Thursday Story Day.
When Leonard Starr offered sveral ideas to the syndicate and they picked Mary Perkins, he had his doubts. There had been several strip in the years before that about girls trying to make it in showbusiness and they all had failed. One of those was Jeanie, which I have been showing here. Another was Dawn O-Day which I would show more if I had any. There also was Dilly, which I will be showing. Yesterday I got a noew batch of papers, with yet another strip with a similar theme.
For most of it's life Patsy in Hollywood was called The Adventures of Patsy. It is mostly famous for having been started by Caniff's assistant Mell Graff. When Graff left the strip, it was talen over by another Caniffprotege, Charles Raab.It is rumored that in 1942 Noel Sickles worked on this version of the strip. By then the namesake of the strip, a litle girl having adventures (as some sort of mix between Little Orphan Annie and Dicky Dare, had taken up her stuff and moved to Hollywood. Child stgarts were pretty back in the thirties, so there was a lot of ground to cover. In 1946 the strip was taken over by Bil Dyer, who drew it for another ten years. This last version (which fo a short period in the late forties was called Patsy in Hollywood) is rarely seen. And probably justly so, but ten years is a long time, so here is some to see for yourself.
2 comments:
The jokes in these strips may be very pedestrian, but the artwork, staging and storytelling are really great! Modern comic book and comic strip artists could learn a TON from these strips.
For example, the topmost strip features figures that are full of life and dynamic angles and S-curves. Nobody is standing straight and rigid. Even the stuffy matron in the last panel has a very dynamic pose.
In the second strip, look at how he implies a big movie studio in the background with just a few blobs of ink. He uses heavy blacks on the starlet's boobs to emphasize her bombshell qualities. Andrew and Patsy both have character designs that read like crazy in silhouette! That's great design. The body language in panel three is a joy to behold, and look at how the two kids have totally different walking poses in panel five!
Lastly (for this strip) look at the clear storytelling on that last panel. He makes sure to put the gag in the foreground where it's clearly staged and impossible to miss.
Finally-- the third strip. In the opening panel, look at the way all the foreground elements, props and designs point straight to the movie star. Once again, the cartoonist keeps the staging and posing interesting, and he makes sure to use a close-up on the punchline in the last panel.
Great great stuff! Thanks for sharing this! And thanks for ALL your posts...yours is one blog I check every day.
I have three more which I'll share some time later. He uses a lot of neat tricks like silhouettes and panelless borders.
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