Bold Fashion Choices--The Fox!!

One of the best things about heroes with a poor fashion sense? They can get better.

Take poor Paul Patton, "former all-around athlete at Penn State." Apparently he wasn't good enough an athlete, all-around or not, to make it in the bigs in any sport. So, naturally, he winds up as a newspaper photographer.

Sadly, Paul wasn't an all-around photographer. He never got good pictures, and while on assignment in West Virginia, he allowed star reporter/potential girlfriend Ruth Ransom to get kidnapped by the Klan (I guess with a name like Ransom, she should have seen that one coming, eh?).

But Paul has a solution to both problems--become a super-hero with a camera in his costume!! First he invents a new kind of camera...

The designs the costume around said camera...

...and straps himself in!

You know, it's only 1940, but Paul sorts kicks Peter Parker's ass here in the "take pictures of yourself doing super-heroics" category.

So, surely this brilliant scheme is accompanied by a dazzling costume for The Fox. Right, Paul? Right??

You have got to be kidding me!!!

No, he's serious.

Even by the laxer Archie hero standards...that's a sucky costume.

Seriously, he looks like an escaped mascot from a college football game, or a refugee from a children's television show. It would be considered crappy even if it were a Halloween costume!!

And that mask!!

But even the most serious sins of all, fashion sins, can be redeemed. It took a few months, but eventually Paul managed to come with with something a wee bit sleeker and dynamic looking:

But even in that tight costume...


...he still had the camera going!!

Call the Pulitzers...AND Mr. Blackwell!!

Before is from Blue Ribbon Comics #4 (1940). After is from Blue Ribbon Comics #18 (1941).