Anchors Andrews #1 (St. John, January 1953) is a Korean War–era service comedy built around a wide-grinning Navy recruit who, in the words of collectors, looks and acts like Archie's older brother joined the Navy. The redheaded Anchors and his shipmate Sleepy blunder through shipboard hijinks — a lost pin-up photo triggers a chase across the deck, a boxing-league mix-up pits Anchors against his own tough-guy commander, and a re-enlistment snafu drives another gag. The issue's real draw, though, is its backup: two Canteen Kate stories by good-girl art master Matt Baker, in which the scheming, disguise-loving mess-hall sweetheart tangles with North Korean soldiers armed with little more than a rolling pin and nerve.

Published by Archer St. John's art-forward house, the book sits at a curious hinge point. Anchors Andrews was a short-lived attempt to franchise St. John's Archie-style teen-humor formula into a military setting, and #1 was the only issue to carry that title — with the next issue the redhead was recolored blond and the series was retitled Anchors the Salt Water Daffy. It also marks the final appearances of Canteen Kate, one of St. John's only recurring characters, whom Matt Baker had drawn from her 1951 debut in Fightin' Marines through this last bow.

Today the issue is prized less for the title feature than for its Matt Baker Canteen Kate content, which anchors modern reprint collections and keeps the book in demand among Golden Age and good-girl-art collectors. As a likely public-domain title, it offers researchers a clean window into how 1950s publishers blended teen humor, wartime morale-boosting, and pin-up sensibility on a single ten-cent newsstand book.