Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: l.b. cole
Highest-Graded L.B. Cole: Edgar Church Young King Cole, at Auction
Young King Cole V3#4 has a fascinating focus on one of L.B. Cole’s favorite subjects — animals and zoos
Published Fri, 10 Jul 2026 13:03:09 -0500
by Mark Seifert
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Article Summary
- L.B. Cole’s Young King Cole V3 #4 spotlights his enduring fascination with animals, zoos, and vivid Golden Age cover design.
- The tiger cover ties to a Young King Cole detective story set at a zoo, where sabotage and film rights drive the mystery.
- Inside, Jim Wilcox handles the lead feature, while Toni Gayle and Dr. Drew the Zoo Man extend the issue’s animal theme.
- Its Edgar Church pedigree and highest-graded status make this 1947 L.B. Cole cover a notable prize for serious collectors.
Serious L.B. Cole fans know that the creator had a clear appreciation for animals throughout his career, and the tiger on the cover of this Young King Cole V3#4 is a stand-out example of Cole bringing animals into his comic book work. While it doesn’t appear that Cole drew any of the interior stories here, it seems likely that he had a hand in them, as much of the issue is animal-themed, including the lead Young King Cole feature represented by that cover, the Toni Gayle story that takes place in the Florida Everglades, and the Dr. Drew the Zoo Man story. The highest graded copy of an L.B. Cole cover featuring one of the artist’s most cherished themes, this Young King Cole V3#4 Mile High Pedigree CGC NM 9.4 Off-white to white pages copy up for auction in the up for auction in the July 9 – 11 Comic Books Signature Auction #7467 at Heritage Auctions.
The lead Young King Cole story, drawn by Jim Wilcox, puts the Cole Detective Agency on the set of a film company shooting at Big City’s Midway. Wilcox had worked as a commercial and pulp illustrator before comics, and his Novelty work included Blue Bolt from 1943 through 1947 as well as Young King Cole material. The story’s villain delays the movie production for two weeks, intending to buy the film rights for a song in the aftermath. He intends to accomplish this delay by unleashing or tampering with various animals in the zoo where the movie is filming, giving way to the tiger incident on this issue’s cover. This is not the only story here with a zoo theme. The eight-page Dr. Drew the Zoo Man adventure, The Poisoned Arrows, uses the feature’s animal-whispering detective in an island mystery. The Toni Gayle story centers on a murder at an alligator farm, where alligator wrestling takes place, and ultimately sees the farm’s owners come to a bad end.
The animal and zoo themes are particularly relevant to Cole, as according to Blacklight: The World of L.B. Cole, after attending the University of Kentucky in the U.S., Cole moved on to Humboldt University of Berlin, where he said he was “doing most of my work at the German zoo.” Cole returned to the U.S. in early 1941. Given this context, Young King Cole V3#4 should be of particular interest to serious Cole collectors, and the highest-graded Mile High Pedigree CGC NM 9.4 Off-white to white pages copy is up for auction in the up for auction in the July 9 – 11 Comic Books Signature Auction #7467 at Heritage Auctions.
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