Georgeous Tuska

Frisday Comic Book Day.

For me the work of George Tuska is one of the best examples of how American comics and newspaper strips from the fifties have been ignored for many years and still continue to be unexplored (although things are getting better). Twomorrow, an excellent company with terrific magazines (Alter Ego, Back Issue, The Jack Kirby Collector, Draw, etc.) and great books on individual creators (the Masters series, but also solo books on Don Heck and Matt baker) has brought out a terrific book on George Tuska by Dewey Cassell. It's a very well written book and everything in it is admirable. The rpint edition has sold out, but you can still buy the digital version (http://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=299) and read 30 page for free at the same link. But... it only pais attention to the merest fraction of Mr. Tuska's work in the fifties. Which, if you see work like this story or his work for Standard or the long run of Scorchy Smith Sundays and dailies he did from 1954 to 1959 I don;t undertand. In the old days, I sort of got it, because things were not very available back then. Even I was surprised when I came across the Sunday version of Scorchy Smityh a couple of years ago becaus eI had literally never seen it. But when this book was written my samples of the strip were already online and the Digital Comics Museum was up and running where I have found all of my non Marvel samples of Tuska's work. Okay, there is more now then there was five years ago, but am I alone in thinking this mid fifties period of Tuska's career contains some of his best work. What it doesn't have, of course is superheroes. I once asked Dewey why he didn;t include more work from the fifties and he said it was the result of a discussion with the publisher that they decided this was not something the audinece would know or be interested in. They wanted George Tuska, the Marvel and DC inker and artist. The guy who did Iron Man and World's Greatest Superheroes. So I probably am wrong. You don't want to see this. Well, tough luck. I do.