A Month in the Life of the Comics

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Scrooge · April 30, 2005

# 58

Famous Gangsters # 3 - Lucky Luciano - Bought from Tomorrow's Treasures

Content: Let's do this differently today as I'll try to weave the splashes with some historical background.

"Avon Periodicals had a number of crime books to its name, though a number were one-shots. Famous Gangsters, Murderous Gangsters, Parole Breakers, Behind Prison Bars, Police Line-Up, Prison Break, and Gangsters and Gun Molls were all published between 1951 and 1952. These better-than-average books contained art by Wally Wood, Everett Kinstler, Syd Shores, Joe Kubert and Mort Lawrence. Avon thumbed its nose at Dr. Wertham when it published Reform School Girl under its Realistic Banner. “The graphic story of boys and girls running wild in the violence-ridden slums of today” said the blurb over the title. The picture and title were lifted from an Avon pocket book published in 1948."

There was a copy of this book in the Church collection which apparently is in VF+ (as per Arty and Rob).

Cover - OS only tells us it is a replica of Avon Paperback # 66. According to Lupoff in The Great American Paperback, the cover artist is Paul Stahr. Here's a scan of the original paperback which shows more of the painting.

Paul Stahr (1883 - 1953) Confortable with everything from comedy to crime, Stahr had long running associations with the pulps (especially Argosy) and the weekly comics (notably Life); also work for Collier's, Munsey, Saturday Evening Post, Judge, American Magazine, People's Home Journal. Responsible for a number of book covers for authors like Mrs. Wilson Woodrow, W. R Burnett (Little Cesar), Leslie Charteris (The Saint), Abraham Merritt, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Raymond Chandler (The Big Sleep).

Lucky Luciano and Murder Inc. - The comic concentrates on the early "career" of Lucky (sans Lansky, Costello and Siegle) and the goings-on in Chicago gangland (Actually, having read some mob history for this entry, I am interested in reading again the Shadow early novel Gangdom's Doom because a lot of the themes are very very very similar).

"Charlie Lucky Luciano was born Salvatore Lucania in a small town outside Palermo, Sicily, Lercara Friddi, November 27, 1897. His parents moved into the Lower East Side on Fourteenth Street of Manhattan where Luciano attended school for a brief time. He tried his hand a honest living delivering hats for a Jewish merchant named Max Goodman. Although his parents were very loving towards him, his brothers and sisters, Luciano found comfort with Goodman. Giving him a good job and showing him how a middle-income family lived as opposed to his lower-income family, Goodman opened Luciano's eyes to a whole different side to life -- a prosperous life. Goodman also opened a door for him that stuck with Luciano for the rest of his life: the ability to make money with a legal front. Luciano started delivering dope for a local pusher when he was eighteen, hiding the heroine in the hat bans of deliveries he was making for Goodman. Luciano was soon arrested and sent to Hampton Farms, a state facility for youths. After being released from prison, Luciano decided to change his first name to Charlie because he felt that Salvatore, or "Sal" was a girls name, and having been in prison, Luciano had earned the right to be tough.

Soon Luciano would take up with the Five Points gang where he would meet a slew of future crime bosses: Jonny Torrio, Al Capone, Frankie Yale. Because Luciano had kept the code of silence during his trial and prison sentence, the Five Pointers would take to him quickly, realizing his ability for leadership and organization."

Some background on Chicago's mob organization:

"Having murdered his boss "Big Jim" Colosimo, Torrio was in a position not only to take over the Chicago Outfit, but to seize control of all the gangs throughout the city. But his Chicago Crime Syndicate did not go unopposed, and Dean O'Banion's Northsiders would be a constant thorn in his side. In the aftermath of Colosimo’s death, Torrio became Chicago’s most powerful crime boss. He had dreams of organizing a national crime syndicate taking in all the major gangsters across the country. The first step towards achieving this goal was to organise the Chicago criminals. At a summit meeting, he divided Chicago into several territories, each one belonging to one of the major players in the city. He brought home the point that violence and reprisals damaged everyone’s business and drew too much police attention. If they all respected each other’s territories and kept the peace, they would all prosper. Having said that, he made it clear that the other gangsters would have to "rent" these territories by paying a percentage of their

profits to him and that failure to do so would result in war. Most of the hoodlums present were in no position to argue.

The largest territory belonged to Torrio and consisted of "the Loop" in the city centre and the South Side. The Northside belonged to Dean O’Banion’s gang. The Genna family controlled Little Italy in the Southwest and Edward "Spike" O’Donnell claimed the "Kerry Patch" South of Torrio’s turf. Joe Saltis and Frank McErlane ruled the docklands while Terry Druggan and Frankie Lake dominated the Westside. Further West, William "Klondike" O’ Donnell established his region and Roger Touhy took the suburbs around the city."

After a string of murders inside the organization:

"The following day, Torrio and Anna returned home from a shopping trip in a Lincoln car borrowed from one of Torrio’s men, Jack Guzack. Their driver was one of Capone’s chauffeurs, Robert Barton. As they were unloading shopping, a black limousine pulled up and four men opened fire with two .45 pistols, a 12 gauge shotgun and a Thompson sub-machine gun. They riddled the car with bullets, hitting both Barton’s legs. When they noticed that Torrio was not in the car two men jumped out of the limo and fired, hitting Johnny 4 times in the chest, neck, right arm and groin. The family dog was killed by a stray bullet. One of the men put a pistol to Torrio’s temple and pulled the trigger, only to find he was out of ammo. The limo driver blew the horn and the assailants jumped back inside to make their getaway.

Al Capone organized a private room at the hospital and surrounded it with bodyguards. Al even slept beside Torrio’s bed with a loaded revolver. Torrio made a very quick recovery and was able to serve his 9-month sentence in Waukegan Prison. The warden had been bribed into giving the mobster a bullet proof cell with two armed guards outside at all times. The cell contained an easy chair and a radio, and Torrio was the only prisoner allowed to hang pictures on his wall. He also had a comfortable down mattress to replace the standard lumpy flock mattresses that other convicts slept on.

A Northside gangster named George "Bugs" Moran was arrested for the attempted murder of Torrio after a 13 year-old boy identified him as the man who put a gun to Torrio’s temple. Despite Moran’s airtight alibi, many believe that he and Hymie Weiss were the two men who jumped out of the limousine and that Vincent "The Schemer" Drucci was the driver. But Charlie "Lucky" Luciano put forward another theory in his memoirs. Luciano was a member of the Five Points Gang at the same time as Capone and Torrio. Luciano blames Al Capone for the murder attempt saying that Capone wanted to take over his boss’ empire. According to Luciano, everyone in the New York underworld believed that Capone faithful Leonard "Neddles" Gianola lead the hit team."

One of the players in this story is:

"Vincent Drucci (? - April 4th, 1927), born Victor D'Ambrosio, mafia figure from Chicago prohibition era. Member of the North Side gang of Chicago and associate of Bugs Moran, Earl 'Hymie' Weiss, and Dean O'Bannion. Drucci was involved with the attempted murder of both Al Capone and Johnny Torrio in the turf wars of the 1920's. Drucci was shot in an altercation with a Chicago policeman in 1927. He has the ignoble distinction of being one of the few gangsters to be killed by law enforcement."

Once Torrio was dead, Capone was left free to rule Chicago, with Frank Nitti as his second-in-command: The Enforcer

Too bad the moll's nose was lost in the production process

Here's how the Enforcer's career ended.

"Nitti got into trouble again in 1943 when he was indicted for extorting the major movie studios in Hollywood in what came to be called the Hollywood Extortion Case. Nitti masterminded a plot with several other mobsters where they gained control of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE). Then, the heat was turned on the Hollywood movie studios. If they didn't pay up, their stage hands and other workers could be used against them to ruin them. Warner Bros paid, RKO paid, MGM and Fox paid. Everyone was paying up and the whole set-up looked set to be a big money earner for the Mob. That was until a Chicago news reporter began asking questions when he saw Willie Bioff, one of the Mobs men in the union, at a big Hollywood party. The reporter was Westbrook Pegler, a nationally syndicated reporter. He recognized Bioff as a one time pimp from Chicago and wondered why he was moving in such high society circles. When he found out what a big man Bioff had become, he began to look into it. It was soon discovered that Bioff still owed Illinois state for a conviction for pandering. He was arrested and jailed for six months. After his release, he was indicted again along with the other Mob man in IATSE, George E. Browne, for the extortion of the movie theaters. They had to appear before a Federal Grand Jury in New York and were questioned about their association with the Mob.

Bioff and Browne were both found guilty but rather than do hard time, they decided to rat on their Mob controllers. As a result, indictments were brought against Frank Nitti, Paul Ricca and others. They were all called to stand trial later that year in New York.

indicted members of the case about his bad handling of the whole affair. Bioff and Browne should never have been allowed to

A meeting was called at Frank Nitti's house in Riverside after the arraignment and Nitti was attacked by the other testify. He was told by Paul Ricca to be a 'stand-up guy' and take the rap for all of them since Bioff and Browne were his guys and so his responsibility. Nitti disagreed with Ricca and argued back that they all shared the responsibility for the whole fiasco and then ordered them all to leave. Essentially, Nitti had now broken the Mafia code of honor by not taking the heat for his failures.

Nitti had previously done 18 months in jail on an income tax evasion charge and did not want to spend another day in a 9 by 6 cell. He was acutely claustrophobic and the thought made him unstable. The day after the argument with Ricca, on March 19th, 1943, Nitti went for a walk near the railway tracks near his home, across from the Municipal Tuberculosis Sanitarium, and blew his brains out with a pistol.

The resulting trial in New York found all the defendants guilty and sentenced them all to ten years."

I left the last one alone as I already packed the entry this time and have already mentioned the O'Donnells. Also, while unIDed, wouldn't some of you agree with me that this art is familiar? Any suggestions?

Scrooge · May 1, 2005

# 59

Felix the Cat # 29 - San Diego Con purchase

Content:

Felix Books an Act by ? 12 pgs

Nick's Knacks by ? 2 pgs

Joe Blow by ? 3 pgs

Felix Goes West by ? 11 pgs

Let me invoke the Toonopedia first, where we learn about Felix's multi-media career:

"Felix the Cat was animation's first superstar, far eclipsing Farmer Alfalfa, Bobby Bumps, Col. Heeza Liar and other ongoing cartoon characters of earlier years. From the moment Felix first appeared, in Feline Follies (1919), he was a hit — even tho he hadn't yet been given his name. In that film and his second, Musical Mews, he was called "Master Tom". It was only in the third, Adventures of Felix (1919) that he received his permanent name — and his long, long career was off.

From Leonard Maltin's Of Mice and Magic, here's the Cat's studio:

According to the credits, Pat Sullivan, owner of the studio, was the guiding genius behind Felix — but in reality, the cartoons were the work of a young animator named Otto Messmer, who produced the entire four-minute debut all by himself, working at home on a freelance basis. Felix's success was a direct result of Messmer's great ability to create sight gags, and to express a character's personality through his own unique way of moving. Dozens of silent Felix cartoons were made, with increasing sophistication as the 1920s wore on.

Again in Maltin's book, here's an early version of the Cat from some promo material:

When the talkies came in, Felix was quickly eclipsed by Disney's Mickey Mouse, who had made an early and successful transition to sound. The last silent Felix cartoon was the appropriately-titled The Last Life (1928). The Sullivan Studio, which never did embrace the new technology, went into decline. When Sullivan died, in 1933, it closed its doors. Messmer left animation to concentrate on comic strips about Felix, which he had started in 1923 (and which lasted until 1966).

Felix made a brief return to animation in 1936, when the Van Bueren Studio bought rights to the character. But the charm of the Messmer years was not recaptured, and the series ended after only three cartoons.

In 1960, Felix was revived once more, this time on TV, by producer Joe Oriolo. Oriolo, whose credits include Casper the Friendly Ghost and The Mighty Hercules, had worked as Messmer's assistant during the 1950s, and had taken over the Felix newspaper strip from him in 1954. It was this series that introduced Felix's now-famous "bag of tricks" — as well as the dastardly Professor, who coveted it. Voice actor Jack Mercer, whose best-known role was Popeye the Sailor, provided most of the voices in this series.

Meanwhile, Messmer's comics — first in the form of a newspaper strip distributed by King Features Syndicate and later, in 1943, as a regularly-published comic book — displayed his visual imagination and solid design sense to great effect, which is why the Messmer-drawn issues are highly prized by modern collectors. The comic book, which was published first by Dell Comics, then Toby Press, and finally Harvey Comics, ended in 1961. Dell started a new series a year later, but it lasted only 12 issues. Gladstone Comics published a thick album in 1991, reprinting Messmer's comic book art; and Fantagraphics did another album in '96, this one reprinting his newspaper comics from the 1920s. From 1991-93, Harvey Comics reprinted some of Messmer's stories in comic book form, but with very poor printing. Later in the '90s, the Oriolo family put out new, non-reprinted ones, with better production values.

In recent years, Felix has turned up occasionally in a new cartoon or comic strip — sometimes, unexpectedly enough, as a co-star with Betty Boop. The most recent was a Saturday morning animated series, which ran from 1995-97.

Unlike his contemporaries, animation's first break-out star has a lot of life still in him."

So while Pat Sullivan was credited, Otto Messmer was the true originator of this cat: (courtesy of Fantagraphics and Steve Stiles)

"Otto Messmer was born August 16, 1892 in West Hoboken (now Union City) New Jersey, and educated at Holy Family Parochial School and the Thomas School of Art. His parents cultivated his early interest in vaudeville and show business." (Fantagraphics)

"Messmer began his commercial art career with a work-study program illustrating fashion catalogs but became interested in cartooning, especially animated cartooning, when he happened to see Windsor (Little Nemo) McCay's Gertie the Dinosaur vaudeville act in New York one day in 1912. Fascinated by this combination of live action and animation, Messmer began submitting his own strips to newspapers, and by 1915 began attempting to get work as a set painter at film studios (fortunately, the film industry hadn't made its mass-exodus to California yet).

An executive at Universal liked the young artist's work and signed him on to make a test film. Being totally inexperienced, Messmer nonetheless managed to put together a crude short called Motor Mike. While never released, his first attempt resulted in getting work with an established cartoonist, "Hi" Mayer, who taught him the ropes of peg board and cel registration techniques necessary in those early days of crude animation.

After helping Mayer on Travels With Teddy, an animated short based on Mayer's friend Teddy Roosevelt, Messmer sought out additional work with Pat Sullivan, who had set up his own studio and produced a number of shorts, including Twenty Thousand Laughs Under the Sea, a satire to be released with the second film version of the Jules Verne classic (1916). As with Disney and Ub Iwerks, Sullivan became more engrossed with the business end of running a studio, while Messmer handled the creative chores." (Steve Stiles)

"[...] created Felix The Cat for Pat Sullivan Studios in 1919. Messmer was to direct all Felix episodes through 1931 and was lead animator on all the cartoons produced by the studio. He was responsible for most of the work on the Felix comic strip from 1923 through 1954. In addition to his work on Felix he also worked for years with Douglas Leigh, the "Lamplighter of Broadway", where he was the lead animator on the large "moving" electric signs above Times Square in New York City." (Fantagraphics)

Messmer (left) discussed with Don Leigh a storyboard for a giant animated electric sign

"Throughout the 1940's and 50's he continued to produce new Felix comic book material for Dell, Toby Press and Harvey Comics. Joe Oriolo , Messmer's assistant for many years, took over control of the character in 1955. In the 1960's the efforts of Oriolo and fandom in general resulted in the shy Messmer's public admission that he was the creator of Felix (not Pat Sullivan). he grew to enjoy the publicity, and retired in 1973. Messmer passed away October 18, 1983, at last recognized for his fine work and essential position in animation and pop-culture history." (Fantagraphics)

Finally, here's little bio for Joe Oriolo who was also co-creator of Casper!

"Joe Oriolo - Born February 21, 1913 in Union City NJ. Graduated Union Hill High & Cooper Union . His first job in the art field was as a Show Card Writer for Sears Roebuck. He was the Top Animator for Max Fleisher. While at Fleisher studios he worked on "Superman,” “Popeye,” and "Gulliver's Travels” as well as doing high priority films for the Government. Joe created "Casper the Friendly Ghost" and was responsible for opening one of the earliest commercial TV studios in 1945, Felix the Cat Studios. Joe Oriolo produced 260 "Felix” cartoons for TV and also produced 130 "Mighty Hercules” films for TV. Joe's son, Don Oriolo, carries on Oriolo film studios today."

Finally for more of all things Felix, please visit this Felix the Cat Fan Site.

First Story Pages

A few pages later, Felix escapes the Martians. I appreciate the layout decided on to make the most of this sequence. What I remember of Felix from childhood is the zaniness of the sequences as seen here where there is an outwordly quality to the chain of events. I care more for it as an adult than I did as a child where I was more attracted to say Lucky Luke (a cartoon western hero) than to Felix and his strange adventures.

Second Story Pages

Scrooge · May 2, 2005

# 60

Fight Comics # 79 - eBay purchase

Content: (Credits courtesy of the GCD)

Cover - Maurice Whitman

Tiger Girl in Idols of the Fallen Temple by Robert Webb (?) 8 pgs

Space Rangers in Spaceship Graveyard by Lee Elias (?) 6 pgs

Kayo Kirby in Defeated by Ivan Ivanovitch by Jack Kamen (?) 5 pgs

Rip Carson of Risks, Unlimited in The Dragon-Fire Idol by Robert Webb 7 pgs

If I had my pick, I would concentrate this entry on Maurice Whitman and Robert Webb as they are both most clearly associated with Fiction House. However, it is near impossible to find information about these two gentlemen, at least online. Still, I don't recall seeing or hearing of any articles or interviews with either of them offline either. Does any one know where I could find more information about these gents? Should I go back and look over the Iger shop AE issue? Would they be mentioned there?

For lack of choice, let me concentrate on Elias (hoping he is indeed the artist on Spaceship Graveyard).

The Comiclopedia informs us that:

"Lee Elias, born in the UK, moved to the USA at a very young age. In New York he studied music and followed several art studies. In 1943 he made his debut in the comics scene at Fiction House. From 1943 to 1946 he collaborated on 'Captain Wings', 'Suicide Smith', 'Firehair', etc. At the same time he worked for Harvey ('Black Cat', 'Terry and the Pirates'), National Periodical and Marvel.

For two years he was the assistant to Al Capp on 'Li'l Abner'. From 1952 to 1955 he drew 'Beyond Mars', a science-fiction series that was published in the New York Daily News. In 1959 he returned to National Periodical, where he worked on series like 'Adam Strange', 'Green Arrow', 'Ultra' and 'Automan'. For Warren, he specialized in horror stories. In 1980 he created his final comic book, 'The Rock'. Afterwards, Elias became a teacher at the School of Visual Arts and took on painting and illustrating."

Note - while not mentioned above, Jack Williamson was the scribe on the Beyond Mars strip.

Here's another look at Lee as presented in "BLACK CAT" No. 13 in the Summer of 1948.

"Lee Elias - 'Ave you ever 'ad to live a lie? Well, I 'ave and I can bloody well tell you it's hell!

Lee Elias, English-born artist whose creative brush brings the Black Cat to graphic glory, was referring to the peculiar events surrounding his introduction to the woman who is now his wife. An accomplished dialectician, he wooed and won his wife while pretending to be an English refugee. Of course, during the weeks following, his accent became quickly Americanized and by the time he was married, he'd dropped all guise and admitted leaving England at the age of six.

Elias' versatility goes on to the field of music, where talent and encouragement, in the form of a scholarship led him to aspire to a concert violinist career. "I still fiddle with the fiddle," he says, "but my new love, the Black Cat, is a rather jealous creature." Remarking on the split-personality of Hollywood's most glamorous movie-detective star, Elias asserts, "Give me Linda Turner... sweet and clinging for a real life companion, but the adventurer in me can't help but get a bang out of the more dynamic side of her character."

Seated in front of his drawing board, pencils sharpened, brushes in readiness, favorite brand of cigarettes nearby, radio softly playing classical music, Lee (nee Leopold) starts in by scribbling, erasing, scribbling, erasing. A few hours later, the Black Cat in her latest dare-devil adventure has emerged. He prefers working late at night, believes it's more conducive to thinking and usually works right through until eight or nine in the morning.

A fiend for authenticity, Elias uses a mirror to capture gestures, enacts all the judo stunts he illustrates, and swears by their credibility. He is a conscientious craftsman, who worries over items such as faithfully reproducing latest car models, Hollywood movie star caricatures, the type of suit Linda Turner's news-hawk boyfriend, Rick Home, should wear. He will painstakingly spend time to draw a glen-plaid suit pattern line for line.

Leopold "Lee" Elias was born in Manchester, England on May 21, 1920. Six years later he came to America with his grandmother and attended school in Brooklyn. He studied music under the tutorship of Israel Epstein and supported himself by playing the violin at club dates, recitals and on the radio.

He is 5 ft. 7 in. tall and his 153 pounds fill out a suit nicely. Elias is a natty dresser. He has dark brown hair, large light blue eyes, which usually are serious. Elias is a serious fellow. He does not take life lightly. He was married in 1942. When the first child, a daughter, arrived in 1944, he carefully selected her name for its monogram value- Adrienne Victoria Elias.

