Having shown much of Ray Bailey's work (from Bruce Gentry to Tom Corbett to his many Caniff influenced comic books stories of the fifties and sixties) there was always one strip that escaped my collection efforts. Vesta West was drawn for the Chigaco Comic book sections a ready printed oblong half sized comic with all now comic booky strips along with a couple of older well known strips. This meant that there is no online microfilm version to be found and real life sections are scarce of expensive. So I was very plesed to find a set of strips from a private seller in Switzerland and although I had to bid heavily (I hope not against one of my regular visitors). So this week and the next I will be presenting tese rare and unique samples in an almost complete run of the first year of Bailey's involvement. The stip was started and drawn by Fred Maegher, but in 1943 Bailey took over. I don't know how much Milton Caniff (who was very generous in that sort of thing) was involved in Bailey gettig that job. Bailey was already assiting Caniff and it shows. Still, his own drafmanship is visble as well.
6 comments:
Wow! I think the same way you do about Ray Bailey...I'm a huge Milton Caniff fan but I think the artists who borrowed from his style are just as exciting to look at... Ray Bailey truly creates an atmosphere in his landscapes and staging...One of the great unsung comic strip heroes.
I agree... and I have try and find out how much of Bailey's style was integrated into Caniff's. Particulary the 'standing rock' which appears in every Bailey story and was featured in Terry's famous Raven storyline. But are there samples of this type of rock from before Bailey joined or was it his 'thing'?
I definitely see Ray Bailey influencing the art more towards the end of Terry and the Pirates 44-45...Even if he had drawn it before those years...Perhaps Caniff let him loose as he had confidence in his pencils...I've read that Caniff would hand off the pencils and staging and possibly the first layer of inks,(and of course the lettering) and then Caniff would go in and do his brush work to finish the strips. He of course supervised the whole process...I can see how easily the artists would pick up his style if that were the case.
Very, very beautiful. You should scan them at a higher resolution, so someone could download and publish them....
I do scan at a higher resolution. 4000 dpi even, because I want to scan without descreening and that leaves some room for fiddling with it. I leave the scans raw after making a web version. And I am actively persuing a book with stories from all of the Caniff assistants iwn strips plus some of imitators and a huge article on others who were influenced. In fact, I am still wondering if I should shown who sequences here beacause that might hurt possible interest in the book more than it helps. Still, I can't not share...
400 dpi, of course.
Post a Comment