Mason, when you hear or read that name you know it is Metamorpho himself, former soldier of fortune and now unwilling metahuman who only wishes to be "cured" from being a super powerful hero. This name is so common for Metamorpho fans as Clark Kent is for Superman fans, but have you considered there are real people who are called same than comic-book superheroes? 

There is a New Zealand politician called Rex Mason, who lived in the last century but since we are more interested in comic-books, today I want introduce to you to another Rex Mason (also called Maxon by a few sources), an obscure penciler/inker who was active in the golden and silver ages. It is little what we know about his personal life, he was born on March 24th 1892, his earliest work in sequential art was the Tarzan newspaper strip in which he started working in 1929, additionally he worked on Tarzan's illustrated novels (prose books heavily illustrated). Sequential art was not something he did a lot but instead most of his career was devoted to the so called pulp magazines, specially the spicy pulp (magazines with explicit art).

In the 40's he breaks into the comic industry working for several publishers but probably most of his work was never credited since there are only a few records about what he did on these varied publishers. His most important work in the comics medium was perhaps his stint on Dell Comics where he co-created several features such as Turok, Track Hunter, Young Earth among others (in recent years Turok stories drawn by Rex Mason have been reprinted by Dark Horse).

Mr. Mason left the comics industry in 1969 as he moved to England to pursue a career as landscape painter. He died on November 25, 1973, aged 81. Considering that Bob Haney was very versed about what other publishers were producing (more about this on a future post), there is still the probability he read the name on a comic and took it by chance for his creation, who knows.

As a bonus, I want to show you the work of a potter or potters (this site is still trying to figure out the identity of the potter or potters) called Rex Mason.