Much More Fun

Sunday Meskin Measures.

The real Mort Meskin fans may know this story, because I pinched the More Fun #97 scans from Sandy Jarrell's site (http://www.sandyjarrell.com/). Sandy is a comic book artist (who is currently drawing the very enjoyable Batman '66 series) who has contributed scans of the more rare Mesking stories to my blog. In various groups he is one of the more vocal voices asking or a full reprint of Meskins two major DC series from the forties: The Vigilante and Johnny Quick. He has bought books and collected scans as well as made a couple of his own and you can see them on his site. But I am going to do something different with them here. I will try and sya something intelligent about every page. I have shown so many Meskin pages with general remarks, that it may be fun to see what I can say about these undividual pages.

Here we get a first glimpse of the trademark way Mort Meksin had of depeicting Johnny Quick's speed. No red lines, no blurring, just a whole lot of single images, as if someone used a shutter lense on the camera. It's like we are looking at the storyboard of a animation movie. It is also a pure comic book way of doing this. The way DC's other speedster, the Flash. was protraied in the comics proved to be a lot more transferrable to the small screen. This idea of having a lot of single images pulled together into one, is something that can only be done in comics.

One of the most remarkable things about this page is to note that this story is one of the few that were inked by the very young and already talented) Joe Kubert. Kubert confessed to being influenced by Meskin, although in his early days he showed more signs of picking up tricks from another idol, Will Eisner. Later on in this story, I will note a Meskin panel that looks very Eisnerish as well.

Eventhough Joe Kubert is the inker, there are a few touches here that look like the way Meskin would later ink when he was working with Jack Kirby (and on his own at Prize), like the multiple brush strokes on the roof in panel three or the bends and shadows on the stove in the last.

In the forties comic book artists moved the camera around a lot more freely. The upshot with the underside of the roof shown in the last panel, was a frequent trick of cinematic artists such as Milt Caniff, Mort Meskin and Alex Toth to highten tension... and to avoid having to draw a lot of furniture.

For a comic strip about a speeddevil, the absense of speed lines is remarkable. Even the old guy looking around has to make do with three faces and a Whoosh sound. It seems Meskkin made a conscious decision not to use any speedlines at all.

There sure are a lot of spolights hanging around, though. Jack Kirby used a lot of abstract arches in his work in the late fifties (when it got to be more abstract than ever). They work, but they also give the action a staged feel.

These days, with all the computer coloring going on. artists are (or feel) forced more and more to 'close' their inklines. If they do not do that, seperate areas can not be filled with a paintbucket. Cartoonists like Hank Ketcham and artists such as Stan Drake, Gene Colan and Mort Meskin show that a much more lively feeling can be given to a comic book page if the lines are not all closed and a more designoriented impressionistic approach is taken.

Earlier in his career, Alex Toth observed Mort Meskin using a unique approach to his pages. He would make a whole page grey with a soft pencil and create shapes with a kneedable eraser. After which he would fill in the shapes with details. I don't know if he was still doing that in this period, but he remained an artist who tried to tell his stories with shapes all of his career.

Silhouets. I love silhouets. Alex Toth was a master at using readable silhouets on almost every page. They help give the storytelling speed (details only slow the reader down) and variety (Will Eisner siad that you only need to show the face of your hero once every page).

Just look at those Johhny's go. Only in comics can you do this effect.

The borderless panel five is one that could have come from any Will Eisner page, in my opinion. And hey, speedlines!

Every artist has his own way of drawing punches. Meskin did a punch effect and follow strough, emphesizing movement over force. And look at the folds on that table cloth in the past panel. No way Joe Kubert came up with those. So either Meskin added them himself or he indicated them in his pencils.

Quick Action

Mort Meskin Sunday Quick Fix.

I started my long run of `mort Meskin comics with what I had of his Johnny Quick. This was the strip that made his name and to some it is still the most virtuose and inventive work he ever did. I am also very fond of his other periods, but it is always exciting to run across more Johnny Quick scans I have not yet shown...

Animated Meskin

Sunday Quick Fix.

Like A Streetcar Named Desie's Blanche DuBois I am dependend on the kindness of strangers. Not only for the many scans from the internet I use for these posts, but sometimes even directly. Last week I was contacted by Sandy Jarrell, who offered me some Vigilante and Johnny Quick scans I didn't have. So today I am immediately sharing one of those, from a Johny Quick story I couldn't show you earlier. The inker is the same Cliff we have seen on the Vigilante stories as well. And a great one it is, with Johnny drawing his own animated version. Thanks Sandy, you make for a great sidekick.

Sandy also provided new scans for Action Comics #64, which I did earlier this year.

Late Quick

Monday Repair Day.

Well, it seems I am able to circumvent my upload problem by using another browser. Which means the problem is probably due to a Firefox update which hasn't been accepted yet by Blogger (and may do so in the future) or it's a system problem after all or maybe even it has to do with the pixies living in solar flares. I don't know.

Anyway, when I still thought I could upload another Johnny Quick story yesterday I saw I had reached the end of my run (and probably Mort Meskin's) with Adventure #133. I do have one last Johnny Quick story, this one from More Fun #106. After that I may start doing Meskin's Vigilante, but I am not sure yet at which point I would like to start. In Johnny Quick's case I didn't start too early, because all the early scans were from micro-fiche, but in this case I have more to choose from.

Before that I will have two more early sixties DC stories by Meskin from the period he was having troube with his drawing. One where Joe Kubert pitched in and one that's clrearly drawn or layed-out by Carmine Infantino.

A New Formula For Succes

Saturday Sunday Post.

This weekend is the big two yearly comics convention here in Haarlem, so I have even less time than usual. I am still preparing a post with some of Jack Mendelsohn's lesser known Mad-like work from the late forties and fifties. So I am switching todays post with tomorrow's and I am offering you a new Johnny Quick story. I am reaching the end of his run, but I am already looking out for a suitable replacement. I'd love to show you Meskin's chiascuro masterpiece The Vigilante, but I do not have the scans or the collection needed for that. Maybe I should throw in a run of Howie Post's Presto Pete...


From Adventure Comics #133:

Back To Black

Sunday Quick Fix

More Johnny Quick, with Mort Meskin cosing in on the style he would use for The Black Terror and The Fighting Yank, proving he didn't need Jerry Robinson to create beautifull and multi-layered work. Just as Jerry Robinson proved at Timely that he didn't need Mort Meskin to create compelling compositions and great characters. Which probably explains why their collaborative work was so fantastic. This month Steven Brower's Mort Meskin Book, From Shadow To Light, is advertised in the Diamond Preview Catalogue. I don't know if there is going to be a softvover version, I urge everyone to try this book out. It's written with the help of Mort Meskin's son Peter and Philip, who are also responsible for one of the best comic creator websites ever, about their father at www.mortmeskin.com. Steven also runs the Mort Meskin Yahoo Group. Apart from the fact that Meskin is a great and underrated artist, his life makes for fascinating reading as well and I for one am looking forward to this book immensely.