Wednesday, May 07, 2014

Crackling Good

Wednesday Advertising Day.

I have said here that I have come to the (private) conclusion that the way to destinguish between the pncil art of George Roussos and Mort Meskin is that whenever it is not drawn very well, it is probably the work of Roussos. In my opinion he was a better inker than a penciller and he even inked better when he worked in the pencils of Mort Meskin than on his own. Still, there is one exception and that is the Electricity series he did for the General Electric company. I have a huge collection of these. There was one evey year from the mid forties to the late fifties and they are among the best of the advertisingcomics to be found. Some people have worked out that Meskin helped him on one or two, but even those he did on his own are splendid. I have shown one earlier and you can find it by following the General Electric label. Obviously this was an important client for Roussos and he gave it his all. Today I have a rare article about Roussos doing these books from an old magazine of the time. It has some rare information and unique pictures. With that two pages from Electricity Around Us that I apparently started scanning but didn't finish.


1 comment:

Smurfswacker said...

In classic American comics tradition, "crafty Van" gets all the press and the "professional comics artist(s)" remain anonymous. Even though it's their work that provides the "face" of the publication.

I agree with you that this series featured some of Roussos' best work ever. His television-themed issue was stunning. I no longer own these books and can't go back to see what other artists, if any, worked on the series. The only one I remember for sure is that Harry Anderson drew the cover of one issue...was it the one about the electric light?