Saturday Leftover Day.
Dawn o'Day's Val heinz was one of those cartoonists working in a style that was heavily influenced by Milt Caniff. Another faous one, whose work I have shown here a lot, was Ray Bailey. Looking for those Pete Morisi fillers I showed yesterday, I came across a bunch of war stories he did for Harvey in the early fifties. Or at least, I think they are his. Most of the work he may have done for Harvey, is usually credited to Lee Elias. But in my experience Elias almost always signed his work and to my eye it is subtly different. On eof Bailey's recognizable traits, is the fact fact that in most of his stories there is a profile shot of a hero that loks just a little bit too much like Steve Canyon - the strip Bailey ended up illustrating in comic books for Harvey. Still, there is room for ome doubt. Bailey worked on his own newspaper strip Bruce Gentry from 1946 to the early fifties and almost immediately went into doing Tom Corbett. Doing a newspaper strip usually takes up all tour time, especiall if you have a Sunday as well. But maybe it didn't pay enough, or maybe he had a little window in between the two.I am not sure about all of them. The second one could be by Elias, but it is not signed. And the last one is a bit too expressive for Bailey, but it does have the Steve Canyon profile.
I just found out that the original art for the last story is for sale at the new Market section of Heritage Auctions, where it is credited to Al Avison and Warren Kremer.
5 comments:
Hi Gar. You finally hit an artist I've never hear of with Val Heinz. Very nice stuff. Thanks so much!
Now, as to Lee vs Ray... IMHO, the last two stories are Ray and the rest are Lee. There are lots of cases where Lee didn't sign, or wasn't allowed to sign his work.
But back to Val... I can find very little on him. Do you have more info or samples. Again, very nice to discover a totally new strip and artist. Thanks!
heard
:) Best all ways and always!
Th Lambiek page has nothing but: "Val Heinz studied at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, together with Frank King, the creator of 'Gasoline Alley'. He was King and Bill Perry's assistant on this comic from 1945 to 1949. In 1949, he created the 'Dawn O'Day' strip for the Chicago News Syndicate. This series of realistically drawn gags that appeared in American newspapers like the Chicago News and the Baltimore Sun until at least 1954". Which is more than I had. I should ask Bas where he got the first part. They used some of my samples as illustratration and call the strip a series of gag strips, because I have never shared the dailies - which have a storyline.
Am so jazzed to hear about your forthcoming 'Behaving Madly' book. Can't wait for it. Your pieces on Mad's early comic imitators in Alter Ego a while back were fascinating.
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