The First Supervillian

Sunday Al Williamson Surprise. Signed Al Williamson, this we we have a short story from Journey Into Mystery #43 that has everything you want from a Williamson story... except maybe the inks. When Williamson returned to Marvel in the eighties and nineties, he showed himself to be the master of finishes. He introduced tenchniques for shading that other have since incorporated. Sometimes you see some of those techniques in his earlier work. Such as the way he uses ben-day dots to do the inage outside the window, or later the diagonal 'hay' he uses to draw a tree. But some of the other inking defentively looks non Williamson and in fact Jim Vadeboncoeur Jr. estimates on Atlastales.com that the inking might be by Ralph Mayo. If so, they either worked together really well or Williamson did some of this stuff himself. There are a few hints that this story may have been written by Stan Lee. The job number comes in a row of Lee written (and signed) western stories and ir does use the word 'thru' instead of 'through', as Stan always did.

 

Back To The Cole Mine

Saturday Leftover Day. 

A couple of years ago I bought an issue of the American Armed Forces Features newspaper, an independend Sunday newspaper section just for soldiers, which was produced by the Bradbury  Company between 1955 and 1965 (or even later). It was distributed through camp newspapers, who could add their 'own' Asunday comic section this way. Apart from lots of rare goodies, it had a comic strip by Jack Cole that I had never seen before. In 1955 Quality comics had stopped and Cole's biggest succes and claim to fame Plastic Man was discontinued. He made the switch to cartoons and in 1954 and 1955 he published a lot of cartoons under the name Jake, especially in the saucy Humorama digests. He was noticed and picked up by Hugh Hefner, who took him on board as one of the major cartoonists for his new magazine Playbay, where Cole embarked on a second career as a color cartoonist. In the late fifties he was able to sell a newspaper strip called Betsy and Me and effectively started his third career. Millie and Terry seems to be midway between those last two. It looks a bit like the Jake cartoons (though a little bit less sexy) and you can also see some of his later Betsy and Me style. 

Unfortunately I only had one paper and since then I have not been able to find another. But then I was lucky enough to stumble on a university site that had most of the early years of the AAFF newspaper in digital (and black and white) form. I clipped all of them and I have been showing some of it's cartoons, such as those of Jess Benton, Jack O'Brien, Vic Martin, Hank Bergoff and even Mort Drucker. You can look for them in seperate posts. But the greatest find was that Jack Cole did Millie and Terry for at least three years. The sad news is, that the second year was not available on the university site, so I am still looking for those (as well as the others, because I would love to have them all in color).

I have been sitting on this find for quite some time, but here it is. Un unknown Jack Cole strip, that helps explain his growth as an artist from Plastic Man to Betsy and Me. Maybe someone out there can help me get more.

After three years, Millie and Terry was taken over by another artist. There is a period, where it is not clear who did what, but from late 1957 it was taken over by an artist signing Burr Boynansky. This probably is Bill (or William) Boynansky, who has an early credit at the GCD in a December 1941 issue of Stars and Stripes Comics for a page containing six cartoons and later credits for various gag digests in the fifties. Since most of his gags were army related, I think he may have been one of those career army men, who had a sideline of cartoons. I think there were several of those including Art Gates and Jack O'Brien (who also drew for the AAFF). The sample I am showing at the end is from Army and Navy Fun Parade #83 in 1957.

Oh, The Horror!

Sunday Al Williamson Surprise. 

 Here's a story that was actually signed by Al Williamson, but I am very doubtful that he did the inking. Jim Vadeboncoeur Jr. says it's by Ralph Mayo and he knows his stuff. I get a hint of George Woodbridge as well.

 

All Around The family

Saturday Leftover Day 

Just like last week, here are some prime leftovers from Mort Walker and his associates. I have said it before, but all of the Mort Walker produced strips from the 1956-1962 period are the best they ever produced. A very nice mix of the family and the outside world to keep the sentimental gags in balance.

 

Savage Tale

Sunday Al Williamson Surprise. 

  To do this weekly serialisation of all of the 100+ short stories Al Williamson did for Timely/Atlas (the later Marvel) in the second half of the fifties, I rely on several sources, but the most important one is the Atlas Tales website, which lists all of the stories done for Timely between the forties to the sixties along with any information available about publication, page numbers, artists, job numbers and anythign extra. I was one of several people who provided information for that site back when I still had 70% of all the Timely/Atlas titles. And I still send corrections and suggestions whenever I come across something. 

 One of the great things about the site is that they name the contributors of the information, so you can work out for yourself who you trust or not. Our next story is one that is credited to Al Williamson on Atlastales and The Grand Comics Database as being drawn and inked by Williamson. The Atlastales credit comes from John Vadebonceur Jr., the greates art spotter around (as he will be happy to tell you). Still I have my doubts. I can see traces of Williamson's involvement, but it is unsigned and it lacks some of his typical florishes of that stage of his career (such as the borderless panels). On the other hand, I don't recognize some of the usual suspects for the inking (such as Gray Morrow) - although Angelo Torres could have been involved.

On the other hand, it may also be a case of Williamson inking someone else. As previous posts have show, he was not above signing it if he had a different inker, but the other way around? The story itself is (which from his own records is confirmed to be by Carl Wessler) culturally interesting, because it features jungle savages, a man changing his skin to to look like them and a very culturally insensitive ending.

 

Flatout Funny

Saturday Leftover Day. 

I may have sahred some of these before, bit that's becaus eI think it is one of the funniest strips of it's period. DSadly forgotten and mever collected.