Elias lives in a three-room apartment in Brooklyn, which he calls his "temporary" home. The clatter of a malicious neighbor upstairs sometimes makes work very trying. He hopes to have his own home soon. He is a temperamental artist, whose work has earned the highest respect in the comics magazine field. In motion pictures, he prefers adventure films. Likes the "blood and thunder." In person, Elias is very soft-spoken and unassuming. He looks and acts like none of his belligerent villains.

Modest and sincere in his artistic endeavors, he enjoys being praised for his efforts and will listen to criticism with an open mind. He is always bent on improving the Black Cat art, on introducing new gimmicks and brush techniques. Every so often he gets together for a duet with a friend who plays the piano. Aside from the relaxation and enjoyment, these musical evenings stave off his becoming rusty on the violin. He also paints whenever he has spare moments; refuses, however, to sell any paintings. "They take so much effort," he explains, "I feel as though they're my brain children and should be nurtured at home."

In addition to fathering his comic strip character Elias finds time for hunting and fishing trips. Like the Black Cat, his is a constant search for adventure and thrills."

Note - While at that site, you may want to check out this new Black Cat origin as recounted by Mark Evanier and illustrated by Murphy Anderson.

AE ran a December 1970 interview with Lee in issue # 14 and some of his comments have been to say the least puzzling to me.

"But in the long run it [struggling to make his pages perfect while others just plugged the pages away] paid off, because when the crunch came in about 1946, when things became real bad in the comic book publishing industry, these guys weren't working - and I was"

Now, what do you guys think this 1946 crunch was / is? I know later in the interview he mentions that during the war years so lesser talented artists were working due to the shortage of manpower and that once the boys came back home these guys obviously were let go. Is he referring to this? The language he uses certainly does not point entirely to this specific issue.

In part of his answer to the following question: "Fiction House went overboard for - er- naked ladies and sex in their stories. What did you feel about doing those?", Lee states:

"That was my attitude to the human body - but then to debase it - the way this publisher did... His name was Thurman T. Scott, a reactionary white-supremacist, who grew pecan nuts on his plantation in Georgia. He wanted sex in the books."

Gee, Lee, how'd you feel about the boss? I have as I recall nowhere else seen any discussion of Thurman Scott's character but before I form a judgment I'd be interested in hearing more. Any one has any recollections of other comments about Fiction House's publisher and his character?

Let's start with the always attractive in-house ad from FH.

Robert Webb(?)'s Tiger Girl Splash

Lee Elias(?) COMPLETE Story (I was scan happy yesterday)

Jack Kamen(?)'s Page

Robert Webb's Splash

adamstrange · May 3, 2005

Nice entries on organized crime and early animation. You'd pulled from a lot of sources for a pair of interesting posts. I agree with you on the Felix art -- nicer than I would have thought.

I don't have a clue on the Luciano artists.

I think I still like Lucky Luke better.

Edited May 3, 2005 by adamstrange

adamstrange · May 3, 2005

I have read very little about Whitman. Considering the quantity and quality of his work (especially those last few years of FH covers) I'm surprised someone hasn't tried to contact family or former colleagues.

I'm iffy on the Robert Webb id. Iger studio was trying to imitate him as the house style but I think the quality of his work was higher than on the pages in the post. The other trick is that work was done in a factory system so I'm sure it's possible to get some Webb mixed in with the work of many others. I believe on the Tiger Girl page they are trying to imitate Baker -- but doing it badly as evidenced by tiny thighs on Tiger Girl.

I would not have recognized Elias as he's trying to imitate Caniff much too closely. Later he would adapt the Caniff style but for his own purposes rather than slavish imitation.

Scrooge · May 3, 2005

Adam, thank you for the thoughts.

As for the Elias ID, this is why I was also circomspect about it. It is probably Elias doing his best Canniff as you mention (I mean just look at the first full face shot of Saturna and don't tell me this does not belong in Male Call) but it sure does not exactly match his output from the same period in some Harvey War books such as War Battle (this being a W book, we won't get to it for a while) and the multitude of Chamber of Chills work he did.

Now that I write this, I didn't check the OS or the Keltner to see if those were reprints of a younger Elias because at this time period he seems busy over at Harvey not Fiction House.

Plus there were more than a few artists than were apt at aping Canniff. Actually, brush up on your Elias because soon we'll another Canniff channeler in the cover of First Romance (another Harvey).

Another side note, the main strip this story reminds me of is not Terry but Prince Valiant because I keep on seeing flashes of Foster's squid as per this panel below from April 27, 1941. I couldn't show you the whole Sunday as my reprints are larger than my scanner's bed.

Yup, surprising about Whitman and Webb's lack of knowledge. Maybe someone else reading could give us a lead.

Enough for now and thanks for your show of appreciation on the research. If you haven't read it, I would recommend the Maltin book to anyone. One can find it for cheap in many places.

PS: Considering your comments in the FH thread, I thought you were a T man but now with your new comments about Tiger Girl's thigh, you sound like a A man. So which is it?

Scrooge · May 4, 2005

# 61

Fighting Leathernecks # 1 - Bought from Southern California Comics

Content:

Cover - Alex Kotzky - Signed! You don't see that too often during those days.

Fighting Leathernecks Introducing Quigley and Beals by Kotzky and Burlockoff 12 pgs

Fighting Leathernecks in Dame Trouble by Burlockoff (?) 11 pgs

Duke's Diary by Sparling (?) 5 pgs

Toby and Marines - that's a common association as they did publish, in addition to Fighting Leathernecks, Monty Hall of the US Marines, Tell it to the Marines and also John Wayne Adventures when every other month the Duke was a Marine.

So in honor of the Proud, the Few, the Marines, here's a little Corp history, including the reason behind the Fighting Leatherneck name:

"The United States Marine Corps first appeared as the "Continental Marines" during the American Revolutionary War, formed by a resolution of the Continental Congress on November 10, 1775. They served as landing troops for the recently created Continental Navy. The Continental Marines were disbanded at end of war in April of 1783 but reformed on July 11, 1798. In the days of wooden sailing ships, the Continental Marines kept order at sea and maintained internal security on board ship. In combat they manned the fighting tops, sniping at gun crews on enemy ships. On deck they led boarding parties in close action and repelled enemy boarding parties. These Marines earned the nickname "Leatherneck." The time honored sobriquet was derived from the thick leather stock worn around the neck to protect the Marine from the decapitating slash of an enemy's cutlass.

The United States Marine Corps (USMC) forms the second-smallest branch of the United States Armed Forces, with 170,000 active and 40,000 reserve members as of 2002. The USMC serves as a versatile combat element, adapted to a wide variety of combat situations. Its original purpose, giving it the name Marine Corps, comprised the provision naval infantry (combat forces serving aboard naval vessels), and carrying out amphibious operations from the sea onto land. The Marines fully developed and utilized the latter tactic in World War II, most notably in the Pacific Island Campaign. The Marine Corps forms part of the Department of the Navy (but not part of the United States Navy).

Since its inception, the Marine Corps has had a reputation for combat prowess, and the Corps' role has expanded significantly. Currently, the Marines serve as an all-purpose, quick-response task-force, suitable for quick insertion into areas requiring emergency intervention, and capable of utilizing ground, air, and sea elements. For example, in 1990, the 22d Marine Expeditionary Unit (22d MEU) conducted Operation Sharp Edge, a so-called NEO, or Non-combatant Evacuation Operation in the west African city of Monrovia, Liberia. Liberia suffered from civil war at the time, and civilian citizens of the United States and other countries could not depart via conventional means. Sharp Edge ended in success. Only one reconnaissance team came under sniper fire (no casualties occurred on either side), and the Marines evacuated several hundred civilians within hours to US Navy vessels waiting offshore.

The Marines have a unique mission statement, and do not necessarily fill unique combat roles. The Marine Corps is the only branch of the US Armed Forces with a mandate to do whatever the President may direct. The US Army, US Navy, and US Air Force combined do overlap every area that the Marine Corps covers. However, the Marines consistently utilize all of the essential elements of combat (air, ground, sea) together, and have perfected these tactics over the years, whereas the larger services may not work together as often, and may take some time to learn to function together in a combat theatre (though the creation of joint commands under Goldwater-Nichols Act has improved interservice coordination).

The Marines argue that they do not and should not take the place of the Army, Navy, and Air Force, any more than an ambulance takes the place of a hospital, but when an emergency situation develops and little time remains to deal with communications and/or political problems, the Marines essentially act as a stop-gap, to get into and hold an area until the larger machinery can be mobilized. Other military men and politicians, such as President Harry S. Truman, have differed, and considered abolishing the Corps as part of the 1948 reorganization of the military.

The Marines have one further difference from the other US military services: all marines, male or female, no matter what the occupational specialty, receive training first and foremost as riflemen. Thus the Marine Corps, at heart, functions as an infantry corps. The Corps has a creed stating "Every Marine a rifleman first." This infantry-intensive training could be seen in the Battle of Fallujah in 2004, in which Marine battalions occupied a section of the city, instead of providing a cordon as the 82nd Infantry Division did before relief by the Marines.

Historically, the United States Marine Corps has achieved fame in several campaigns, as referenced in their anthem "From the Halls of Montezuma to the Shores of Tripoli". In the early 19th century, First Lieutenant Presley O’Bannon led a group of seven Marines in deposing the dictator of Tripoli (thereby restoring the rightful ruler). Separately, the Marines took part in the Mexican-American War (1846 - 1848)."

Note that our pencil / ink team both went into service in WWII. From his AE interview, we know that Alex went in from 1943 to 1946 in the Army's Fourth Division and did go overseas. As for Sam, as he recounts in his AE interview: "In 1943, I went into the Army Air Corps as a camouflage technician. [...] I went overseas to New Guinea, the West Indies, the Philippines, and Japan. We built airstrips and I became the entertainment director for the group. I ran the PX, too. We went to all the Islands and built those landing strips. We were always on the move."

Here's an excerpt from the excellent coverage on Alex at The Rules of Attraction website (which I recommend you check out for the thoroughness of coverage and excellent illustrations):

"Like many of the other artists of this era, Alexander S. Kotzky was a city boy, born on September 11, 1923 in the Bronx, the son of Helen and Theodor Kotzky.

He attended, as would Leonard Starr two years later, the Manhattan High School for Art and Music and then the Art Students League under George Bridgeman--Stan Drake who was two years Kotzky's senior had just left--as well as the Pratt Institute for a year. Kotzky eyed becoming a big-league illustrator, but World War II's manpower drain allowed him the opportunity to immediately earn a living with his blossoming talent in comic books. One day in 1940 he answered a newspaper ad for an artist and before long, while still in art school, Kotzky was penciling for Chad Grothkopf on DC titles like Johnny Quick, Sandman, Three Aces, and Detective Chimp (sometimes using the alias "Grotsky") and doing backgrounds for Will Eisner's weekly Sunday supplement for The Spirit. At this point, he looked very much like a crude Lou Fine whom Kotzky inked for Eisner's shop and idolized, even trailing Fine out of the city to work for a period of time. Eventually, the draft found and plucked Kotzky away for service with the Army's Fourth Divison from the fall of 1943 to early 1946.

