Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Coogy Arf

Tuesday newspaper strip Day.

Yesterday I recieved a whole new load of Sunday pages, including several Coogys and Jeanies. They will have to be scanned before I can show them here, but here are two more 1952 samples of Coogy. As you can see, in these strips the world of Coogy was still completely antropomorhical. Somewhere in 1953 Spector decided to people hs worl ith regular human beings, leving Coogy and Mo the only animals. As you can see from the first Sunday, that takes him further away from the Pogo influence. Maybe that wa the intention. Maybe he was just goin gwhere the jkes were. The second sample seems to be the first satirical 'continuity'. Irv's son Paul has already said that the first full (distributed) Sundays were part of a continuity as well, with Mo finding his 'double'. But this is the first one where Spector aims his humor at society.


Monday, September 29, 2008

Stellar!

Monday cartoon Day.

I have contracted a nasty virus, so I am taking the easy route today. Here's another example of Kurtzman's cartoon journalism for Equire. I have no time or energy to look for the exact date, maybe that one of my visitor's who has Glen Bray's Kurtzman Guide can look it uo for me.




Saturday, September 27, 2008

Kurtzman Linings

Saturday Leftover Day.

So here I was on the yearly Dutch comic book convention, getting compliments from everyone for keeping up the daily uploads. And they only thing I could think was, I was missing jmy regular saturday post. So, a day later here is a quick extra. When any artist first encounters Harvey Kurtman's Hey Look, they want to try ir for them selves. These two samples by dutch cartoonist Peter de Wit are from the mid eighties (so they must be from the Dutch weekly Eppo). He also did a four page story which is even more completely and succesully in Kurtzman's style. I'll try to find and show it some day. If you follow the tag, you should find some of Peter's regular work these days (in English too).

If you are an artist and tried something like this yourself, I would like to show it. I think I'll start with Bill Wray.


Friday, September 26, 2008

Fun and Elephants

Friday Comic Book Day.

Today a couple more pieces by Irv Spector, which were sent to me by his son. The first is a cover and two pages from 3d Features Jet Pup. I don'[t know if there are any more pages bu Spector in this book, but I don't think they were drawn aspecially for 3d. The figure on the right on the cover is his, surely. The others could be by another artist.





This Spenser Spook cover is from Giggle #97, which makes me curious about Giggle #98:


And finally, like last week, I want to end this with some work by Walt Kelly. Several people have noted the resemblence between Spector's work at this time and that of Kelly. Next week I want to try and show some of Howie Post's stuff, another artist who waas influenced by Kelly in some phases of his career. As you can see, Kelly's own comic book work was a lot less polished than his work on Pogo. But it also gave him more room to created stroyboard-like sequences full of action. THis rarely seen sample is from Animal Comics #22, which makes it from before Pogo's succes as a newspaper strip.








Thursday, September 25, 2008

Sunday Girl

Thurday story Day.

Today two more of Gill Fox's Jeanie Sundays from november 1952. I am also adding a color version of one of the Sunday's I showed last week.

Nov 9 1952:


Nov 23 1952:


Nov 30 1952:

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Putting the Mad in Madison.

Wednesday advertising Day.

Posting more Harvey Kurtman stuff on monday rewarded me a lot of response. I was surprised some of the visitors sisn't know Harvey Kurtzman was the man who started Mad. Anyone who likes this stuff should go out and get any reprint of his 23 comic book Mad issues avaiable. Unfortunately, the first five magazine issues he also wrote and edited are not as widely avaiable. I have th actual issues myelf, but the best way to see them is by getting the complete Mad cr-rom. If you haven't got that, you should treat yourelf. You'll be surprised. After that, order the Complete Humbug from Amazon. Sight unseen if necessary. You'll thank me. It contains some of the best satire and art ever. All that plus new commentary and goodies from the Kurtzman Archives. I can't wait. For those of you who don't want to go out and bu some acual books, I will show some of the early Mad magazine stuff here sometime, but it is not my intention to use this blog as a place where you can get free scans of stuff that is available elsewhere. I hope to highlight forgotten masters and rare material.

As far as Harvey Kurtzman goes, what I am about to show next is almost as rare as they come. In 1959 Kurtzman started a monthly gag page for Madison Avenue Magazine. A magazine for people working in the advertising industry, so it fits in with today's advertising theme. The pages I have are scans of black and white copies a German fan made in the eighties. So probably not the best quality. I am not even sure if I have all pages or if they were in black and white or color. I think they were in black and white and there are only two months missing in my group of copies. So who knows, this may be it. It will take more than one week for me to show them all. In the meantime, if anyone has an actual issue of this magazine, I'd love to know. The subject is fascinating (and great research for anyone who wants to write a spec script for the series Mad Men) and I would like to know how Kurtzman was billed and announced.

Jan 1959:



Feb 1959:




March 1953:


April 1953:

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

I love Coogy's

Tuesday Newspaper Strip Day.

In 1953 Irv Spector was really going strong with Coogy. He continued the storielines of 1952 and added more satirical sidesteps. There was a four part satire on The Old Man And The Sea, similar to the Maltese Falcon parody of 1952. There was a course in how to be an intellectual, given by a Bernard Shaw look-a-like. Shaw had died in 1950 at the age of 98 or 99, but he was still seen as the prototypical irreverent intellectual, so he was the right choice for the job. At the end of 1953 there was a parody of the comic strip Mary Worth. I have samples of all of these. Irv's son Paul sent me longer runs of some of them (shot from the originals), which I might show later. But I really like these color versions.

I have no samples of Coogy from 1954, so if anyone has any information about when the strip ended, I'd love to know.

Feb 1 1953:


Feb 8 1953:


May 10 1953:


June 7 1953:


Sept 6 1953:


Nov 15 1953:

Monday, September 22, 2008

More Kurtzmania

Monday cartoon Day.

Continuing my Monday look at cartoon journalism.

Not long after doing the piece for The TV Guide Kurtzman did a couple of similar job for Esquire magazine. For the first one he went to the set of a James Cagney movie in Ireland. The style of this article is all Kurtzman' own. No one did these kind of reports before or after him. In hi later years on Little Annie Fanny he was most proud of his achievements in the use of color. Here we see him excel in that area for the first time. Esquire was a huge magazine, so I have split the scans in two. The first page was done in green and black and white. To make this remarkable piece of art more readable I have reversed the colors on that page. The original version is visible at the start of this piece.







Sunday, September 21, 2008

Spooks- the Spencer Years

Sunday leftover day.

Yesterday Steven informed me that the later issues of Giggle all contained reprints with only new material by Irv Spector and Ken Hulltgren, with Spector providing most of the covers. Well, I had another look at the two issues of Giggle/Spencer Spook available on goldencomeics.co.uk (#100 and #101) and this is what I found.

Spencer Spook #100 has no Spector Cover (nor does it seem to be by Hultgren or a reprint) and no Spector stories on the inside.

Spencer Spook #101 seems to have a Spector cover and one Spencer Spook story. Here they are.