Heads Up

Before you think I'm getting too sentimental in my old age with my postings, here's a pretty splash page from 1942 by Charles Biro that should keep us feeling heady.

Full disclosure: I don't think anyone actually lost their hat-holder in this story, thanks to Crimebuster and his monkey. 

I jes' love the old comics.

Slap Him Out've the Air!

Comic book artists have an undeniable talent for telling expansive stories in confined areas. Imagine putting all this action into two small panels and giving it believable perspective and superb rendering. Many comic book artists are graphic geniuses. The graphic genius of these two panels is Russ Heath (I don't know if the breakdowns are by Heath or Joe Kubert.

Wow Factor

Bob Lubbers was one of the great cartooning penman of his generation, yet I haven't seen much of his strip work reprinted. In this Tarzan strip he displays a 'wow factor', like unto Foster and Hogarth.

Bob Lubbers — Tarzan Sunday — 1951

They've Got Pictures in Them? Oo!

Somewhere in this little graphic fable is a lesson to learn well. Choose it wisely. This fellow chose . . . poorly.

©1983 Joost Swarte — Complete Your Collection 

Public Personas That Influence Our Lives

Once again many of us are affected with sadness of the passing of public personas that influence our lives. Roger Ebert, film critic, will be sorely missed by many, but for me the passing today of Carmine Infantino, the great comic book artist and editor affects me more.

The losses of Carmine Infantino, today, and Joe Kubert in the recent past have shook me more than I would have believed, only matched by the passing of Walt Kelly many years ago. These men have created work that kept me motivated professionally and personally from my earliest childhood.

I am grateful that each of these men left us such a huge body of work to be enjoyed again and again.

A turning point for me, as a young boy, was the publication of Infantino's sketches in the Flash Annual #1 that demonstrated how he drew the stylish renderings of his iconic character. It opened my eyes to possibilities that I still wield all these years later.

I met Infantino but briefly, yet significantly for me. Above is a sketch that he based on a drawing he had done for a cover of the in-house DC fanzine from many years ago, that I recently sold at auction as part of our fund-raising for our daughter's education.

It's hard seeing an adventurous creative era coming to a close.

April 1

I'm not going to try an April Fools on you. You're all too smart to be fooled. Instead I'm posting a story that takes place on April 1. With an artist's name like Harry Peter and dialogue like "I'll show you—you sneaking dick!", well who needs April Fools?

I love the old Wonder Woman stories from the golden age, but I never liked Etta Candy as a character, except nowadays I appreciate her feistiness and loyalty to WW and the Holiday Girls. In fact, I've come to really like the Holiday Girls in various stories as they are always cheery and optimistic even in dire circumstance.

 from Wonder Woman #5—June/July 1943

art: Harry Peter / story: William Moulton Marston

Careening Through the Sky

In his day, Dave Stevens not only revived the look of Golden Age comics, he managed to surpass it in quality at the same time. 

Yow, wotta great back cover!

Dave Stevens — Rocketeer — Starslayer #2 back cover — 1982

Few and Far

Back when I was collecting comics, I usually purchased based on pictorial quality, and not for the story writing. Comic book stories have usually seemed to me to be silly, simplistic or just downright stupid. Now don't get me wrong, that's part of the charm of being all-in-color-for-a-dime. But as comics evolved to become seemingly more 'mature' and certainly more expensive, I had greater expectations for the story quality. 

EC comics in the '50s are consistently lauded as having had great art and great writing. Yeah, the art was pretty great, and the writing by Kurtzman and the Bradbury adaptations and a few others was way cool. But a lot of the stuff was predictable and silly, even though way above other comics of the time.

In the '80s, beyond the superhero genre, comics took on adult appeal more and more. Art was racier and  of pretty good quality, but many of the stories were either retreads and/or just plain lame. I had great expectations from series like Alien Worlds and others. Here, Al Williamson's art was as good or better than his EC work and very reminiscent of those days, and the writing tries to be — but ends up being a tired old retread (writer to go unnamed here). You can see why some of us buy comics just for the art. REALLY good writing examples in this medium are just few and far between.

Sometime soon, I hope to post some samples of what I think is some really good comic book writing, superhero, no less. Stay 'tooned.

Above, Joe Chiodo —lovely cover of Alien Worlds #1, December 1982

 Above and below, Al Williamson, from that same issue, very strong art

Early Fritz

I'm delighted that I've made so many good friends via blogging. 

One of our long time good friends that we met via the Whirled of Kelly blog is OtherEric of the Digital Comic Museum, who has here sent over some Frank Frazetta material. Most Frazetta fans know that Fritz was a comic book artist early in his career. It's sort of amazing to see his early funny animal cartoons when you know that he gave us sublime fantasy paintings in the bulk of his career.

These are some text illustrations from 1947 comic books, such as Happy Comics, CooCoo Comics and Goofy Comics. As cute as these are, Fate (in the guise of Roy Krenkel) made the right path for Frazetta, to help him land his Ace Paperback painting commissions.

all above illustrations by Frank Frazetta — 1947

Dale! Have You Gone Mad?

Gosh, I love the old adventure strips . . .

