Fine Graphic Art

There is something so universal and appealing with commercial art from the 1930s. It was the apex of a fine graphic art that had begun 50 years before, blending type and design with dynamic composition and saturated color. Those who try to imitate or emulate it in our day can't quite catch the elusive quality that came naturally to an entire generation of artists of that era. Bless their hearts, it was a wonderful generation.

New Mexico Magazine—Tom Lea

New Mexico Magazine—Gerald Cassidy

New Mexico Magazine—Gerald Cassidy

Decrepit Bookshop

I was twelvish when I had to have some dentistry work done.  On a Saturday morning I had to take the city bus, alone, downtown to an ancient medical building, with spooky old hallways and reeking of horrible medical odors—by myself, mind you, submitting myself to a creaky, greasy old geezer putting his huge hands in my mouth and inflicting great jabbing pain. Well needless to say, as I left the office, I was feeling pretty sorry for myself.

It was a cold rainy day, as I recall, and as I left the building I was sort of lost, having lost track of the bus stop. Looking around, trying to get my bearings, my sight and senses were drawn to a hole-in-the-wall decrepit bookshop, with a sign advertising 2nd hand magazines. With a sense of foreboding gloom I entered, expecting to be tossed out on my ear. But the old guy at the counter looked somewhat friendly and ignored me. So I warily and curiously poked around a bit, not knowing what to expect at this point.

Well, you can see where this is going. This was the early 60's when printed material was truly ephemera, not expected to last, and valued but little. I was too young to realize the extent of treasures that abounded in this shop, but I certainly recognized several long long bins of comics settled smack in the middle of the store. Salivating, I shuffled through them, and recognized some of the comics I had seen advertised in the first comics I had ever bought. And then more, and older. Most of them were priced at 8 cents, directly on the cover (!) with a marker. Some had the title of the cover torn off (a practice that was actually illegal, as those were store returns that were supposed to have been destroyed). Some were priced at an unheard of 50 cents, but oh, those were the nice ones.

Besides my bus fare, I had 2 dollars that was supposed to buy me some lunch (early 60s, remember?). But to hell with food, now I had to figure just which comics were the best for the price. Four good ones, or like 24(!) of the 8 centers?

I can't believe I had the nerve, but I told the guy that a couple of these 50 centers were pretty beat up, and could he go any lower? Nonchalantly he said said he could drop two of them to 40 cents. And BAM, this is what I bought:

This Jungle Comics was a beauty, but I sold it a couple of years ago for a lot more than 50 cents.

I sort of liked Krypto back then. I've already told you what I dork I was (am).

This Adventure was so beat up it should have been an 8 center, but I loved these panel covers.

And this Detective was in decent shape, but had that awful 8 cent mark on it, making it worth 8 cents, but actually I sold it too, years later, for quite a bit more.

Panel covers were cool, by my standard, and this was a book-length Wayne Boring story. It got more beat up in my possession.

My Own Reality

Homage

I'm sure this is an homage, not a swipe, but it shows the value of a good morgue...

Rob Liefeld—Avengelyne Swimsuit #1—Aug 1995

Vivid Memory

You can't really see it on this scan, but this particular comic cover is marred by  a multitude of tiny water splotches. A comic grader would definitely drop at least a grade, maybe two for this defect. You can really only see the marks as you turn the comic in the light to catch the sheen, and then, just maybe, a person might wonder how that happened.

Well I know that 43 years ago, this summer, this comic was sitting on my bed next to the window. And a brief rain shower pummeled through the screen of the open window, moisturizing my twelve cent treasure. This was my brother's last few days before heading off to his first year of college, and I got mad at him because he's the one who opened the window and left it open as we went somewhere. No, I don't remember where we went, because that WAS 43 years ago. But I do remember feeling really punked that my brother didn't respect my possessions. Course maybe I was really cranky cause my big brother, who was 6 years older than me, was leaving home, leaving me to my childish dreams while he was going out, as a man, to the wide world.

