The Fabuleous Fifties

Big Virgil

Tuesday Newspaper Strip Day.

Although my tastes run quite wide, the core interest of this blog is the 'modern' comic strips of the late fifties and early sixties. Every one of these were influenced by the cartoons of Virgil Partch. Johnny Hart specificly mentions Partch's unique style as a major influence on his need to create a singular style and I am sure he was not the only one. Look at Mad artist Don Martin, for example, who's style seems to have come out of nowhere, until you consider Partch. But it is not only his graphic style that was an inflence. His male oriented, sometimes completely anti-feminine gags are an influence on those 'modern' artists as well, leading them to create gags that are fresh and sharp and sarcastic and often completely impossible in our more sensitive times.



So it is with sadness hat I have to note that when Partch himself finally got a newspaper strip, it was nothing like his cartoons. There is no abusrdity, no cruelness and all anti-femeninety was undercut by the fact that the main character was supposed to be a silly blow-hard. The style was there, but even that was dulled down. Still, he did the strip for many many years and the earliest ones do have some humor in them.



July 2 1960:


July 23 1960:


July 30 1960:


Aug 28 1960:


Oct 18 1960:


Oct 30 1960:


Nov 6 1960:


Nov 13 1960:


July 6 1960:


Jan 1 1961:


Jan 8 1961:


Feb 5 1961:


March 5 1961:


March 12 1961:


March 19 1961:


March 26 1961:


Sept 4 1961:


May 19 1962:


Dec 26 1962: