Wednesday Advertising Day.
Ken Bald was a pretty boy artist, who did a lot of romance comics for Stan Lee in the forties. He is best known for creating the Dr. Kildare strip in 1962 and fans remember his Dark Shadows strip from the end of his career as well. Bfore Dr. Kildare, he did another soap strip calles Judd Saxon, which ran from 1957 tight up until the day Kildare started. Even though the strip was daily ony, the end run suggest the conclusion might have come on a sunday. We just don't get to see it.
In the early fifties his career is a bit more of a mystery. Jerry Bails' unmissable Who's Who tells us he did work for bland comic companies ACG and Fawcett, but that is not nearly enough to account for all his work or income. He may also have done some advertising work, but Bails unfortunately doesn't give dates for the samples he mentions.
I did ran across one signed newpaper ad for a product called Noxzema, though. Usually, when I find an add such as this, I can get a few more in black and white from NewspaperArchive. But o such luck this time. It must have been a very limited and short run ad series. But he did get to sign it and that was pretty special in that time.
I did find one other strip, mentioned by Bails: it appears Bald returned to Timely/Atlas to do a story for the oneshot World's Greatest Songs. Unsigned, but one you know he is in there, it is obvious which one is his.
1 comment:
Way behind in my blog reading, but Bald did a lot of covers for ACG in the 1940s, and a fair amount of comic book stories, etc.
Post a Comment