Some time ago I shared some of the earliest Sunday pages from Beetle Bailey. I have alsways shown many of those from my own scans, and will continue to do so whenever I get them. But looking over them, I saw that I have remarably few for 1957. So I was very happy to find a run of Sunday papers that had the Sunday strip (in the two tier version, helas) in black and white. Probably run that way in an effort to save money, but it means I now have relatively clean line versions. This is the year that Beetle Bailey had definitively changed from a gag based series into a characterbased one. This is especially effective in the Sundays, which were much more a collection of silly gags around a location or theme in the years before this. One might even suggest that the room that the Sundays gave the artists to have the characters act out their little gags, contributed to their strength.
2 comments:
WOW!!! I am so excited i found this page! so much awesome comic strip stuff! i love and now teach about comic strips as part of my graphic design class. i would love to know if you have resources for the comic strips of the 60's and 70's as well? one thing i teach is the progression of a characters looks over time so to have nice big versions of such characters as Beetle Bailey and Dagwood over time is fantastic! not to mention the shear amount of comics that began in the 60's and 70's that are iconic today...i need those! Anyway, great blog! love it!
I have some, although I don't always scan them since my blog is about the fifties. Also, as a rule I don't scan or show anything that has been collected and/or can be bought. It seems to me you are looking for the big names known to your students (Beetle Bailey, Blondie, Garfield, Shoe, Momma, Donald Duck) rather than the unknown and obscure that attract me. If I do show some of those names, such as Beetle of i and Lois, Yogi Bear, the Flintstones, Popeye, it usually is the early years taht are ofte underrepresented and underappreciated. For those big names, I suggest you try the original art stash at Heritage or original comic art sites such as comicartfans.com. But please, search my site and ask anything if there are particular things you like. As far as long runs with changing styles go, I suggest you give Popeye a try. I have samples from all artists who did him (except maybe Bobby London, but there has just been a book made of those).
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