When he returned to New York and the commercial art world, again like Starr, an intense comic book period followed, mostly for Quality Publishing from 1947 and now under the guidance of studio mainstay Jack Cole, including various covers and penciling Blackhawk, Dollman, Espionage, Kid Eternity, Manhunter, Plastic Man, along with inking such titles as Quicksilver, Torchy, Uncle Sam and True Crime Comics. Art Spiegleman in his recent book on Cole claims Kotzky and John Spranger were the best of the Cole mimics. Kotzky's time with older artist, whom the "worshipful" Kotzky termed "a wild man mentally," earned the young man some notoriety as he worked with Cole during "Murder, Morphine, and Me," the True Crime comic that Frederic Wertham singled out in Seduction of the Innocent (1954) and a year later drew a New York State Legislature report on censorship and comics.

Kotzky leaves comics as many did in 1950 and heads for the security and money of advertising at Johnstone and Cushing. Here at Cushing from 1953-1960, he was among the many artists who would define the photo-style through its golden age. Kotzky remained there through the 50s, handling comic strip illustration for Dodge and Ford and illustrations for medical magazines and science fiction digests. He never strays too far from comics and comic strips, showing the talent for mimicry he had earlier displayed at Quality: a four year stint on and off ghosting Milton Caniff on Steve Canyon (1955-59), one of the first ghosts on Juliet Jones (1956-57 dailies and Sundays. For awhile in 1957--four months mid year?--the Sunday belonged completely to Kotzky. This example, 6-24-56), and a late 50s stint on John Cullen Murphy's Big Ben Bolt. (In 1965, Kotzky would work again for his old friend Lou Fine on Peter Scratch and had a brief job ghosting on Rex Morgan, MD in 1980.)

The Caniff connection would prove to be especially worthwhile. Kotzky's only solo strip during this period was a widely distributed (60 major markets nationwide) Sunday with writer Allen Saunders (Mary Worth and Steve Roper) for Phillip Morris cigarettes called Duke Handy, running for half of 1958, April to October, an adventure continuity about a blue collar "two fisted redheaded hero" who smoked when he wasn't setting things straight or roaming from town to town. Kotzky inherited it when Caniff bowed out in prepublication.

Undoubtedly, it was the Duke Handy experience with Saunders, the reliable ghosting, and the sure-fire romance credentials of a stint on Juliet Jones that prompted Publishers Syndicate head Harold Anderson to look Kotzky's way when a new idea about three young women sharing an apartment came in late 1958 from veteran writer Dallis. Dallis, who had earlier created and scripted Rex Morgan, MD in 1948 and then did the same on Judge Parker in 1952, once recalled about his new brainchild, "I had been nurturing the idea of such a strip for a long time, but it required an artist who could do a more illustrative type of art and was especially adept in drawing women."

That artist was Alex Kotzky and 36 months later--after considerable discussion with Dallis and delayed an additional nine months because of the appearance and subsequent quick failure of another soaper, Honor Eden-- Apartment 3-G made its debut on May 8, 1961. It is still running today, 40 years later, in over 100 newspapers."

Sam, as mentioned above, has been interviewed in AE 32. He does mention that Bill Quackenbush was mostly an inker which now makes me doubt the ID on the DollMan from the GCD as being Quackenbush inks on Quackenbush pencils but since I have no alternate artist to cite, the ID will stand.

Here's a recent picture of Sam with his childhood friend Allen Bellman.

Onto the art, first story splash

Second story splash

Pin-ups from Duke's Diary. hoping I won't get in trouble with Architech. Now, these would have been pretty racey for a 8 to 10 years old to bring home, especially with the adjoining write-ups.

Forbush-Man · May 7, 2005

# 61

Fighting Leathernecks # 1 - Bought from Southern California Comics

Content:

Cover - Alex Kotzky - Signed! You don't see that too often during those days.

Fighting Leathernecks Introducing Quigley and Beals by Kotzky and Burlockoff 12 pgs

Fighting Leathernecks in Dame Trouble by Burlockoff (?) 11 pgs

Duke's Diary by Sparling (?) 5 pgs

Toby and Marines - that's a common association as they did publish, in addition to Fighting Leathernecks, Monty Hall of the US Marines, Tell it to the Marines and also John Wayne Adventures when every other month the Duke was a Marine.

So in honor of the Proud, the Few, the Marines, here's a little Corp history, including the reason behind the Fighting Leatherneck name:

"The United States Marine Corps first appeared as the "Continental Marines" during the American Revolutionary War, formed by a resolution of the Continental Congress on November 10, 1775. They served as landing troops for the recently created Continental Navy. The Continental Marines were disbanded at end of war in April of 1783 but reformed on July 11, 1798. In the days of wooden sailing ships, the Continental Marines kept order at sea and maintained internal security on board ship. In combat they manned the fighting tops, sniping at gun crews on enemy ships. On deck they led boarding parties in close action and repelled enemy boarding parties. These Marines earned the nickname "Leatherneck." The time honored sobriquet was derived from the thick leather stock worn around the neck to protect the Marine from the decapitating slash of an enemy's cutlass.

The United States Marine Corps (USMC) forms the second-smallest branch of the United States Armed Forces, with 170,000 active and 40,000 reserve members as of 2002. The USMC serves as a versatile combat element, adapted to a wide variety of combat situations. Its original purpose, giving it the name Marine Corps, comprised the provision naval infantry (combat forces serving aboard naval vessels), and carrying out amphibious operations from the sea onto land. The Marines fully developed and utilized the latter tactic in World War II, most notably in the Pacific Island Campaign. The Marine Corps forms part of the Department of the Navy (but not part of the United States Navy).

Since its inception, the Marine Corps has had a reputation for combat prowess, and the Corps' role has expanded significantly. Currently, the Marines serve as an all-purpose, quick-response task-force, suitable for quick insertion into areas requiring emergency intervention, and capable of utilizing ground, air, and sea elements. For example, in 1990, the 22d Marine Expeditionary Unit (22d MEU) conducted Operation Sharp Edge, a so-called NEO, or Non-combatant Evacuation Operation in the west African city of Monrovia, Liberia. Liberia suffered from civil war at the time, and civilian citizens of the United States and other countries could not depart via conventional means. Sharp Edge ended in success. Only one reconnaissance team came under sniper fire (no casualties occurred on either side), and the Marines evacuated several hundred civilians within hours to US Navy vessels waiting offshore.

The Marines have a unique mission statement, and do not necessarily fill unique combat roles. The Marine Corps is the only branch of the US Armed Forces with a mandate to do whatever the President may direct. The US Army, US Navy, and US Air Force combined do overlap every area that the Marine Corps covers. However, the Marines consistently utilize all of the essential elements of combat (air, ground, sea) together, and have perfected these tactics over the years, whereas the larger services may not work together as often, and may take some time to learn to function together in a combat theatre (though the creation of joint commands under Goldwater-Nichols Act has improved interservice coordination).

The Marines argue that they do not and should not take the place of the Army, Navy, and Air Force, any more than an ambulance takes the place of a hospital, but when an emergency situation develops and little time remains to deal with communications and/or political problems, the Marines essentially act as a stop-gap, to get into and hold an area until the larger machinery can be mobilized. Other military men and politicians, such as President Harry S. Truman, have differed, and considered abolishing the Corps as part of the 1948 reorganization of the military.

The Marines have one further difference from the other US military services: all marines, male or female, no matter what the occupational specialty, receive training first and foremost as riflemen. Thus the Marine Corps, at heart, functions as an infantry corps. The Corps has a creed stating "Every Marine a rifleman first." This infantry-intensive training could be seen in the Battle of Fallujah in 2004, in which Marine battalions occupied a section of the city, instead of providing a cordon as the 82nd Infantry Division did before relief by the Marines.

Historically, the United States Marine Corps has achieved fame in several campaigns, as referenced in their anthem "From the Halls of Montezuma to the Shores of Tripoli". In the early 19th century, First Lieutenant Presley O’Bannon led a group of seven Marines in deposing the dictator of Tripoli (thereby restoring the rightful ruler). Separately, the Marines took part in the Mexican-American War (1846 - 1848)."

Note that our pencil / ink team both went into service in WWII. From his AE interview, we know that Alex went in from 1943 to 1946 in the Army's Fourth Division and did go overseas. As for Sam, as he recounts in his AE interview: "In 1943, I went into the Army Air Corps as a camouflage technician. [...] I went overseas to New Guinea, the West Indies, the Philippines, and Japan. We built airstrips and I became the entertainment director for the group. I ran the PX, too. We went to all the Islands and built those landing strips. We were always on the move."

Here's an excerpt from the excellent coverage on Alex at The Rules of Attraction website (which I recommend you check out for the thoroughness of coverage and excellent illustrations):

"Like many of the other artists of this era, Alexander S. Kotzky was a city boy, born on September 11, 1923 in the Bronx, the son of Helen and Theodor Kotzky.

He attended, as would Leonard Starr two years later, the Manhattan High School for Art and Music and then the Art Students League under George Bridgeman--Stan Drake who was two years Kotzky's senior had just left--as well as the Pratt Institute for a year. Kotzky eyed becoming a big-league illustrator, but World War II's manpower drain allowed him the opportunity to immediately earn a living with his blossoming talent in comic books. One day in 1940 he answered a newspaper ad for an artist and before long, while still in art school, Kotzky was penciling for Chad Grothkopf on DC titles like Johnny Quick, Sandman, Three Aces, and Detective Chimp (sometimes using the alias "Grotsky") and doing backgrounds for Will Eisner's weekly Sunday supplement for The Spirit. At this point, he looked very much like a crude Lou Fine whom Kotzky inked for Eisner's shop and idolized, even trailing Fine out of the city to work for a period of time. Eventually, the draft found and plucked Kotzky away for service with the Army's Fourth Divison from the fall of 1943 to early 1946.

When he returned to New York and the commercial art world, again like Starr, an intense comic book period followed, mostly for Quality Publishing from 1947 and now under the guidance of studio mainstay Jack Cole, including various covers and penciling Blackhawk, Dollman, Espionage, Kid Eternity, Manhunter, Plastic Man, along with inking such titles as Quicksilver, Torchy, Uncle Sam and True Crime Comics. Art Spiegleman in his recent book on Cole claims Kotzky and John Spranger were the best of the Cole mimics. Kotzky's time with older artist, whom the "worshipful" Kotzky termed "a wild man mentally," earned the young man some notoriety as he worked with Cole during "Murder, Morphine, and Me," the True Crime comic that Frederic Wertham singled out in Seduction of the Innocent (1954) and a year later drew a New York State Legislature report on censorship and comics.

