The Masked Lizard: saw print as a heavily detailed 6-page cartoon done with rapidograph pens and India Ink. The strip originally appeared in the Syracuse University sponsored Sword of Damocles magazine in December 1964. It was re-printed in Wonder Wart-Hog, Captain Crud, and Other Super Stuff, edited by Chuck Alverson; Fawcett, 1967. Later, "The Masked Lizard" appeared in Anomaly #2 and Vaughn's self-published Junkwaffel comic series (1972).
Vaughn: "I created the Masked Lizard on December 5, 1963; he was the first lizard to be characterized with a name and superhero drag. The Masked Lizard is also important because he became not only my first published cartoon story (6 pages plus a color cover for the off-campus Syracuse University magazine, The Sword of Damocles, but the first lizard to find his way into a national publication, the paperback Wonder Wart-Hog, Captain Crud, and Other Super Stuff). Little did I know then that lizards were to become the staple Bode characters in the first decade of my cartoon work."
Vaughn: "I created the Masked Lizard on December 5, 1963; he was the first lizard to be characterized with a name and superhero drag. The Masked Lizard is also important because he became not only my first published cartoon story (6 pages plus a color cover for the off-campus Syracuse University magazine, The Sword of Damocles, but the first lizard to find his way into a national publication, the paperback Wonder Wart-Hog, Captain Crud, and Other Super Stuff). Little did I know then that lizards were to become the staple Bode characters in the first decade of my cartoon work."