Saturday, August 31, 2013

Something Andru Drew

Did you know Ross Andry drew for Romantic Hearts in 1953? I didn't now Ross andru drew for Romantic Hearts in 1953. But apparently Ross Andru drew for Romantic Hearts in 1953. This obscure romance comic was published by the small company called Story and/or Master. They only had three other titles, all in the horror genre. Romantic Hearts was published in two volumes, one in 1951/52 with lots of art by people such as Hy Fleischman (mostly know for his horror and Mad imitation work) and even a piece by later science fiction writer Harry Harrison (with inks by later Dick ayers collaborator Ernie Bache). Since some of the horror stories Fleischman did (and some of the Mad imitation stuff he did as well) were written by Harrison, it is possible he was involved in this book too. The second run of this title has some very stylisch work by Bob Goldfarb. And two stories by Ross Andru, apparently.

Thursday, August 29, 2013

A Class Apart

Before the summer I shared some of the imcomparable Alex Kotzky's work on Apartment 3G in black and white and I told you I also have alonger run of color Sundays. So here are the first few. I will show them over the coming weeks in concentrated installments.

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

King Of The Hill

Wednesday Advertising Day.

In the late forties and erly sixties there were several artists who had their own ad series in the newspapers. Some hadtwo or even three. But Lou Fine beat them all. Over the years I have shown his ads for Wildroot, Postum, Philip Morris, Toni Hair Tonic, movie ads and the feature ad for House Beautiful Magazine (Going To Town With Pat Guinan) and I still manage to find new ones every now and again. This week, I came across a couple of old faces (which I will add them to their respective 'full' posts, but also a new one that took even me by surprise: an ad for Pepsi Cola, featuring breifly the Pepsi Cola Cops. Very odd indeed, because those ads were always drawn by people associated with Johnstone and Cushing and Fine had long since left that company, I thought.

Monday, August 26, 2013

Wizard King

Tuesday Comic Strip Day.

As appreciative as I am about the fact that Titan Books is publishing full editions of Brent Parker and John Hart's Wizard of Id, I can't understand why they started their series with 1971. They are doing one book a year, the third now being announced for next September. I guess tehy took a similar approach as they did with their Beetle Bailey reprints, starting in the year the strip really took off. If that is the case, they are mistaking popularity for quality, because The Wizard of Id was one of those strips that really found teir style and characters very quickly. The daily series started in november 1964 and the style and characters were set within a year. The Sunday was added very quickly, too. The earliest Sundays I have are in black and white and from late 1964, only a couple of months after the strip started. The earliest color scan I have is from 1965, with some more in 1966. As you can see from those there is no reason the reprint series shouldn't have started with 1966. Maybe they can still work their way backward to that year or even the first two. I for one would love to see how Hart and Parker developed what is possibly the funniest newspaper strip ever.