Kotzky leaves comics as many did in 1950 and heads for the security and money of advertising at Johnstone and Cushing. Here at Cushing from 1953-1960, he was among the many artists who would define the photo-style through its golden age. Kotzky remained there through the 50s, handling comic strip illustration for Dodge and Ford and illustrations for medical magazines and science fiction digests. He never strays too far from comics and comic strips, showing the talent for mimicry he had earlier displayed at Quality: a four year stint on and off ghosting Milton Caniff on Steve Canyon (1955-59), one of the first ghosts on Juliet Jones (1956-57 dailies and Sundays. For awhile in 1957--four months mid year?--the Sunday belonged completely to Kotzky. This example, 6-24-56), and a late 50s stint on John Cullen Murphy's Big Ben Bolt. (In 1965, Kotzky would work again for his old friend Lou Fine on Peter Scratch and had a brief job ghosting on Rex Morgan, MD in 1980.)

The Caniff connection would prove to be especially worthwhile. Kotzky's only solo strip during this period was a widely distributed (60 major markets nationwide) Sunday with writer Allen Saunders (Mary Worth and Steve Roper) for Phillip Morris cigarettes called Duke Handy, running for half of 1958, April to October, an adventure continuity about a blue collar "two fisted redheaded hero" who smoked when he wasn't setting things straight or roaming from town to town. Kotzky inherited it when Caniff bowed out in prepublication.

Undoubtedly, it was the Duke Handy experience with Saunders, the reliable ghosting, and the sure-fire romance credentials of a stint on Juliet Jones that prompted Publishers Syndicate head Harold Anderson to look Kotzky's way when a new idea about three young women sharing an apartment came in late 1958 from veteran writer Dallis. Dallis, who had earlier created and scripted Rex Morgan, MD in 1948 and then did the same on Judge Parker in 1952, once recalled about his new brainchild, "I had been nurturing the idea of such a strip for a long time, but it required an artist who could do a more illustrative type of art and was especially adept in drawing women."

That artist was Alex Kotzky and 36 months later--after considerable discussion with Dallis and delayed an additional nine months because of the appearance and subsequent quick failure of another soaper, Honor Eden-- Apartment 3-G made its debut on May 8, 1961. It is still running today, 40 years later, in over 100 newspapers."

Sam, as mentioned above, has been interviewed in AE 32. He does mention that Bill Quackenbush was mostly an inker which now makes me doubt the ID on the DollMan from the GCD as being Quackenbush inks on Quackenbush pencils but since I have no alternate artist to cite, the ID will stand.

Here's a recent picture of Sam with his childhood friend Allen Bellman.

Onto the art, first story splash

Second story splash

Pin-ups from Duke's Diary. hoping I won't get in trouble with Architech. Now, these would have been pretty racey for a 8 to 10 years old to bring home, especially with the adjoining write-ups.

A book from my Local Comic Shop!

Scrooge · May 10, 2005

# 62

Fightin' Marines # 4 - eBay purchase

Content

Tripoli Shores in Detour of Destruction by ? 8pgs

Guerrillas Die at Dawn by ? 4 pgs

Canteen Kate in Tailor Maid by Matt Baker ? 6 pgs

Danger Ahead by ? 8 pgs

Leatherneck Jack by Gene Colan ? (GCD guess) 6 pgs

Gallantry in Action by ? 1 pg

Not a lot to work with in regards to artist credits. Guessing Matt Baker for the Canteen Kate story, here's a brief recap of Matt's career from the Comiclopedia:

"Matthew Baker is best known for his romance and "good girl" comics. He is considered a master in drawing the female form. Baker started his career in 1944 working for Fox, Fiction House ('Tiger Girl' and 'Sky Girl') and Atlas. He is mostly remembered for his work on the 'Phantom Lady' series. He has also done the daily 'Flamingo' strip with Ralph Rutte. Unfortunately, his career ended abruptly in 1957, when he died at the young age of 34. He was one of America's first major black cartoonists."

I can't wait to read the recent Alter Ego with coverage on Matt, including interview with relatives (I know it is out but haven't gotten it yet). In the meantime, we can all visit this Baker fan site which is illustrated. For more Baker Romance reprints, one could also read John Benson's Romance without Tears - 50's Love Comics with a twist focusing on the writing of Dana Dutch for St John, today's publisher. The reprint book contains 11 Baker stories. For a competing view on these stories, one should read Michael Barrier's review of Romance without Tears.

Keeping this quick today, onto the art

Story 1 Splash

Story 2 Splash

Story 3 Splash

Story 3 Page

Story 4 Splash

Story 5 Splash - ID tentatively as Colan on the GCD. Any one disagrees?

One Page story about a Silver Star recipient - I wasn't able to confirm if this was a true story but at least let me provide you with what the 7th Marine did in Korea below the one-pager.

" On August 17 , 1950 the 7th Marines were again activated for service. On September 15, the 1st Marine Division, with the 7th Marines in Reserve, landed at the port city of Inchon. Once the port was secured, the 7th Marines landed and took over the drive for Seoul. For 5 days, the 7th Marines fought against the communist North Korean forces and entered the capital city of Seoul. In bitter house-to-hose fighting, the city quickly fell to the Marines and the communists were driven north.

In October, the 1st Marine Division landed at Wonson. After liberating the port, the Marines began their drive north to the Chosin Resevoir to either capture or destroy a key hydroelectric plant. By November 15, the Marines had reached the southern tip of the resevoir. Then all hell broke loose. Eight Chinese communist Division stormed out of the mountains and attacked the 1st Marine Division. The Marines began to withdraw just as winter set in. For four weeks, the Marines fought through 78 miles of mountain roads in icy winter conditions all the while battling the Chines forces. By mid-December, the Marines had finally reached the port of Hungnam and were evacuated. The fighting withdrawal had cost the 1st Marine Division over 4,000 casualties but the enemy had paid a high price. The Marines had inflicted over 25,000 casualties on the 8 Chinese Divisions. The Chosin Reservoir, or "Frozen Chosin", had been one of the bloodiest fights of the war and the Marines finest hour.

The 7th Marines participated in numerous operations in 1951 including the assault on the Hwachon Resevoir. In May, the 7th Marines were on defensive duty when 500,000 Chines soldiers attacked the main United Nations lines in their Spring offensive. For three months, the 7th Marines fought with the rest of the UN forces to defeat the Chinese offensive. For the rest of 1951 and 1952, the 7th Marines maintained their defensive positions and conducted patrols around their area of operations. In 1953, the 7th Marines were ordered to relieve the Army 25th Infantry Division. Soon after, the Regiment came under attack by North Korean and Chinese forces. The Marines held out for two weeks and did not lose any ground. The attacks ended on July 27, when the Panmunjom truce went into effect.

During the Korean War, 20 Marines of the 7th Marines were awarded the Medal of Honor for their heroism under fire.

The 7th Marines remained in Korea for several years before returning stateside"

Update - Earlier we were discussing George Roussos career evolution.

On Meskin.net , there is a nice bio of George from which I excerpt here concerning his decision to dedicate his time fully to coloring:

"After working for Marvel for years, in 1972 he joined the staff of in-house artists and began a second career in comics, as a full time colorist. He took over the position after Marie Severin quit. Roy Thomas, chief editor at Marvel, from 1972-‘74 remembers Roussos as somebody who knew what he wanted: "I liked his coloring and we got along real well. We used to go around and around about one little thing. When he was coloring interiors, whenever Spiderman, who wore red and blue, leapt from one wall to another, he was always leaping from a yellow wall. Whatever wall he headed for suddenly became yellow when he landed on it to contrast. He would say, ‘You've got to have contrast.' and I would say, ‘There's also got to be continuity.'" Roussos' amazing color sense reinvented the look of Marvel books, particularly the covers. He believed that colors in comics had to be simple and striking and developed a unique approach to using white that would "make a white seem whiter than the paper it was printed on." he told Gruenwald. His color sense is unmistakable. He was working on cover proofs and corrections until his death this year. He still continued to do hand coloring as a back up, even when computer coloring became the norm in the ‘90s. As usual, playing down his own role, Roussos told me in 1999, "A very easy job, I have now."

Scrooge · May 10, 2005

# 63

Firehair # 11 - Bought at Remember When in Dallas

Subtitle - Warrior Maid of the Wild Dakotas

Content: (GCD IDs)

Firehair in Wolves of the Overland Trail by Bob Lubbers 10 pgs

Tex Rainger in Take'em alive, son by Sam Savitt 4 pgs

Firehair in Yellow Knife in the White Man's Jail by Bob Lubbers 10 pgs

I really like this comic, especially the effort put in the effects in the art. We will come back to Sam Savitt once we see his painted covers later and will focus on Bob for today.

The nice folks at AC Comics tell us that:

"Bob Lubbers is best known for his "good girl art" from both the comic strips and comic books.

Bob was born in 1922, and attended the Art Students League before breaking into the comic book profession at the tender age of 18. His first work was for Centaur, (then known as The Comics Corporation of America) illustrating such features as The Arrow, Reef Kincaid, Red Riley and The Liberty Scouts.

When Centaur folded in 1942, Bob moved over to T. T. Scott's Fiction House line and found a home for the rest of the decade. There he served as Art Director, doing many action features and spectacular covers.

He drew Camilla in Jungle Comics, Señorita Rio in Fight Comics, Captain Wings in Wings, as well as Space Rangers, Rip Carson, Flint Baker, Captain Terry Thunder, and a long stint on Rangers Comics' frontier girl, Firehair.

In 1950, Bob began a four-year run on the Tarzan comic strip. Bob did a lot of work in newspaper strips including The Saint, Big Ben Bolt (ghosted) and Rusty Riley (ghosted). He did two strips of his own creation, Long Sam (1954-58) and Robin Malone. Long Sam was written by Al Capp and featured the exploits of a tall and gorgeous montain gal. He began working on Lil' Abner in 1970, and later did a stint on Secret Agent X-9.

He did some work at DC Comics on The Vigilante. Bob also did some Westerns at Pines (Standard / Nedor) comics on into the 1950's. His work also popped up at Gleason, Timely / Marvel, St. John and King Comics, and even stories in The Twilight Zone comic book for Western in the 1960's.

Bob is still going strong today, producing a prodigous amount of artwork for collectors and fans that is absolutely the best work of his career. If you are interested in commissioned artwork, or if you are interested in contacting Mr. Lubbers directly, email us and we will forward the information to him."

Bob was also the focus of coverage in a CBM issues a few years ago.

IIRC, Jon Berk in has some of Bob's recent recreations in his online gallery. Great stuff.

To see some of his work on Secret Agent X-9, please check this site and for another Firehair story, please visit here for a story from Rangers 39.

Story 1 Splash

Story 1 Page 2

Story 1 Page 2 OA

QUESTION - This OA is for sale at Anthony Snyder's website along with some other pages from the story. I need wiser folks advise on this. I would like to purchase at least a page but I have never bought OA before. Is this Anthony Snyder reputable? Is the $75 price tag reasonable? Does the page look OK condition-wise? I hesitate between this page and the last page of the story shown below. Which would you choose or would you choose yet a different one from the set. Your input is important to me. Thank you in advance.

Story 2 Splash

Story 3 Page

Story 3 - Nice Page

Scrooge · May 11, 2005

# 64

First Romance # 11 - bought from ??

Content:

Those Stolen Kisses by ? 6 pgs

Warned Against Him by ? 5 pgs

Backstage Love by ? 6 pgs

I Mortgaged my Heart by ? 6 pgs

This is going to be a short one as I have no ID for any of the artists. Powell did a lot of work for the series in 1-5, 8-10, 14, 18, 20-22, 24, 25, 28, 36, 46, 48, 51 but not in here This was a long running title for Harvey lasting until November 1958.

The book has a table of content with a note from the editors as seen below. Since all the splash pages are presented here I won't show them again and only show story pages below.

Story 1 last page

Story 3 last page

Story 4 last page

I don't know if you notice the similarities in the ending but in each of these three stories the main female character realizes the boorishness of the man they had all eyes for throughout the story and have the chance of being rescued / accepted by the more mild-mannered young guy all parents would wish for their daughters. Very repetitive (as one would expect from a Romance title).

Reading output from many publishers, I had established that on average Fawcett had better second tier talent for their secondary books but now I am wondering if I shouldn't adjust my judgment and place Harvey on top of the second-tier publishers for art's sake while still keeping Fawcett second for scripts / stories. For a one to one comparison, look back up to Exciting Romances from Fawcett.

There are several neat in-house ads in the issue. Still odd to me to advertise "Blood and Guts" and Horror titles in a Romance book . Is this the correct audience ? Anyway, here are the ads. The second one is printed in B&W.

adamstrange · May 13, 2005

Great posts as always, Scrooge.

The pin-ups from the Toby book are Jack Sparling. They re-printed a whole bunch of them in a one-shot called Pin-Up Pete.

The cover on the Firehair looks like another Maurice Whitman, although he did make Firehair look a wee bit like Lubbers' rendition.

Edited May 13, 2005 by adamstrange

Scrooge · May 13, 2005

# 65

Forbidden Worlds # 5 - eBay purchase

Content: (GCD IDs)

Cover - Ken Bald (?)

The Tomb of Terror by Lou Cameron 8 pgs

The Merman Menace by Lin Streeter 8 pgs

Priestess of the Sphinx by Al Camy 10 pgs

The Dance of Savages by Beck (?) 1 pg

The Day the World Died by George Wilhelms 8 pgs

Land of the Living Dead by Al Williamson inked by Roy Krenkel 8 pgs

I'd say this make it a great issue. Let's concentrate on Al Williamson for today.

From the Comic Art & Graffix Gallery site, here's a short bio of Al:

"Al Williamson was born in New York on March 21, 1931. His family moved to Bogota, Columbia when he was still a child and Al spent most of his adolescence there.

While in Bogota, the youngster found comics, including Alex Raymond's "Flash Gordon", Hal Foster's "Tarzan" & "Prince Valiant" and the art of South American comic strip great Jose Luis Salinas' "Hernan el Corsario".

He moved back to New York in the 1940's and attended Artist's & Illustrators school (later the School of Art & Design) where he was taught by Burne Hogarth, among others. Burne saw promise in the young man's work and let him do some pencils on his Tarzan Sunday pages in 1948. While at Artists & Illustrators he met and befriended Roy Krenkel and Frank Frazetta, and the three of them became lifelong friends and collaborators.

Al's first work appeared in Heroic Comics #51 (1948), and his long career was launched. Over the next few years he worked at Toby Press, ACG, Eastern and others before he secured continuous work at EC.

He immediately began appearing in most all of the EC titles, but it became obvious from the start that his forte was science ficton, and it is in this area that Al excelled while at EC. He quickly became a staple in the EC titles Weird Science and Weird Fantasy.

During this time his artistic style began to solidify as well, showcasing the fine lined technique that has become so well identified with the artist. Influenced by Raymond, Foster and Salinas, and then being exposed to Lou Fine and Will Eisner, Williamson's art became one of the leaders in the realist style of comic art that later became the norm when artists Leonard Starr, Stan Drake, John Prentice and Neal Adams popularized it.

Unfortunately, Al was in the same boat with everyone else when the comics business universally went under in 1955, hastened by left wing advocates of censorship.

During this time he worked mostly at Atlas (Marvel) illustrating horror, western, adventure and whatever else he was assigned. he also worked at Prize with Jack Kirby & Joe Simon for a few years in the late fifties, and ACG as well. For a while from the late fifities through the sixties Al did quite a bit of assisiting comic strip artists who made good use of his work. He worked with Prentice on Rip Kirby, a strip originated by Alex Raymond that he liked tremendously, he did some work on the Dan Flagg strip and reportedly helped some with Alden McWilliams Twin Earths strip.

Then in 1964 a big break came. Warren publishing was starting a new line of black & white magazines in the vein of EC and James warren/Archie Goodwin were rounding up as many of the EC artists as they could. The resultant titles, Creepy & Eerie, were only moderately successful, but they were an excellent showcase for the artists whose work appeared in them. Frazetta covers, stories by Williamson, Reed Crandall, Angelo Torres, Johnny Craig and Steve Ditko amongst others. These were absolutely fabulous, and lavish comic magazines. But their praise was short lived as publisher James Warren was so continually late with paying the artists that the original crew all left within a couple of years.

Al then went on to King, where he drew several issues of a Flash Gordon comic book. These books are very highly regarded by fans and rightly so. the fantastic artwork makes these books classics in their own right. As a note, Williamson is the only comic book artist I know who has drawn both of Alex Raymond's creations, Flash Gordon & Rip Kirby.

After illustrating the Flash Gordon books, Al became the artist on the syndicated strip, Secret Agent X-9 (another Raymond strip) which later became Secret Agent Corrigan. He drew this strip for almost two decades, beginning on January 20, 1967.

He drew the Star Wars strip for a period at the request of Star Wars creator George Lucas, a longtime comics fan. He also drew several issues of the Star Wars comic book for Marvel, where he eventually became the inker for the Daredevil, over John Romita Jr's pencils. He remained on Daredevil for quite some time, starting with issue #237 and working on most of them up to #289.

Al has worked on many more projects than this article could possibly begin to mention. Over the course of some five decades he has been recognized as one of the top artists in comics, recieving many accolades for his work over the last fifty years.

He frequently makes appearances at comic book conventions to the happiness of lucky fans who get to meet and chat with this talkative and personable legend of comic art."

Now, about Al's art from Ray Cuthbert page at Comicartville:

"In 1998, Al Williamson marked his 50th year in the comic art business. His first published artwork appeared in Heroic Comics in 1948.

One of the things that any artist hates with a passion is for someone to tell them that they love his artwork, but that "your old stuff was better." Williamson has been hounded with this comment throughout his career.

Williamson himself, despite all of what fans claim to see in his artwork, is incredibly modest. Where a fan sees beauty, he sees flaws. Technically, he probably knows the strengths and weaknesses of his own artwork at any given moment better than any fan who has ever lived. But perhaps because of what he knows about the technicalities of his work, he is incapable of seeing what the fan sees. Where the fans see a forest of a beautiful overall creation, Williamson seems to see only the trees, stumps, creepers and decaying leaves of individual mistakes.

When someone is as humble as Williamson is, it is incredibly difficult to get him to give any kind of objective appraisal of his own work. If a fan says that they love his EC work better than anything he has done since, Williamson probably feels two things, a nostalgia for the energy and love he brought to those projects more than forty years ago, and the collaborators (read: friends) he worked on them with; and secondly a sense of anger that the fan cannot see all the progress which has been made in his technique in the forty-plus years since that time.

Williamson has been known to say that earlier in his career, he was a better penciller than an inker, whereas in the eighties (and presumably right through to the present) he is a better inker than a penciller. See his interview with Steve Ringgenberg in The Comics Journal #90, May, 1984, p.65 for this self-appraisal.

It seems to this observer and fan of Williamson's work that Williamson has strengths in certain aspects of his drawing at certain times in his career with concurrent weaknesses, whereas at other points in his career the weaknesses of former years have been replaced with strengths and some of the strengths have been replaced with weakness as well.

To my mind, the most objective and critical appraisal of Williamson's artwork came in an early 1970's review of Flash Gordon artists in general, and Williamson's work in particular.

This review was done by Williamson's sometime classmate, sometime collegue, and knowing Al , life-long friend, Larry Ivie in the fanzine Heritage 1b.

Ivie's review does not measure Williamson's artwork by its being better or worse in one period of his career than another, but merely on how it measures up in suitablilty as a successor to Alex Raymond on Flash Gordon.

Ivie's assessment of Williamson in this regard is that Williamson would have been best suited to draw Flash Gordon in the late 1950's or early 1960's before his association with John Prentice, the artistic successor to Alex Raymond on the Rip Kirby strip. Ivie suggests that Williamson, before his connection with Prentice, had "the unbeatable element of youth, in addition to talent and interest." (Heritage 1b, p.31) Stylistically, Ivie states "the drawing was superb, and the figures all had movement. But the inking reached its peak-being at the same time most tight, most fluid feeling, and most personal during the lates 'fifties." (Heritage 1b, p.31) He goes on to suggest that the Williamson who actually drew those three issues and four covers of Flash Gordon for King Comics had all the stylistic changes in his work influenced by his association with Prentice. He suggests that: "it is the scenes with heavy shadows-seldom used by others-that the Williamson style is most his own." (Heritage 1b, p.31) Ivie's analysis is not an overly negative one, in the end he suggests that "there is only one successful successor to Raymond, in keeping alive the true Flash Gordon feeling-Al Williamson." (Heritage 1b, p.33)

Now Ivie is an artist himself, and his credentials for review of Williamson's work are far superior to mine, but let me offer a somewhat different analysis than Ivie's.

The Williamson of the EC period had trouble with faces. He was magnificent with other aspects of anatomy, design, costumes and drapery, but his faces were problematic. He would hit upon winners often, but at least as frequently he depended on the strengths of a particular inker to get him past his flaws with the face. This particular problem was one that would come back and haunt him a bit at other times in his career, as well.

Ivie strangely seems to have missed the fact that Williamson's artwork matured during the time he worked with Prentice. Williamson has commented that one of the most important things that he learned from Prentice was a professional work ethic. But in addition to this, he learned a great deal about the proper use of reference, and through practice, practice, practice, he learned how to draw some of the most beautiful and expressive faces in the history of comic art.

The other great plus to Williamson's work in the middle 1960's through the seventies was that in my opinion, he achieved his greatest balance as penciller and inker. He was the total artist. His layouts, always lovely, reached a pinnacle that would be difficult to top. His pencils were virtually flawless, and his inking, although lack ing some of the sophistication and techniques that the next twenty-plus years would bring to him, was perfectly suited to his pencils. He knew how and when to use a thick line and when to use a thin one. His cross-hatching during this period was unparalleled amongst comic artists, either his contemporaries, or his artistic idols. One might say that Williamson's inking never achieved the liquid fluidity of Alex Raymond, but it was very much like the inking of another of his artistic heroes, Hal Foster.

I have suggested elsewhere that one of the chief differences between Raymond's and Foster's approach to art is that Raymond attempted to give the ordinary mythic stature, whereas Foster attempted to give myths humanity. Interestingly, Williamson's approach is philosophically akin to Raymond's and this is seen in his pencilling and in what he chooses to draw. But, as I see it, Williamson's inking overall is more like Foster's.

Williamson's abilities continued on this ascending grade of beautiful pencils and complimentary inks throughout his term on Secret Agent Corrigan. But by the time his stint on Star Wars began, I believe that Williamson began a period of growing doubt over his ability to pencil as he would like. Don't get me wrong, Williamson's pencilling on Star Wars was better than anything else that anyone else was doing in adventure syndicated strips, but I begin to notice a certain stiffness to his figures' poses becoming problematic during this period. Although there were many panels and even whole strip continuities where Williamson flew through with confidence and excitement, there were times when a lack of assurance seemed to be evidencing itself, particularly around his figures, which had always been his strong point up until this point in his career. What carried Williamson through all of this was that his inking prowess had achieved unparalleled sophistication. By this point in his career, Williamson had more inking technique in his head then seemingly anyone else in the business. What seems to me to be a weakness in his pencilling was covered up by his wonderful sense of design (which has never deserted him) and his virtuosity as an inker. As early as The Comics Journal #90 interview in 1984, Williamson was already admitting to a slowing down of his pace as a penciller. He was at a loss to explain this slowing down to Ringgenberg, but I believe that Al was beginning a period of critical self-doubt which had been known to paralyze him at other points in his career:

Williamson:" Y'know, one time I was deathly afraid of losing my job (with Prentice). I realized that there were others out there who could do the "civilian" stuff in Rip Kirby much better and quicker than I could. And then one day I got very sick...asthma...the works.

...All these people that I was afraid would take my job came in and took my job. But then I said to myself, "OK, it's done. Forget it. I'm glad they took my job. Let's see what happens now!" Bang! I got well... and started working again. Got my job right back. You don't have to be afraid. You don't have to be jealous. You don't have to worry about someone else. Just do your job to the best of your abilities, take your responsibilities, meet your deadlinesand that's all that matters. That's it. That's it right there. because you are YOU and nobody else... and what YOU do they can't take away from you. It's yours."

Williamson understood his own problem in a historic perspective, and perhaps he realizes it today. His lack of pencilling speed or prowess over the past ten years or so has little to do with the talent which lies within, and everything to do with an attitude of self-doubt. This slowing of his pencilling speed led almost directly, in a very short time, into Al's period as an inker, only, over other people's pencils. At first this was for DC, and predominantly for Marvel. Williamson fell out of the syndicated market with the collapse of the Star Wars strip. This was the second strip which had failed him, thanks to the syndicates themselves. In neither Corrigan nor Star Wars did Williamson fail the strips he was working on, despite whatever minor flaws I have mentioned in some of the Star Wars pencilling. The syndicates failed the strips by not promoting them. This must have had some effect on Williamson, because after a brief but triumphant period doing a few comic book stories, principally for Bruce Jones Associates, Williamson decided that his pencilling had slowed down to such a crawl that it was easier to make a living wage inking someone else's pencils.

Williamson has only made three significant pencilling forays since his embarking on his career as an inker of other folks pencils: his Star Wars covers, his two issue Flash Gordon revival for Marvel, and a beautiful story for Dark Horse Presents, ominously entitled "One Last Job." With the exception of the last story, and a few other flashes of genius, Williamson's pencilling jobs appear to be too infrequent to allow him to hit his artistic stride once again. I hope it will still happen. The magic is still there, just waiting to be reawakened....

The Boards Themselves

There are some unique aspects of the physical artwork which Williamson created for Flash Gordon which may be of interest to those in our hobby. Although the artwork was drafted in 1966, the originals were not drawn "twice up" or what is increasingly being described in our hobby as "large art." The boards for the Flash Gordon pages were drawn at today's standard 11" x 17" size. Reed Crandall followed Williamson as the regular artist for the series after Williamson left for the syndicate job on Secret Agent X-9 (later Secret Agent Corrigan). Crandall's originals for the same series were drawn at the "twice up" ratio.

The cover to number one is even more unique, measuring still smaller at about 11" x 14" or so. The cover to #4, which is in Albert Moy's collection, was done at the same size.

You will note from the cover copy attached to this contribution that the art actually extends beyond the borders which were printed on the published version of the comic. There were red-penned border lines drawn into the art which have since been covered by white-out by either Williamson or Morrow, since they are the only two previous owners of the work.

Another element which is unique to the cover of the Flash Gordon #1 cover is that the cover logo was drawn right onto the board by Williamson. Presumably that beautiful logo, with its distinctive "top-tail" for the "A" in Flash, which was the standard Flash Gordon logo for years afterwards, was created by Williamson himself, and the stats for future issues were made from the #1 logo. I hope to confirm my assumption about this with Williamson the next time I get to talk with him. If it is true, this puts Williamson in the same category with another of his artistic heroes, J. Allen St. John, who created the later and most distinctive logo for Weird Tales, "the unique magazine" amongst the pulps."

Don't forget to read Part 1 of the preceding piece at comicartville.

EVERY one should visit this next link and follow it through as it shows the different stages of Al's work on a Flash Gordon Sunday.

Now, Al also pencilled another cover to a book I need for this month: the cover to Buster Crabbe # 3. If only I had the money, I could buy that cover as well as it is for sale here but at $12,500 it is a wee tad expensive but pretty for sure. Oh well, onto the pages.

Cameron story Splash

Cameron Story Page

Streeter Story Page

Camy Story Splash

Wilhems Story Page

Williamson / Krenkel Splash

Williamson / Krenkel Page

Williamson / Krenkel next Page

In-House Ad

Scrooge · May 14, 2005

# 66

Four Color Comics # 379 - Bought from Basement Comix (with missing centerfold )

Content:

Cover by Bob Grant (?)

Southern Hospitality by Bob Moore 22 pgs

Big Fishing Contest by (?) 10 pgs

To give you an idea where this one fits in the DD series, it is after A Christmas for Shacktown (OS 367) and before DD in Malayalaya (OS 394), both Barks issues. I have lost in the midst of time how I decided to select which FCs to buy for the collection but at one point I settled on the 8 issues ranging from 379 to 386 and they are the next 8 issues we will see in the thread.

Let's start with a little information on Bob, from the Comiclopedia:

"Bob Moore was an animator at Disney in the 1940s and 1950s. He drew funny animal comics at Dell Publishing from 1950 to 1953. He did several 'Donald Duck' comics for Walt Disney's Christmas Parade and Four Color Comics. He also drew filler panel gags for Lev Gleason from 1947 to 1948."

Let me add that Bob became a Disney Legend in 1996 - for Animation and Film. The Disney Legends awards are given annually by The Walt Disney Company to honor individuals who have made a notable contribution to the company. The awards were first given in 1987.

Also left out is that Bob earlier worked for The Brooklyn Eagle, scripting this time for the adventure strips Don Dixon and the Hidden Empire, Tad of the Tanbark and Gordon, Soldier of Fortune 1935-1941 (artwork by Carl Pfeufer). Not only that but Bob was also a storyman on Melody Time and Donald Duck shorts. Quite a busy fellow Bob was.

As for his work at Dell, here's a synopsis of his output (as summarizing full credits you can see at the INDUCKS COA. I counted that this was Bob's longest single story work at 22 pgs even though he had more pages in separate story in FC 339 with 1 16 pgs DD story + 1 10 pgs DD story + 1 6 pgs DD stories. In FC 353 he had stories about DD for 1 + 3 + 8 + 1 U$ for 6 + 1 HDL for 6 + 1 Grandma Duck for 6, again for a total of 30 pages in the issue. Bob also drew the 20 page DD story in which DD meets Peter Pan in the Peter Pan Treasury and in addition had work in Christmas Parades, Vacation Parades and longer 1-row per page Wheaties Premium books.

Well, this got me thinking that I was quite ignorant of pre-Barks 10 pagers artists. In the Show me your Ducks thread, I started with WDCS 31 with the first Barks 10-page DD story and wanted to learn who did those pre-WDCS 31. After a quick research, I figured out that the answer is no-one. Pre-WDCS 31, the DD content of the issues was filled with reprints from the daily strips mainly. Oh there were occasional longer stories in those pre-31 issues but they were few and far between. As a matter of fact, here are the ones I was able to identify (if an issue is not listed, it means there were no stories longer than 8 pages):

WDCS 14 - 7 pgs Dumbo (Text with illos)

WDCS 24 - The Flying Gauchito by Walt Kelly

WDCS 27 - Jose Carioca in The Carnival King by Carl Buettner

WDCS 29 - Thumper 10 pgs by Ken Hultgren

WDCS 31 - Barks DD 10 pagers and Friend Owl 10 pagers by Hultgren

and that's it. So the Barks's DD were a "novelty" in the series. I had never known that before.

Yes, you will stop me there and point out that there were longer stories in those issues but they were MM reprints from mostly the dailies (and at times from the Sundays). Here's the list (the numbers reference the WDCS issues) of the MM sequences:

1-2 - Island in the Sky

2-3 - Oscar the Ostrich

3-4 - The Seven Ghosts

4-5 - In Search of Jungle Treasure

6-9 - Monarch of Medioka

7-10 - MM Joins the Foreign Legion

11-12 - The Robin Hood Adventure (from the Sundays)

13 - Service with a Smile (from the Sundays)

14 - On a Camping Trip

15 - No MM but Talafierro Three Little Kittens and Cookieland stories

16 - No MM but Talafierro Three Little Pigs 16 pgs

17 - No MM but Talafierro Ambrose and 7 pgs of Dumbo text

18-21 - Back to MM starting here with Miracle Master

22-24 - An Education for Thursday

25-29 - The Bar-none Ranch

30-35 - Bellhop Detective

36-39 - Love Trouble

40-44 - The Land of Long Ago

45-48 - MM on a Secret Mission

and so on.

Moore Splash

Moore Page

Second Story Splash

Larryw7 · May 14, 2005

Williamson / Krenkel Splash

Williamson / Krenkel Page

Williamson / Krenkel next Page

In-House Ad

Oh, that Williamson/Krenkel art is amazing. Even nicer than their work in OUT OF THE NIGHT #1. This one is going on my want list.

