Sunday Al Williamson Suprise.
Another pure western story by the Al Williamson we know and love. Signed and probably inked by Ralph Mayo. And although the story is called The Lasst Notch, I can assure you that this certainly is not the last ime this plot will be used.
So the last few weeks I have been looking at daily comic strip ads and there were more than I even thought. Most appeared once a week and most had a longish run. This one seems to have appeared only for two months, though. While clipping as many weekly four panel Farless Fosdick ads the All Capp studio did for Wildroot hair cream (which I will share as soon as I at least know when they started and ended), I came across gap period where they were replaced by another series by the cartoonist Bill Sakren. Or at least, I am pretty sure it's his. Particulary the tangles hair in the characterin the last gag.
I first came aware of Sakren's work when I was just doing this blog
and shared
two of his newspaper strips from the sixties, Walter and Opinion
Wise.After that, I saw his name on one of two comic book giveaways
called Under The Hood, which were produced by the Johnstone and Cushing
company for a gas company to be given away at their stations. Both was
filled with cartoons by Johnstone and Cushing regulars such as Dik
Browne (who also did the covers), Gil Fox and Sakren, most of whom
signed.
Sakren has a very small entry on the Comiclopedia, which doesn't even mention Walter, but does give us some more insight into his earlier cartoon work, which I think may have been taken from his NCS card.
Bill Sakren attended the Pratt Institute. He was the artist of comic strips like 'Mortimer Mum', 'It All Depends' (1935-38) and 'Opinion Wise' (1964-65), as well as the 'They Never Change' panel (1959). Sakren was also an artist with the Johnstone & Cushing advertising agency, and has illustrated many 1940s and 1950s magazine advertisements. He was a lecturer with Metropolitan Museum of Art.
It has a few errors and omissions, by the way. It All Depends ran from January 1952 to May 1953 and was distributed by the George Matthew Addams Syndicate. Mortimer Mum (also distributed by George Matthew Addams) was the earlier one, running (as far as I could see) only from November 1935 tot March 1936. But that may just be my source, which also only ran three one tier gags on each saturday. This last strip is interesting, because it puts Sakren with the earliest 'modern' artists, such as Otto Soglov and Harry Haenigsen.
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Between 1953 and 1958 Sakren seems not have had any newspaper strip or cartoon, but he returns in November 9 1959 with They Never Change. It ends in February 1962, when another 'title' was added to this one-gag feature. On alternate days it was called The Payoff and had a different type of gag. It was distributed by the McNaught Syndicate, which also serviced his immediate follow-up The Blitz Brothers. Same clientlist, different panel. This time it was about two terrible twins, sort of like Dennis the Menace with double vision. It ran from February 26 1962 to May 13 1967 (or at least I am assuming, since the last I could find was for Friday the 12th).
At the same time he was doing The Blitz Brothers, Sakren also found time to produce Opinion Wise for McNaught in 1964 and 1965. Like all his strips and cartoons, it was not distributed widely. The only samples I could find were between February and June 1964.
Missing from this list is Walter, a strip I showed ealrier on this blog. Sadly, I did not note the date and I can't find it in my current microfiche provider. Looking at the style, I would say it is from the sixties, but as it is also from McNaught, it may be from that same 1962-1967 period.
For the real collector this would be a great find as well:
Finally, here are some cartoons from Under tThe Hood with covers of both issues. The first one is very rare and cost me $100. The second one I had never even seen before I ran across is accidentally.
