A local sports legend, in 1924 he caught the winning touchdown pass against Texas A&M University when a bobbled ball was tipped into his hands, leading the Longhorns to 7-0 victory against the Aggies in the brand new Memorial Stadium.

[1] The action-story pulp magazine Argosy began a weekly feature by Allen in about 1931 called Men of Daring, true stories in pictures.

These one to two-page weekly picture stories contained the exploits of Americans, many relatively unknown, such as Canadian air ace Billy Bishop,[10] infamous men like Edward Teach (aka Blackbeard), "as bold and cruel a rover as ever grasped hilt in hand".

[11] Allen often pictured celebrities such as Harry Houdini[12] and the derring-do of international heroes like Alexander Sasha Siemel, Brazil's "Tiger Man".

[14] Argosy's weekly feature occasionally became Women of Daring, starring such notables as Dame Rachel Crowdy "the first woman in history to win knighthood in her own right"[15] and the female bullfighter Conchita Cintron.

[20] When Allen moved to California, he drew a horse racing tip sheet comic called It's a Bet for the Los Angeles Herald-Express.

[23] When the U.S. entered World War II, Allen was drawing Heroes of Democracy and his patriotic cartoon motivated his decision to join the army.

[26] After World War II, Allen felt that too much attention was being paid to juvenile delinquents and decided to focus a pictorial column on teens doing positive things.