Scrooge · May 16, 2005

# 67

Four Color Comics # 380 - Bought from Doug Sulipa

Content:

No Title by ? 12 pgs

The Glass-Diamond Pendant by ? 8 pgs

The Sign of the Snoopwiggy by ? 12 pgs

The issue is rounded by 2 illo pages, one about Squirrel and about Chickens on the inside covers and the back cover is a one-page gag with Ann and Andy. Dell comics are indeed good comics, or at least good since they carry no ads.

Let's start with a little background on Johnny Gruelle:

"Johnny Gruelle is best known for creating the world famous rag doll characters, Raggedy Ann and Andy. While the Raggedys were the indisputable centerpiece of Gruelle's career, in his heart of hearts, Johnny was a dyed-in-the-wool freelance artist, who felt most at home at his drawing board, crafting illustrations and features for newspapers and magazines.

John Barton Gruelle was born in Arcola, Illinois in 1880. At the age of two, his family moved to Indianapolis, where his father, R.B. Gruelle, became known as one of the Hoosier Group of Impressionist artists. By his early teens, John Gruelle already knew he was a cartoonist. During a train-hopping adventure to Cleveland, Ohio in 1894, his caricature of a beat cop named Tom McGinty so impressed the officer that he supposedly offered to stake Gruelle while the boy sought cartooning work at a local newspaper. As it turned out Gruelle did not stay on in Cleveland (although he would return to live there years later). But after this experience, a career spent painting landscapes and portraits like those his father rendered seemed far less appealing than one spent turning out pithy little funnies for a living.

In 1901 the 20-year-old Gruelle landed his first newspaper job, at an Indianapolis tabloid called the People. There he worked for several months creating rough-hewn "chalk-plate" portraits. By April 1902, Gruelle had moved on to the more mainstream Indianapolis Sun, while managing also to do work for the Detroit-based Peninsular Engraving Company.

In June 1903, Gruelle was hired at the brand-new Indianapolis Star as the paper's first assistant illustrator. His three years at the Star were interrupted by nine-months spent at the rival Indianapolis Sentinel. Once back at the Star, in 1905, Gruelle accepted a freelancing job with World Color Printing Company of St. Louis to produce four-color Sunday comics, a connection he continued after relocating to Cleveland in 1906 to work for the Cleveland Press and the Newspaper Enterprise Association. During these years, Gruelle would turn out as many as ten cartoons each week, his style steadily growing more expert and refined.

Although most of his early newspaper work was aimed at adults, by 1908, Gruelle had begun producing features for children. After winning a national comic drawing contest, Gruelle went to work for The New York Herald in early 1911. Although he would continue creating for adults, his most important audience became children, whom he kept entertained with colorful "Mr. Twee Deedle" Sunday comic pages. Once "Mr. Twee Deedle" was in print, it wasn't long before Gruelle was receiving commissions from a broad array of monthly and weekly magazines. His distinctive cartoons, illustrations, and illustrated stories appeared regularly in well-known publications including John Martin's Book, Physical Culture, Illustrated Sunday Magazine, McCall's, The Ladies' World, and Judge.

It was his illustrating work that led him to create a distinctive, whimsical design for a doll named "Raggedy Ann," which he patented and trademarked in 1915. Gruelle was soon pitching book ideas, and ultimately, he connected with the P.F. Volland Company, a juvenile publisher in Chicago. In 1918 Volland published Gruelle's Raggedy Ann Stories and also introduced a matching character doll, and the rest is history. More Raggedy books and dolls followed, and Gruelle eventually became known as "The Raggedy Ann Man."

Johnny eventually entered the arena of juvenile book illustrating and writing and achieved fame as creator of Raggedy Ann and Andy. However, Gruelle's newspaper and magazine work remained vital outlets for him, providing him not only with welcome income, but also a forum in which to explore an extensive range of illustrating and writing interests, in full view of hundreds of thousands of readers of all ages and persuasions.

In 1922, Gruelle's serialized "Adventures of Raggedy Ann and Andy" stories premiered in newspapers across the country. He continued providing artwork to adult magazines such as Life, Cosmopolitan, and College Humor, and kept up with his illustrated juvenile features, which appeared in Woman's World and Good Housekeeping. In 1929, Gruelle's full-color Sunday comic "Brutus" began what would be a nine-year run, and by 1934, his illustrated "Raggedy Ann" newspaper proverbs were in national syndication.

By the time of his death in 1938, Gruelle's Raggedy characters, dolls, and books were known throughout the world. However, his fanciful newspaper and magazine works had also kept Americans amused for nearly four decades, and Gruelle had become extremely well-regarded in cartooning and illustrating circles. Throughout his life, and in his heart of hearts, Johnny Gruelle was ever and always -- an artist."

While I don't know who illustrated this particular comic, I was able to figure out who did illustrate some of the earlier FC featuring Ann and Andy. By my count (with the help of the Gerbers), there were 10 Raggedy Ann and Andy books in the series and that's one thing I love about the Gerbers: not showing the books in Series order but in "sub-series" order: 5, 23, 45, 72, 262, 306, 354, 380, 452 and 533.

According to the Toonopedia's entry about the Brownies reproduced below, the early Ann and Andy were illustrated by George Kerr:

"Features about communities of tiny people have been part of the comics scene since the very beginning — The Teenie Weenies, by William Donahey, was a Sunday page for generations; and the series that inspired it goes back decades beyond The Yellow Kid himself. That very early series, by the way, had the same name as this one — The Brownies.

This version of The Brownies began in the November, 1942 issue of New Funnies, a Dell comic book which at the time featured Andy Panda, Li'l Eightball and other Walter Lantz cartoon characters, along with a few other series. This one was the creation of cartoonist George Kerr, whose unusual, old-fashioned style was also seen in Dell's version of Raggedy Ann.

While Kerr was doing the feature, it somewhat resembled Palmer Cox's earlier version, which had last been seen almost a quarter century before. But later, in the hands of Walt Kelly, creator of Pogo, it took on a completely new appearance. Kelly, who gained much of his early experience at Disney, brought a lush, rich and altogether more modern look to the feature. He began writing and drawing it in New Funnies #82, December, 1943.

Kelly's New Funnies tenure lasted only four issues. By mid-1944, the non-Lantz features had been completely crowded out by the likes of Homer Pigeon and Woody Woodpecker. "The Brownies" wasn't seen again until July, 1948, when Kelly's version was featured in Four Color Comics #192.

Four Color was Dell's catch-all series, where the publisher put characters and concepts not deemed strong enough to sustain regularly-published titles of their own. Another Kelly-crafted issue came out in 1949 and a third in 1950. Then Kelly moved on, concentrating mostly on Pogo. The series was continued by lesser artists, who produced seven more issues over the next few years. But before long, The Brownies began suffering from competition with another Dell comic.

In 1952, Walt Scott, another Disney man, launched a Sunday comic strip titled The Little People, which not only duplicated the theme of The Brownies — it also duplicated the comic's look. The Little People was licensed to Dell in 1953, and Scott himself wrote and drew the comic book version. Syndicated nationally, it was a higher-profile feature than The Brownies, and seems to have been a more successful one in comic book form.

The Little People was published by Dell for the rest of the 1950s. The Brownies succumbed with Four Color Comics #605 (December, 1954)."

Onto the stories:

First Story Splash

First Story Page

Second Story Splash

Second Story Page

Third Story Splash

Third Story Page

HouseofComics.Com · May 17, 2005

There are several neat in-house ads in the issue. Still odd to me to advertise "Blood and Guts" and Horror titles in a Romance book . Is this the correct audience ? Anyway, here are the ads.

I always note things like that too. To me it seems to happen more in romance comics than in others. I don't know if we see gruesome horror ads in "kid's comics" (ie, funny animal, etc.) but it seems that it's more common to see ads for a Tommygun toy or "boys' comics" in a romance comic. Other ads that strike me as funny are ones for adult type things like arch support inserts or bookkeeping courses.

Btw, thanks for that I.N.D.U.C.K.S. link. Didn't know about that site. Of course I'm so Barks-focused the rest of the Disneys are a bit blurry to me.

Marc

Scrooge · May 17, 2005

# 68

Four Color Comics # 381 - eBay purchase

Content:

1 1-pager in inside cover

Tubby in Captain Yo-Yo by ? 34 pgs

As noted, this is really Tubby # 1 which would be followed by FC 430, FC 444, FC 461, ...

Here are some information about Tubby as reported in our own Bobpfef's website so if you want to add to this information Bob, please feel free to do so.

"Tubby is the sometime boyfriend of Lulu. Tubby also runs the Boy's Only Clubhouse that Lulu and the other girls are trying to get into. Tubby was often on the lookout for a free meal when he wasn't flirting with Lulu or Gloria.

Tubby was the only character in the Little Lulu comic to get his own spin-off title. Tubby was published from the 1953 to 1958, usually as a quarterly. Tubby, despite being a major character in most of the Lulu stories also usually had a solo backup story in the regular Little Lulu comic.

Tubby had a "secret identity" as the super sleuth, "The Spider." Tubby, as the Spider would try to solve the little mysteries that happened to Lulu and the rest of the gang. Tubby would always proclaim that he had figured out the crime soon after he was told the details to the amazement of Lulu and the others, and that it was Lulu's father who had commited the crime. The joke was that Tubby was always right.

In the Tubby solo comic we were introducted to "The Little Men from Mars." These little green space men helps Tubby out of whatever jam he may find himself in. These little green men only appeared in the Tubby and never in the Little Lulu title."

And here's the summary of a prior memorable story starring Tubby:

"Tub's Big Moment (1951)

Tubby is crazy about Rita Rosebud, a child actress who appears in movies as a female stereotype--all shy and polite and dainty and "ladylike". She's appearing at the local theater, and Tubby is moping about not having the money for a ticket, when he meets a strange girl who's just like a boy. She's dirty and messy, wears pants, and talks sassy. She says she can do anything boys can do, and humiliates him by doing everything better than he can--wrestling, climbing trees, and so on. She's just teasing him and wants to make friends, but he wants no part of her. Finally she gives him a free pass for the theater, where he finds out that SHE'S Rita Rosebud."

I'll reserve more coverage about Lulu and her creator and artists when we see her own title.

1 Pager in the inside cover - nicely tying in with the story actually.

Story Splash

Story Page

bobpfef · May 17, 2005

Nice Tubby there! That comic is a strange one, in that Stanley usually did short stories of about 10 pages or so - so a 34 page story is not normal for him. BTW, this comic was voted the most unliked comic by John Stanley on a John Stanley group I am part of, but I kinda dig it. It is very different from what you usually get. It is almost like Stanley was trying to down a long Barks type Uncle Scrooge adventure comic.

rjpb · May 17, 2005

I'm with you bobpfef, I picked this book up in a big lot of Lulu/Tubby books years ago and thought it was a pretty cool story.

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A Month in the Life of the Comics

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