Friday Comic Book Day
One of my regular visitors here, Steven Brower, expressed some interest in the work of Dan Spiegle. Spiegle is mostly remembered as a journeyman artist, who did a lot of westerns and other stoff for Deel in the generic Dell realistic style. When he started out on the western newspaper strip version of Hopalong Cassidy, his work was quite impressive. Like many artists, he finally settled down in a predictable safe style, which wasn't bad either. Just not as adventurous as the stuff he produced from 1949 tot 1955. Presented here are two stories from Rifleman #13 and a 1952 Sunday. I have many more of these Hopalong Sundays, but I am waiting to put together a readable run.
After all that, there is a short story by Alex Toth from The Rifleman #3, so you can see what Spiegle was up against. It was not one of Toth most belabored pieces, but still...
The Rifleman #3:
2 comments:
If Spiegle is still alive, his 90th birthday was last Friday.
As far as I can tell Spiegle is still with us. He seemed to experiment with different styles over the years. I've been looking at a lot of Westerns lately and one thing I've noticed is when they are based on a silver screen or television hero the art tends to be pretty staid. I assume this is because they are more concerned with trying to get a likeness. The Hopalongs are gorgeous, though.
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