Curly Kayoe was a popular comic strip professional boxer created by Sam and Mo Leff. Not as popular as Ham Fisher's Joe Palooka, mind you, or even Elliot Caplin and John Cullen Murphy's Big Ben Bolt, but still pretty popular. Especially if you realize he was an interloper.
The origins of the Curly Kayoe comic strip began in 1918 with Vic Forsythe's Joe's Car, featuring Joe Jinks. Over the years Joe's attention went from automobiles to airplanes. By 1928, Joe's mechanical obsessions waned a bit, as evidenced by a title to Joe Jinks; the same year the strip expanded to Sundays, featuring mainly domestic comedy revolving around Joe and his wife, Blanche. Also at the same time, Joe's interests veered from aviation as he became a fight promoter. Joe's first boxer was a guy named Dynamite Dunn. Forsythe left the strip in 1933 and, from 1934 to 1936, the title of the strip was Joe Jinks & Dynamite Dunn. Various artists worked on the strip over the next few years. In 1944, Joe met Curly Kayoe, who would soon replace him as the focus of the strip. The strip was now drawn by Sam Leff and inked by his brother Mo. On December 31, 1935, the strip officially changed its name to Curly Kayoe. Joe Jinks remained as Curly's manager for another year, then he moved both out west and out of the strip.
Curly was big, blond, kind-hearted, and not too bright -- pretty much cut from the mold of Joe Palooka. Not a coincidence really; at the time Mo Leff was ghosting the Palooka strip for Ham Fisher.
Alas for Curly, history repeated itself fourteen years later. A secondary character, a seaman named Davy Jones, was becoming more and more popular. and, in 1961, the strip's name was once again changed, to Davy Jones this time. Under that title, the strip continued for another decade, but without Curly Kayoe.
(I remember reading the Curly Kayoe strip when I was a kid. Curly had a trick -- in the middle of a fight, he would whisper something in his opponent's ear; the opponent would let down his guard enough for Curly to land a knockout punch. What Curly said remained a secret, although readers could write to the strip and and the secret would be revealed to them! I never wrote in so I had no idea what those secrets words were. Now, in my dotage, I'm curious -- not enough to fully regret not writing in, but still curious.)
Curly Kayoe's comic book career consisted of eight issue published between 1946 and 1950, as well a a one-shot as part of Dell's Four Color Comics series in 1958.
Curly Kayoe #1 opens with Joe Jinks pointing out to a young reporter some of the many famous fight fans at that day's event at Madison Square Garden -- Paul Muni, Joan Crawford, Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart, Charles Coburn, and bandleaders Frankie Carle and Xavier Cugat. Jinks also breaks out his scrapbook and we view photographs of Jack Dempsey knocking out Jess Willard, and of Firpo knocking Dempsey out of the ring, as well as the 1926 upset when Gene Tunney won the title from Dempsey. But, Jinks said, the greatest boxer of all time never won a title. It was "Killer" Kayoe from 1921, when he won 40 fights, all by knockouts. The, on the evening when Killer Kayoe's wife was due to deliver a baby, the boxer had a match against Ernie Judd. Kayoe was anxious to end the match so he could join his wife. During the second round, Kayoe landed a punch and Ernie Judd hit the canvas...dead. Kayoe's guilt drove him from the ring. Kayoe, his wife, and new-born son left town. A week later it was revealed that Judd had entered the ring with a fractured skull from an accident her did not report. Killer Kayoe was exonerated, but he never knew that -- no one could locate him.
You know where the story is gong from here. the years pass and Joe Jinks, knowing that Killer Kayoe had a son, was determined to find him and turn him into a heavyweight champ. When Joe finally found Curly, Killer Kayoe had been dead for a year. Before he died he made Curly promised never to to fight in the ring. Curley is determined to honor his father's wished and to stay and run the family farm. In a flashback, we see and aging Killer saying, "If I hadn't killed a man in the ring -- I'd like nothing better than to see Curly become a top-notch fighter." After learning that his father had not killed Judd, Curly decides to become a fighter, and a handshake seals the deal with Joe as his manager.
And a boxing legend begins.
The issue closes with four pages of humorous fillers, including two featuring Ernie Bushmiller's Fritzi Ritz.
Enjoy the origin of Curly Kayoe.
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=89273&comicpage=&b=i
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