The Fabuleous Fifties

Down Hi & Lois Lane Again

Wednesday Advertising Strip Day.

In addiction to yesterday's samples of the early Hi & Lois Sundays, I am offering today my earliest sample of The Tracey Twins from Boy's Life as well as another of those Browne/Fox ads for Lipton. The Tracey Twins were a feature of the Boy Scouts of America's monthly magazine Boy's Life. They had a comic section, much of which was filled with work provided by the Johnstone and Cushing staff. The Tracey Twins was not a part of the comic section from the start in 1952, but when it was added in 1953, it never left. This series by Dik Browne was one of the reasons he was chosen for Hi & Lois. What's interesting here, is that this sample is from before he got the Hi & Lois assignment, so presumably we can see a more pure form of his style. If you take a look at the broad necked blue guy in the middle of the third tier, you'll see how much this looks like those Lipton ads, which makes it all the more likely Browne was the artist of those ads. There still is some sort of connection between the two artists early on in their career, as well as later when Fox took over The Tracey Twins.




Additionally, I have a special presentation by Walker and Browne, which was published alongside the July 13 1958 Hi & Lois Sunday. Some of the images of this strip came from the presentation packet for the strip, part of which was shown in The Best of Hi & Lois (as well as my blog). Some of the other drawings were also used to illustrate the history of the strip in the same book. But the war cartoon and the samples of Browne's advertising work are new to me. Maybe they are of some help in finding his earlier work. I think I have seen the brush salesman somewhere...



The bottom row of the Lipton ad was drawn (and signed) by Roland Coe, an elder cartoonist who drew a series of cartoons about Boy Scouts for The Saturday Evening Post in the forties, before joining up with Johnstone and Cushng. His work turns up in a lot of non realistic ads, so I thought it was appropriate to show you two of his cartoons from the 1945 Best cartoons collection by Lariar.