A Liffte Tufts

Saturday Leftover Day.

Warren Tufts' first newspaper strip Casey Ruggles ran from 1949 to 1954. According to the Wikipedia page (citing the always reliable Don Markstein), Tufts did not draw the Sunday page between Auust 1953 and January 1954 (before resuming it himself until September). I knew the strip was continued after that by another artist (acoording to Wikipedia it was Al Carreno). Ghost artists mentioned on the strip are Al Plastino, Alex Toth, Edmund Goode and Ruben Moreira. Of course Alex Toth's work was much earlier and on the dailies. This early Sunday looks like none of the others. Al Plastino was the most adaptable of them, but even him I don't recognize here.

Goode Vibrations

Thursday Story Strip Day.

A couple of months ago I showed a Scorchy Smith Sunday by Rodlow Willard. On the whole the reaction of most of those who saw it wa that it was a lot better thn they were led to believe. Of course following Frank Robbins is hard for any artist. Before Rodlow Willard Edmund Goode had the same problem. Maybe even more so, because Willard at least had a unique and more humorous style of his own, while Goode tried to follow in Robbins' footsteps. Anyway, here are some more samples of both 'second rate' artists for you to enjoy. I wish I had some of Willard's successor A. C. Hollingsworth (or at least more than the original art samples I have seen and shared).

Let's Have An Adventure

Thursday Story Strip Day.

The Scorchy Smith Sundays by Frank Robbins run form late in 1941 until he left the strip somewhere in 1944. They are the holey grail for all Milt Caniff school collectors, hard to find and when you do they are quickly sold and very expensive. I guess you can always try and find one of those comic books that collected them, but that is not the really thing of course. Or you can try and find microfiche newspaper files but then they are in black and white and probably not photographed too well because of that. Still that is what I tried and I only partially managed to do that. I showed you most of the first year in black and white and here is what I could find of 1944, the year that Robbins left and the strip (both Sunday and daily) was continued by Edmund Goode. I hope one day to share the real thing with you and anyone who has color samples is encouraged to contact me. Same goes for the later Sundays by A.C. Hollingsworth and George Tuska. The first I never have even seen in color and the second is so rare, I did not even know it existed until a couple of years ago.

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