What to pick for my saturday representation. I have been busy scanning and have quite a nice backlog.How about a selection of one of Burne Hogarth's most forgotten strips? In the late forties, after dowing Tarzan and before doing Tarzan, Nurne Hogarth created two new strips. When he left Tarzan in 1945, due to a dispute with his syndicate, he tried and action-adventure strip of his own, called Drago, about a young Argentine nobleman battling post war Nazis in South America. Not a succes, but that may have been due to the lack of muscle his new syndicate (Robert Hall) had. He returned to Tarzan and at the same time launched a new, comical strip. Miricale Jones is best know for supposedly featuring the first work of Bernie Krigstein, as one of his assistants. Hogarth tought at the Cartoonists and Illustrators School (later the School of Visual Arts) in New York. One of his students was Al Williamson and I reckon I see some of his style in the shape of some of the panels here. Was that in influence on Williamson, or did Williamson assist Hogarth. I don't think the latter is possible timewise.
I never had seen much of these Sundy only strip, except for a couple of black and white illustrations (and even a reprint in muddy greys), so I jumped at the opportunity when these came up on eBay. I had not seen half of them were in French from a Canadian paper, but the pictures are just as nice (and I can read French). The colors are a bit less vibrant, which is partly due to the fact that the Canadian tearsheets have browned more, but possibly also because the printing was less. It is something I have seen before on other strips, with one paper even dropping one of the three main colors. I have also include one page both in French and as an American three tier with the bottom of the panels dropped. That must have been one of the official versions offered, but boy, does it look ugly.
7 comments:
I can no longer find my old Drago reprint so I can't check my memory. I could swear that the final Drago page (fourth from last in your selection) actually ended on the next-last panel, the one where Flamingo says, "Yes...friends." To me the last panel here looks like it was drawn by somebody else. Am I misremembering?
I put them in order as they were numebred. Are ou saying the last three should have come earlier?
Ger and Smurfswacker - The 54-page 1985 B&W Drago Reprint I have from Pacific Comics Club shows Ger's fourth page from the end as the final page of the strip, and in fact the last panel of the final page I have shows Drago and Flamingo "necking" instead of Flamingo gazing at Drago in silhouette at a distance as Ger's version indicates - for some reason there must have been different versions of the ending, which might explain Smurfswacker's comment that the last panel in Ger's version looks like someone else drew it. In any event, it's wonderful to see Drago in colour! Thanks, Ger.
The French version comes from a reprint, wherein they continued Drago's adventures by using panels from previous Sundays and creating a new story. The original strip actually ends with Drago kissing Flamingo (which isn't shown here). Plus the coloring is completely different from the actual American Sundays.
I also forgot to mention that the French version is heavily censored. Flamingo isn't wearing a black undershirt in the original American Sundays, plus she's showing her shoulders and her navel, which the French thought would horrify children and blacked it all out!
The French version comes from Coq Hardi, a weekly comic magazine that included mostly French material. Drago was an exception, and was usually printed on the front page in color (although from in-house coloring different from the original American vresion). The series proved so successful, that readers demanded more. Unfortunately it had already ended in America, and that's when the French constructed a new story by placing panels from earlier strips and adding some additional in-house artwork to make it look like a new one.
Ger, does your version come from Coq Hardi too?
The one sample I have, also shows that difference in coloring. From my experience I have concluded that most Amerikcan comics sections did their own coloring, but from the same sample coloring and with almost similar results. The Canadian papers either didn't have the same color samples, or less possibillities or (unprobable) less capable printers.
The last three samples you show are the same from the French Coq Hardi version which were part of four additional pages using earlier panels (with added artwork by some unknown artist) to tell an extra story when the strip was over. The coloring is the same as in the French version, although your scans look a little worse than the copies I have. The Canadian version must have used the same copies of the French one, as the lettering is exactly the same. The French version came out in 1948. And yes, their printing is really terrible.
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