Toni Blum

After Bill Bossert's July 1945 return from the U.S. Army, where he had been a captain and a paratrooper during World War II, Bossert and Blum had a son, Tom, and a daughter, Jill, and moved to Pleasantville, New York, where Blum became a housewife and Bossert a graphic designer. They later had a second son, Robin. Blum developed breast cancer, surviving for five years and undergoing chemotherapy, and died in 1973, according to Bossert in an interview conducted in the late 2000s, or 1972, per Who's Who of American Comic Books, 1928-1999.

Blum co-created numerous features for Eisner & Iger clients. In Quality Comics' National Comics #1 (July 1940) alone, she introduced the aviation strip "Prop Powers", with the possibly pseudonymous artist Clark Williams; "Sally O'Neil, Policewoman", with artist Chuck Mazoujian; and "Wonder Boy", with artist John Celardo. Through 1943, she scripted a large number of Quality Comics features at various times, including "Black Condor", "Dollman", "Kid Patrol", "Lion Boy", "The Ray", "The Red Bee", "Stormy Foster", and "Uncle Sam" She also wrote numerous text fillers both for Quality and for Fiction House, many of the latter bylined "Tom Alexander".

Following Eisner's departure from Eisner & Iger to launch his Sunday-newspaper comic-book insert, "The Spirit Section", in 1940, Blum became ghost writer of its title feature "The Spirit" for a time in 1942, while Eisner did World War II U.S. military service. One source also lists her as a writer for a companion feature, "Lady Luck", in 1940. A different source includes her among the post-Eisner S. M. Iger Studio personnel in the 1940s who adapted literary novels and stories for Classics Illustrated comics, for which her father Alex Blum drew many issues.

Toni Blum was born in Pennsylvania, the daughter of Jewish artists Alexander Anthony "Alex" Blum and Helen Blum. Together with her younger brother, the family lived in the Germantown section of Philadelphia. During the Great Depression, Alex Blum's career as a portrait painter evaporated, leading the family to move to New York City, New York, seeking work. In 1938, she became a staff writer at the Manhattan studio Eisner & Iger, one of the era's comics "packagers" that would supply comic-book content on demand to publishers testing the emerging medium. She lived at the time with her family on 91st or 92nd Street near Park Avenue in Manhattan.

While a handful of women artists worked in comics during the 1930s and 1940s era collectors and fans call the Golden Age of Comic Books, Blum is among the only female comics writers of that era, along with Ruth Roche and writer-artist Tarpé Mills.

Owing to her collection of pen names, historians are uncertain of her earliest comic-book scripts. Who's Who of American Comic Books, 1928-1999 lists her as writer, from 1936 to 1937, of the two-page feature "The Vikings", which ran in issues #1-19 (cover-dated Dec. 1935 - Dec. 1937) of one of the earliest comic books, National Allied Publications' New Comics (renamed New Adventure Comics with issue #7). Blum is also tentatively identified as the author of the two-page text fillers "Treasure Hunt" Parts 1 & 2 in Action Comics #15-16 (Aug.-Sept. 1939), bylined "Jack Anthony". That title's publisher, Detective Comics Inc., one of the firms that would coalesce to become DC Comics, was not known to use comics packagers for its content, however. Following a handful of other tentative credits, Blum's first confirmed work, bylined "Anthony Brooks", is the six-page "Vladim the Voodoo Master", starring Yarko the Great, Master Magician, in Fox Comics' Blue Beetle #1 (Winter 1939-40).

Audrey Anthony Blum (c. January 12, 1918 – 1972 or 1973) was an American comic book writer active during the 1930s and 1940s "Golden Age of Comic Books", known for her work with Quality Comics and other publishers and as one of the first female comics professionals in what was then an almost entirely male industry.