Number 1576: The Wiseman and the little wise guy

Người đăng: Unknown on Thứ Tư, 14 tháng 5, 2014

Alvin “Al” Wiseman was a great cartoonist who spent years submerged in Hank Ketchum’s Dennis the Menace newspaper panels and comic books. For comics fans, and especially fans of great cartooning, Wiseman’s work is held in high regard.

In 1953 Standard began publishing a Dennis comic book, written by Fred Toole and drawn by Wiseman.  Grand Comics Database doesn’t have information on this issue, or whether any of the stories in it were reprinted. Many of Toole and Wiseman’s later stories were reprinted fairly often during the run of the comic book and its myriad specials and digest editions. The artwork on this strip, from Dennis the Menace #2 (1953), is typical of the early comic . Wiseman drew the comic book until the '60s, but his work lived on for years in reprints.

The comic book Dennis had a complicated publishing history, beginning under he Standard imprint, which begat Pines, which begat Hallden/Fawcett, which begat Hallden...even Marvel Comics got into the act in the ‘80s.

The Dennis the Menace I like the best came from the Toole’s typewriter and Wiseman’s pen. Wiseman, born in 1918, died in 1988.











More about →

Number 1575: Airboy fights the Ice People

Người đăng: Unknown on Thứ Hai, 12 tháng 5, 2014

A writer pulled out the stops when he wrote this Airboy opus. Airboy flies far north, then tangles with Ice-Incas, food gulls, and Vikings with no eyes. Really. What a crazy story. And I knew how truly crazy it was when I saw the panel where Airboy speculates the reason for the strange colors of the houses is because the sightless Vikings can’t see what they are painting! I stand all amazed, my friends...all amazed.

Writer unknown, artist is Ernest Schroeder. From Airboy Comics Vol 6 No. 5 (1949).
















 **********

Two more Airboy stories. I posted these both in 2010:



More about →

Number 1574: Stuntman doubles down

Người đăng: Unknown on Chủ Nhật, 11 tháng 5, 2014

The origin of Simon and Kirby’s post WWII hero, Stuntman, was presented in Stuntman #1, published in 1946, and as the blog Kirby Museum explains, “. . . Stuntman and Boy Explorers [another S and K title for Harvey Comics] were caught in a post-war comic book glut. With the end of paper rationing, publishers and printers went wild and an over abundance of comic books hit the newsstands.” Stuntman stories showed up in a couple more issues of the title, and then some inventory was released in Green Hornet Comics, but Stuntman himself was done.

The comic has one of those Prince and the Pauper plots, where two people who have never met are so alike they can pass for one another. I have always found this sort of thing even more unbelievable than grown men putting on costumes and masks to fight villains, unless they are identical twins separated at birth. It is because of my “comic book mind,” as Mrs. Pappy calls it. I can suspend disbelief when superheroes do their superheroics, while rejecting other plot devices in comic book stories I consider impossible in real life. In addition, Don Daring, when meeting his lookalike, acrobatic Fred Drake, proclaims, “I’m Don Daring the movie star and amateur detective!” Yeah, Don...sur-r-r-r-r-re you are. Only in this case it turns out to be true.

The dwarf character “Ian Spine” is repulsive. Simon and Kirby, like many other producers of popular culture years ago, used real-life physical defects to create a cruel stereotype of a character who is invariably ugly and abnormal.

I love the classic faux book cover. I also like the header on page one, “Save this first issue of STUNTMAN comics...it will be a valuable souvenir someday...” “Someday” is here, and yes it is valuable.















More about →

#670 - Back to some more Hi-Res Mandrake strips from Emile

Người đăng: Unknown on Thứ Bảy, 10 tháng 5, 2014

After a couple of different posts, we are back to continuing with some more Hi-Res Mandrake strips contributed by Emile. Of course the strips for those couple of other posts were also contributed by him.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/qneyyt87f660628/D250_-_Treachery_at_the_Top_of_the_World_-_2005-06-20_to_2006-01-07_-_29_weeks.cbr

http://www.mediafire.com/download/22cp4henkj94lbc/D251_-_Still_Lovely_Still_Deadly_-_2006-01-09_to_2006-10-07_-_39_weeks.cbr

http://www.mediafire.com/download/l23n5phvlxih2hp/D252_-_The_Hitman_from_Another_Planet_-_2006-10-09_to_2007-03-03_-_21_weeks.cbr

http://www.mediafire.com/download/9l5i6bsst33kxk3/D253_-_Dangerous_Music_-_2007-03-05_to_2007-08-18_-_24_weeks.cbr

http://www.mediafire.com/download/6pjwkmjvcbnb198/D254_-_Meet_Captain_Smash_-_2007-08-20_to_2008-01-05_-_20_weeks.cbr

Enjoy, and all thanks to Emile.

Oh and one other thing. One of my friends Steve Cottle has a KickStart project to get a new high speed scanner to help with the scanning. many of us have downloaded comics from his website. Now it is our chance to open up our hearts and, more importantly, our wallets and help him hit the target by June 7, 2014.

Here is his website , where you can get more details of the project and also make your pledge - http://www.ilovecomixarchive.com/. Contact him directly for any details, if you have questions.
More about →

Number 1573: Erling and Hanley

Người đăng: Unknown on Thứ Sáu, 9 tháng 5, 2014

In late March I showed some great comic pages by the late Alan Hanley, scanned from pages published in Alan Light’s The Buyer’s Guide to Comics Fandom in the mid-1970s. Today I’ve got more Hanley in the form of his re-drawings of the origin of Jon Juan, a comic written by Jerry Siegel and drawn by the inimitable Alex Schomburg. I posted the Schomburg version that Hanley used for his drawings, along with another Jon Juan story in 2011. Just click on the thumbnail:


Hanley’s version:




One of my favorite cartoonists appearing in TBG was George Erling, who had a really funny and appealing style. George’s comic strips were filled with surreal characters inspired by cartoonists like Herriman, Holman, Ahern and other screwball cartoonists of a bygone era, yet brought up to date in an underground comix/homage style. These “Clark the Collector” strips are from 1976 and '77. Both Hanley and Erling had the ability to remind one of the past while staying in the present; the best of both worlds.






More about →