Alex Raymond — Flash Gordon

Eight Hands of Tenslith

Oh, I love the comics from the old days. This beautiful splash page by Gene Fawcette has it all: strange adventure, murky monster, dashing hero, b-b-beautiful heroine (with pirate boots!), sizzling spaceship, great lettering, bold and colorful. 

One of my favorite splash pages of all time.

Gene Fawcette —Tara — Wonder Comics #17 — 1948

Breath of Fresh Air

These three characters were ALways mistreating each other over many years, so it was a breath of fresh air to have the charm of music bring them together harmoniously. 

George Herriman — Krazy Kat — March 31, 1941

The Enigma of the East

Last post, there was a comment from ToB that reminded me of one of my favorite character renderings by Nick Cardy, back at the tail end of the Silver Age of Comics. Lilith, an empathic clairvoyant who joined up with the original Teen Titans was drawn and written as a mysterious and caring teen wonder, and I, well, I sorta had a mid-teen crush on this paper doll, thanks to Cardy's drawing style.

Kid Robson wrote a post of this schoolboy phenomenon, here. 

I wonder, did girls have crushes for Superboy, or Brainiac 5, or Robin the Teen Wonder? Wally West? Hawk and Dove? AquaLad?

 Above and below, Nick Cardy — Lilith — The Teen Titans

Life

And isn't life sometimes like this, where even good fortune (here in the guise of a unicorn) can chase you over a cliff . . . ?

George Herriman — Krazy Kat

Miss Me?

I'm BAAAaaackkk . . . 

Brian Bolland — Wonder Woman #63

Inside Front Covers

The late Joe Kubert had probably the record for the longest career in comic books, from the early days in the '40s to just recently. His art style was highly distinctive all that time, though it did evolve consistently. The quality of his style took a leap upward in the early '50s, seemingly quite suddenly. But the first item below seems to be a 'missing link' in his evolution. It has hints of years to come, while still showing youthful experimentation. Even his signature is experimental, rarely used elsewhere like that.

This was an inside front cover for Avon Periodicals, a publisher with a propensity for assigning the best artists to create pen and ink illustrations to 'draw' readers inside the comic, assuming the cover also did its job. As the samples further below showcase, many of those inside covers were by Everett Raymond Kinstler, an illustrator in the making, and Wally Wood with Joe Orlando—two of the most compelling comic book artists of the 1950s.

All of these gentlemen were helping to keep the Golden Age of comic books alive as long as possible, until smothered by the oppressive Comics Code Authority.

 Joe Kubert — Attack on Planet Mars — 1951

 Everett Raymond Kinstler — The Phantom Witch Doctor — 1952

Wally Wood/Joe Orlando — Space Detective — 1951

Cresting the High Wave

Well, well, well, I appear to be back in ship shape order . . . I hope. 

I'm skimming the surface of various applications, apprehensive of hearing the theme from Jaws. But at this point, I'm cresting the high wave, and seeking calm on the far side. I've a lot of work to catch up on, but I wanted to say 'hey' and hope to see more of you sailing through here again. 

And yes, after taking the longest possible time, the geniuses from Apple called me in on Black Friday to pick up my machine. Aarrrghhh.

Hal Foster — Prince Valiant panel — 1940s

Mea Pulpa

It didn't use to be cool for a person to admit to liking comic books. For a while in the '40s, it wasn't such a bad thing, as soldiers, sailors and fly-boys read them for quick and cheap entertainment. But in the '50s, it was pretty shameful for an adult to be caught reading comic books (the exception being Walt Kelly's Pogo—that was a hip trip). In the '60s it was cool to read Zap and Fat Freddy's Cat and anything by Crumb or Jaxon. Then the '80s started the trend toward adults frequenting comic shops and finally the industry pretty much relies on adult obsession with pulp adventures. Mea Pulpa.

I'm an old guy, and I've always loved the funnies in whatever format they came, some of them not so funny. Although, I haven't always wanted anyone to know that. They're certainly not my only interest, as I love the whole spectrum of printed matter and I'm a social type person as well. But here's a confession that some of you might understand: when I'm feeling blue and overwhelmed and frustrated with life, I retreat to a cozy spot and pull out the OLD comics to revel in their primary colors, bold drawing styles, and esPECIALLY to bury my nose in the pages and smell that old musty pulp smell that the comics used to have even when they were new and in 'mint' condition. I close my eyes, take a deep whiff and all my troubles melt away.

I LUV COMIC BOOKS (the old ones).

A.C. Holly — Inspector Roc — from Famous Crimes Comics — 1948

In these days when comic book stories drag on for issue after issue after issue, it's enlightening to know that in the old days a mystery could be told in ONE page, and even have you share in trapping the killer.

Rarity

A rarity! On this day absolutely nothing happened in the DC Universe!

DC calendar page 

This is from either 1976 or 1977, I can't remember. Pre Final Crisis though, in the good ol' silly DC daze. I miss that daze and those days.

Make the Jump

I love comparing original illustrative art to the printed page—to see how well it reproduces, to see how color adds to the impact of line drawing, and also to see any changes along the way. Such is the case here where the title logo-type jumped from an older blocky style into a more modern (for the time) organic style. Unfortunately the artist's name, Al Gabrielle, didn't make the jump with it.

Al Gabrielle — The Black Cat — printed page 1940s

Al Gabrielle — The Black Cat — original art