Sunday, January 20, 2019

Calling Mr. Massey

Saturday Leftover Day.

African-American visual artist Cal Massey had a dark secret. In his younger years, fresh out of art school, he worked in comics before becoming a respected artist. But he wasn't ashamed about it. On his blog (http://calmassey.blogspot.com/) he mentiones working for Stan Lee. I have shown a couple samples of his quite impressive work earlier, which you can find by following the link. Later in the fifties he went into illustration and advertising, working for the Saturday Evening Post, for instance. But he doesn't mention another sideline, which was much less respectful. In the late fifties he was a regular contributor to the Playboy wannabe After Dark, which was published by the Hugh Hefner wannabe Jim Warren. Warren was of course the later publishers of Famous Monsters of Filmland, Help, Creepy and Eerie - reponsible for the resurgance of comic book art in the sixties. Too bad that Massey had already found his niche as an artist by then, because he would have made a great addition.

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