Mandrake - true classic magic

Mandrake the Magician was created by Lee Falk during the Great Depression, a time in USA's history when adventurous comic strips became popular for their morale-building appeal. Mandrake was an illusionist whose work was based on an impossibly fast hypnotic technique. Mandrake also worked against crooks and other bad guys (the Cobra, the Brass Monkey...) in his spare time. This would include common gangsters, mad scientists and aliens from space. In their case, he would gesture hypnotically and they would see their guns change into snakes or red hot irons.