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.

Check, Please!

Saturay Leftover Day.

I had this story in a folder as an early sample of Bernard Baily's signature striped short. Baily rose to fame as the artist of The Spectre and other early DC heroes. He also assisted Walt Whitman on Mister X, took over Vic Jordan from Paul Norris (who had taken it over from Elmer Wexler) and may have assisted Whitman on Debbie Dean. All in a rather primitive style, if you ask me. None of the flamboyance of Mort Meskin, Jack Kirby, Lou Fine or even the 'new' DC crowd of Milt Caniff influenced artists. In the fifties he revented himself along more modern lines, in the fifties illustrators style, with mild Milt Caniff influences. With this new style he first did a couple of horror stories for different companies before landing at DC again, becoming one of their aystays for the fantasy books. In those stories from the fifties, his work is always recognizable by the fact that his main characters have a (usually red) checkered shirt. he really love those things, using them over and over again. But he didn't start using them in the fifties. I have been looking for other samples of the checkered shirt eefect and this story frm MOre Fun #87 is one of the earlier ones.

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...

Robinson Crusade

Friday Comic Book Day.

Too bad the reprint activities of DC have reached a dead end. The Plastic man series was never finished and even Batman and Superman have to make do with whatever they can get. This means that all the goodies that lay hidden in the DC boos from the forties and fifties will remain so until copyright rules are relaxed enough for people to freely start trading scans.

Who knew Jerry Robinsons did a gag strip in More Fun. And was it a series or a one-off?

The Quick Green Slime Jumped Over The Shark

Friday Comic Book Day.

Before I go on to another artist, one more Meskin/Roussos post. First I have one of the stories that made Mort Meskin's reputation in the forties, Johnny Quick from More Fun #82. I would pay good money to see a quality reprint of this series, but unfortunately DC has decided to do their Golden Age reprints by the issue and starting from the very bginning. So I guess we'll have to wait for the More Fun Archives #16 or later before the fun really starts. If the series gets that far. Why not devide the title up in albums and publish them out of order? Why not do DC More Fun archives #16 before you do #8? Maybe the interest in these will feed the interest in the historcly ignificant, but far less enjoyable earlier issues. The same argument can be made for other titles, where the work of Alex Toth, Carmine Infantino and Bernie Krigstein only arives later in the run. Not to mention the impressive series of Howard Post stories somewhere around More Fun #140. These issues go for up to $100 on e-bay. Surely there must be a market for them.

After that I have the first installment of an interesting but forgotten series by George Roussos. Silly, but effective. I have not got all installments, but will try to show two more tomorrow.

From More Fun #82:








From Unexpected #83: