Sunday, October 10, 2021

Unfriended

Sunday Al Williamson Day. 

Sunday Williamson Surprise.

Our next Al Williamson story is not signed by Stan Lee. But it may still be by him. Although it is the general rule that Stan in this period never wrote anything he didn't sign and never signed anything he didn't write, there are two more addition features that point to his authorship: first of all, Stan loved using 'western' colloquisms  to color his dialogue for his western stories - like 'yuh' instead of 'you' and it is use dhere throughout. But even more importantly, Stan wrote his stories in his free time in batches, which - when he turned them in the next day - woul dgte consecutive job numbers. This story, H-770, fall in a run of six western stories that were signed (from H-769 to H-775). Six stories was about what he would do in a regular sitting. It is a little bit more serious than the usual Stan Lee stuff, though.

2 comments:

the Rush of Drawing Comic Books said...

Hi Ger,
Just came across your blog moments ago. I'm Jim Fern, long time but lesser known comic book artist. I am member of the group of Cartoonists in New York, The Berndt Toast Gang, along with Creig Flessel. I knew Creig briefly before I moved away to Florida and he wound up in California with Family. I last saw him in 2003 at our National Cartoonist Society awards weekend.
Just came across your wonderful posts with Creig's art from David Crane. What a treasure to find!
Our Berndt Toast Gang group coordinator, Adrian Sinnott, has a pen that Creig gave him that was one Creig used for cartooning.
Bob Lubbers was a part of our group. We had so many greats in NY who were part of the "Gang". One of my good friends, Joe Giella, is still going strong at 93. Thanks for posting the work of these great pioneers in cartoon art.

Ger Apeldoorn said...

Hi, Jim. I eecorgnize your name and know some of your work. I am really not into superheroes, but I was a big fan of all the Big Books and when I researched your name I saw you did some work for those as well. I know about the Bernt Toast Gang from various fanzines, but mostly from my old friend Mike Lynch. I met Mike forty years ago, when he traveled through Europe and stayed at my place. I wish I had met all those guys in the gang, Creig Flessel and Bob Lubbers. If you look through the blog you will see I wrote a lot about Lubbers as well. And of course about Johnstone and Cushing, wher Flessel worked. Man, what I could have asked him. No one has ever really done a history of that company and there are so much questions. If you ever heard any stories about that period, I'd love to exchange information. I'd love that anyway, I am always pleased when creators or their family contact me. If you have the time, please contact me on Facebook or here (I could probably leave my email address here as well, although I prefer to do it for a short time and then take it back again).