Since a couple of weeks ago I have been showing some of the 'history' stories featured in Timely-Atlas' war titles in the mid fifties. Sometimes the second world war, featured in many 'regular' stories was given the historical treatment as well., such as in this story about the early days of the war. I chose it for the art by one of my favorites from this period, George Tuska. Too few people know his work from this period, which was inked a lot heavier than anything he did before or after. Just after doing this story, he will probably have taken over the Scorchy Smith daily and Sunday strip in a similar style.
3 comments:
Do you have any of Tuska's earliest Scorchy Smith work? I'd love to see it. The handful of examples I've seen are later ones drawn in his lightly-inked Buck Rogers style.
George Tuska took over the daily Torchy from August 1954. I have shown the dailies from early January 1955 onwards and still have to go back and find that first story in a good condition. His Sundays start a bit later and I have shown those from the first to the end of 1955. The Sunday ended in December 1956 although the daily ran much longer - in fact deep into his run as an artist on Buck Rogers in 1959. I have just gathered the last daily story, which is unsigned and looks like it might be by Tuska inked by the next artist to do Scorchy, Morris (and reported it to Alan Holtz, who mentions an earlier end date). Maybe I'll show those next week. Someday I will share the last year of Sundays as well.
Oh and I think the lightly inked style was there from the beginning, although he may have used a larger board. I believe I have already said somewhere that Tuka was so good in simplifying the Caniff style that he may have shown editors it is possible to have your realistic story strip and reduce the size as well.
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