Friday Comic Book Day.
For the first five issues of DC's Western Comics Howard (Howie) Post tried his hand at a realistic style for Rodeo Rick. Although this informations is available on the Grnd Comic Book Database, I guess that many of those who love Post for his children'stories will be very much surprised by these.
as a bonus, I have a one page filler Post did for All-Star Western #58:
3 comments:
Been meditating on the look of 40s DC books. Of course following is a generalization which is to say there are of course exceptions. The generalization is this: The art was usually pretty lame. They had guys who went on to do awesome work later but in the 40s, relatively little. Wasn't til Toth/Barry that they seemed to pay much attention to art. What surprises me is that starting in the 50s, and by the 60s, DC was publishing loads of gorgeous stuff. I attribute this to the Nicholson/Ellsworth focus on the story, which was then reflected in the first generation or so of editors: Story/script was way more important than the visuals. Thoughts, Ger?
I think that is a good thought, which also explains why the change at DC comes toward the end of the forties, when Sheldon Mayer's influence grew. From all interviews I get the impression he was very tough on the artists, demanding tehir best work. But typing this, I wonder is another major influence couldn't have been the onupmanship that ran through the new generation of comic book artists. Remember that the first generation of comic book artists were trained elsewhere and adepted to comics (with some of them still hoping they could one day do something else). Alex Toth, Carmine Infantino, Dan Barry, Gil Kane and the rest of that group all grew up on the better adventure strips, exchanged photocopies of Noel Sickles' work and egged each other on to be the best. Still, I giess they may not have done that work if the editors hadn't been buying on it, or in Mayer's case, insisting on it.
On the other hand, don't disregard the influence of people like Caniff and Robbins and even Alfed Andriola, but also the advertising people like Lou Fine. Together, they set a standard as well, that had a lot of influence.
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