Sappo, Not The Sailor Man

Ruesday Comic Strip Day.

This is a placeholder. I came across a nice set of Popeye Sundays from 1939. Unsigned, they probably are by Doc Winner, who replaced the recntly deceased Elsie Segar for a shot time before the new 'offcial' team was installed. I have never scanned any Segar pages because they are all very nicely reprinted in several editions. But these few, made so shortly after Segar's death are less often seen. And as far as the Popeye pages go, probably justly so. Under Doc Winner, Popeye's adventures were quite dull and homely. I don't particulary lie the almost twenty year run that follwed that, but what I have seen fom those strips is better than the Winner ones. But I do have a soft spot for Sappo, who started out life as Popeye's precursor and remained in the background of the strip when the spinach eating sailorman arrived. After a while, Sappo was given his own strip as a topper to the Popeye Sunday page and that was pretty impressive as well.

Under Winner, Sappo kept his topper spot and for a while he had an interesting soryline about Sappo visiting Reversia, a country where everything is done the other way around. The gags are easy, but the concept is thrilling. Unfortunately, I have not yet finished scanning the strips, but eventually they will end up here with this lonely one I did manage to get ready.

A Dog's Life

Monday Cartoon Day

George Crenshaw (1913-2007) is one of those cartoonists who tried to get into newspaper comics over and over again, until he finally hit the jackpot with his panel cartoon Belvedere. He is said to have worked for Disney in the thirties and possibly into the forties. In the late forties his cartoons start appearing in all sorts of magazines. A career trjectory he shares with Hank Ketcham, Dick Shaw and Virgil Partch, although he seems to have taken slightly longer to click. In 1956, he did his forst panel cartoon, The Muffins. After that came Nubbin' (1958-69) and 'McGirk's Works' (1959), Belvedere (1962-now), Simpkins' (1971) and 'Gumdrop' (1977-78). Here are some of his cartoons. I may ad more later.

Mexican Rim

Sunday Meskin Measures.

A simple tale from a later issue of My Greatest Adventure. Artwise it looked like a canditate fo being pure Meskin and indeed it is signed, which indicates the same. I guess the best part about it is the carnaval scene.

Curious Clem

Saturday Leftover Day.

Thanks to the scanners at the Digital Comics Museum, I came across some fun war stories that I find really remarkable. I like this kind of loose style, whic seems a once inappripriate for the subject and in line with it. Mastr art spotter Jim Vandeboncoeur Jr. attributes this art to a Clem Weisbecker, a journeyman artist who is mostly know for his work for MLJ, the Archie company in the mid forties.

But it struck me that this must also be the unnamed artist of the funny Hector the Spector and Luke the Spooks tories in Sterling's The Informer books. I have shown these stories before, because I thought I had found the artist, when a piece of work in a similar style turned up in The Armed Forced Features, signed Jess Benton. Benton was another joruneyman artist, who must have worked as someone's ghost or something, since the only signed solo work he did was when he did a spot on Li'l Abner imitation called Jasper Jooks - in a completely different style. In my previous post I conclude that Benton must have been the unnamed artist of Luke the Spook (noting the preference for alliterating names). Now I don't know. Jim usually knows his stuff. Still, all the Clem Weisbecker material I can turn up is in a compeltely different style, not as humorous and most of it ten years earlier. At least Benton was still working in the mid fifties.

So here we have the evidence. Are these one and the same artist? And is it Benton or is it Weisbecker?

For more samples of Jasper Jooks, go to Alan Holtz' Strippers Guide or wait until I have scanned in my run of dailies.