Thursday story day.
As you may have noticed, I am ascinated by unknown or forgotten strips, especially if they were by name creators. History and the general public may have passed judgement on them and declared them inconsequential, but I don't think they were. At least not for their creators. In hindsight they may be a one of two year blip in the career of the artist, but who knows what they meant at the time? Irving Spector worked for almost three years on Coogy and although he got his fame later as an televiion animator it always remained one of his favorite creations. So much so that he kept all the originals.
Bud Sagendorg started as an assistant to Segar on Popeye. When he was passed over as the artist to continue the strip after the untimely death of Segar, he started working for the opublicity department of King Features. He kept working on Popeye, the strtip he seemed born to do, but this time only on the comic books. Even though he made those a succes, he wa not asked to take over the strip until late in the fifties. But before that, he tried to break out wih a strip of his own. It was called Spur Line and seems to have been about a small railroad. Sort of a cross between Popeye and Fontaine Fox's Toonerville Trolley. The strip was not a succes and ran for a short time. The Who's Who list has it only for 1954, but I have a couple from jan 1955 as well. It is eerily similar to Popeye, which makes it all the more creepy.
1 comment:
Never seen any of these before. Cool to see and it's a shame that he didn't get to replace Segar when he passed away.
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