Wow. I am holding the very comic that was central to a memory from 43 years ago. I first held this when I was 12, and those are the very rain drops. 

Memories don't get too much more vivid than that.

Detective Comics #331—Sept.1964—Carmine Infantino

Wood Work

In the early 60s I was a huge Mad Fan, even sending off for the EC checklist for Mad info. At a 2nd hand magazine store I scored a big ol' box of old beat up Mads. I had a trick of using a magnifying glass to look over the art—there was so much going on in any given panel. Especially Wood work. Look at this 1st panel, just 1/3 of a page! It portrays close to 50 humans (including beautiful women), a couple of elephants, horses, 2 leopards, monuments and the great pyramids! It's all perfectly in scale, a beautiful composition, and funny to boot! Wow! Imagine if you're an artist and your assignment sheet says you have to include all this in one small panel.

I am sad to say that in my 30s I felt overwhelmed by my collection and sold off all my Mads. All I have now are tearsheets I kept for the morgue. But the good news is, I've got quite a few of those, Wood, Mort Drucker, Kelly Freas, that kind of stuff that I will be posting now and then.

 

What a lot of work for 1/3 of a page!

When I was younger I didn't appreciate some of these panels like I do now.

Brava! Brava!

Homage

I'm sure this is an homage, not a swipe, but it shows the value of a good morgue...

Coles Phillips_1919

Bill Sienkiewicz_MoonKnight #24-Oct 1982

Forever Grateful

You would think we'd be pretty ticked at my dad, the way he kinda left us high and dry (low and poor). But we weren't. We loved him, he loved us. He was spreading his love to another family, but he still came around, taking us for long rides, doing fun things. It's just that I didn't know what it was like waking up in the morning and having him be there, or to say goodnight to, or to teach me about sports, or fixing a car. Ah well.

But he was there for me on a very special occasion. When I was 14, Walt Kelly was going to be giving a talk at a college about 60 miles south of where we lived. Both my parents understood my desire to meet Kelly and they drove and attended with me. I was nervous as hell, waiting to talk with the man, but my dad encouraged me and even introduced me so it wouldn't be quite as awkward as otherwise. Then my dad bowed out and I had a nice chat with Kelly. When I told him of my desire to be a cartoonist, and showed him a couple of drawings, he invited me to stick around and talk some more after the crowd thinned out, which I did. 

Sitting in comfortable armchairs, we had a wonderful talk about comics, especially his old comic book days, pre-Pogo. I told him how I admired his fairy tale comics, and we talked about styles and the evolution of styles. He gave me some advice and did a quick sketch of Pogo and signed it for me. He even told me of Pogo's upcoming trip to Mars and what to expect stylistically. It's all very vivid for me to this day.

My dad (and mom) gave me that day, and I'm forever grateful.

I'm embarrassed to admit this, but the Christmas of '65, I bought this collection of Pogo (the first trade paperback of Pogo I had ever seen) as a Christmas present for my brother, knowing full well that he would probably give back to me to keep. Which he did. And I still have it and have never seen elsewhere. So OK, I'm embarrassed, but I don't regret it.

This photo and blurb about Kelly was part of a magazine ad for Sheaffer Snorkel Fountain Pens and alludes to the complete Pogo 5-foot shelf, which was an exaggeration, but not by much. And yes I had all those shown below and more. I almost got rid of them years ago when I was trying to lighten the load. Thank goodness common sense prevailed.

This drawing appeared in True—The Men's Magazine. I have no idea how I came to have that magazine in my possession at the age of 13, but I was a resourceful kid.

Hard Times

There was a time, after my father had left, and my brother was off to college, that my mom and I lived at poverty level. She worked hard, but was paid little. We ate bean soup several nights in a row, because it was so cheap. This went on for a couple of years. I brought in a little money from my paper route, but it was not much help. 

I started getting ill and things seemed pretty dismal. One day my mom and I went to buy a pillow from the department store, and walking through the book department I was bedazzled to see a hardcover book of Walt Kelly Pogo stuff. It was a grand price of $5.00. I slobbered all over it, but didn't dare voice my want of it. Reluctantly putting it back, I walked away pretty glumly. I didn't realize my mother was watching, but she knew my love of all things Kelly, and she walked right up, calmly picked it up and went and paid for it.

That book got me through some hard times, and I still feel my boyish thrill as I leaf through it. Thanks Mom!

Can you imagine a large 288 page hardback selling brand new for $5 list price? Those were the days...

These end papers just blow me away. Kelly created this wonderful swamp world where I could escape to and actually think of these critters as human beans. I love the work of a hundred cartoonists, but Kelly is #1. I'm going to be posting a lot more Kelly. Just wait til we get to the Mars trip in '66!

Pogo is acting out Simon and Schuster's colophon here.

This guy cracks me up

Kelly wrote this book for adults, as you can see from this tiny excerpt. But even as a 12 year old, I was reading every word of it and could pretty much make sense of it. I first learned politics and far flung issues from this man.

Comic Clips

In the deep winter of '62 (and it was deep, dark and cold—a sort of mini-mini-ice age), I was in a new home, a new school, and an alien environment. Two days after we set up housekeeping, after leaving Ohio, my father left us again. I don't know if that was the plan, or not, but no one told me much of anything. My brother, six years older than me, was in high school, while I was still in elementary. My dad was gone, my mom went off to a secretarial job all day. I was a latch-key kid and was used to entertaining myself. 

One Saturday I saw my brother clipping something from the paper, and I saw it was a Peanuts comic strip. I looked closer at the comics page after that, and liked what I saw. I hadn't realized before what a lot of talent was being delivered every day right to our door. I started clipping strips that I liked, and I liked most of them. Peanuts was my favorite to start with. But later Pogo was an obsession to clip and organize. The Sunday Prince Valiant was a treasure and I was also stuck on Steve Canyon. I clipped them all.

For years I saved them all, plus more. I had boxes and boxes of em. And then oh, about 20 years later, I thought this is crazy, I can't keep saving all these, and I tossed most of them out. But I kept a sampling of many, and most of the Pogos. I was still obsessed with Pogo—the strips, the books, the comic books—anything I could find with Walt Kelly art. And I still had some very cool Walt Kelly comic books that I had saved from the flood.

But, clipping the comic strips was such a relaxing hobby while it lasted. Wasted time, perhaps, but no more so than shootin' pool or building model cars or most other pastimes. Like I say, I still have a nice sampling of what I used to have (other than the Peanuts strips—why did I decide that every last one of those could go? Sometimes I wonder who the heck I am).

Good Ol' Charlie Brown by Charles Schulz

Pogo by Walt Kelly—my first saved Pogo clipping of a long run

Li'l Abner by Al Capp

Ferd'nand by Mik

Mark Trail by Ed Dodd

Comic Clips

Kevin the Bold by Kreigh Collins

Prince Valiant by Hal Foster

The beautiful Aleta

Aleta, letting her hair down 

and below Steve Canyon by Milton Caniff

Wow, bondage in a family newspaper!

Breakfast Serial

Flash Gordon was the first movie serial I ever saw, playing on TV on Saturday afternoons, a couple at a time. Tarzan and westerns also played intermittently, but they were pretty boring compared to Flash and Dale. I had some Sunday pages from the Alex Raymond days, but I didn't think to connect them until much later. Surprisingly the serial caught much of the flavor of the comic strip. Here Vultan, king of the Hawkmen, is just as hefty, bearded and  rowdy as his comic strip counterpart.

That's Vultan in the middle, just in case you got confused.

And wow, they got this pretty accurate as well...

Breakfast Serial

Jean Rogers, as Dale Arden, (looking all the world like Drew Barrymore) had pretty much just one expression...

But she wore it well...

Carol Hughes shared the same expression, but owned it by parting the lips a bit: