I recently picked up a batch of old 50¢ comics, including the first issue of Eclipse's "Strike" from 1987, written by Chick Dixon. The page below appears at the end, and purports to tell the story of a "Forgotten Hero of the Golden Age of Comics," Sgt. Strike, whose story is told in flashback in the issue's main story.
There are lots of details there, but I haven't been able to verify any of them after some determined web searching. No "All-Thrill Comics," at least from that time period. No books called "Prairie Crimebusters" or "All Kid Comics." No company called "Happy Comics." No "Jolly Farmer Food Company."
Now of course I wouldn't necessarily expect ALL of these 1940's minutiae to be accessible in a modern web search, but the fact that I can't confirm ANY of them leads me to suspect that Dixon just completely made everything up. But if so, I can't imagine why. The story is tucked away at the end, and the purported Golden Age origins of the character are not mentioned on the cover as a selling point. And it seems kind of shitty to make readers think they've learned some obscure comics trivia when it's all fake.
So... Can anyone with better Google-fu than me, or with better knowledge of the Golden Age of Comics, enlighten me?
