The Bloko Boys Shell comic - Don Bloodgood 0

[rich bauer]

Came across these comics in a lot i purchased in central arizona. i found one picture from a 2009 thread on this forum , nothing else though.

They are professionally framed into a peice of wood. The guy said he got them from Don Bloodgoods estate sale after he passed. 

any info on don bloodgood or more on these comics would be greatly appreciated Thanks!!

[rich bauer]

[rich bauer]

[Carla Hanson]

Hi Rich,

A casual conversation with a friend led me to chatting about the Bloko Boys tonight, and instigated a Google search which brought me here.  Don Bloodgood was my grandfather, and was a commercial artist for most of his life.  The Bloko Boys were a feature on Shell Oil's company magazine, Shell Progress; I'm not sure of the exact years of their run, but years ago, my grandfather told me proudly that they were either the longest or second longest running strip by a single artist in the country. 

Don was born in upstate New York in the mid to late 1890's (he never fessed up to the year and I don't think he knew).  As a young man, he started to make his way west, and was in Wyoming for a time, and then made it out to the San Francisco Bay Area.  His wife, Lynn, also an upstate New Yorker, apparently caught up with him in Wyoming, and they married in 1921.  In 1929, their only child, my mom Donna, was born. The family lived in Oakland, but at some point Don was hired at Allied Artists in San Francisco.  It was through them, I think, that he was contracted with Shell Oil.  The current Shell logo is modernized and modular, but the logo they used for the decades prior, which showed the curves of the shell, was his design. During WWII, Don spent a year or so in Washington D.C. creating recruitment posters for the war effort.

After my mom married my dad in the early 1950s, Don and Lynn moved to an apartment in SF. Don retired from Allied Artists in 1965 or 1966, and he and Lynn move to Sedona, Arizona, where he designed his own house based on the layout of their SF apartment.  At the house he also created a studio for himself where he continued his work. He became a local fixture in Sedona, and painted Arizona landscapes with vibrant acrylics. He also created many glossy "cartoon maps" which were designed for tourists. I think he began doing those in the 1950s, and he ones I can remember of Arizona included the state itself, the "Turquoise Triangle," and "Navajoland".  Don was self taught and extremely intelligent; he also could play piano by ear; he could just sit down and play what he heard.

Lynn passed in 1978, I believe (I could be off by a year or 2), but the death that devastated him the most was the death of my mom in 1986. 2 years later, in late 1988, Don died.  He had pulled away from my father and I after the death of my mom, so I have nothing from his estate, but I have a few pieces that had been in my mom and dad's possession.

I have some old photo albums I can dig out,, too, so if you're interested I can take some shots and share.

-- Carla Hanson