Son of God

Saturday Leftover Day.

In honor of Neal Adams' demise I am sharing the three covers of the Son-O-God series he did for National Lampoon in the late seventies. Terrific stuff. There is a fourth one I don't have. If there is anyone willing to share scans of that stoy, please contact me.

 

Tell Them Rube, Lou, Tom, Neal, Mel and Bil Sent You

In the pas t few weeks I was able to clean some scattered comic strip ads, enough to fill another post. Most of these are familiar to my regular visitors, but that doesn't make them less commentable.

Jack Bett's Peter Pain is such a familiar face to collectors of Sunday newspaper sections of the forties and fifties that we seem to forget how many of these the forgotten artist did. Ben-Gay was one of two pf Bett's regular accounts, the other was Neddy Nestle for Nestlé chcolate milk. He did one every two weeks for each for over 15 years... and very little else. An impressive output, but when Betts and his ad characters disappeared, so did his name from the comi history books.

Another longrunning ad seres was the one for Camels sigarettes. They had many formats but often used famous and semi-famous names to sell their sticks. Mostly semi-famous, so this ad with Dick Powell is in fact a rarity.

Sunday newspaper ads started in the thirties. At that point they were usually done by illustrators rather than comic people.

The lettering was similarely not in the comic book or newspaper strip style and often (like the drawing style) quite stilted.

In the forties and fifties two things started happening. Some of the illustrators started working more in a comic book style. And comic book artist started to work in the 'illustrators' style. This is an example, which looks as if it could have been done by an early practitioner at the Johnstone and Cishung agance, Stan Drake. But I am not sure.

Another frequent contributor at Johnstone and Cushing was Creig Flessel, who had come from comic books but slicked up pretty well. He kept more of his Milton Caniff influence (very popular with comic book artists because of the time saving shortcuts it offered) than some of the others.

For a short period Milt Caniff and his friend and studio-mate Noel Sickles worked together in advertising under the pseudibymn Paul Arthur. This ad is very much in their vein, but not by them, I think.

A later sample (I am doing these alphabetically, rather than by date) by what seems to be Tom Scheuer. Scheuer joined Johnstone and Cushing and learned a lot from regular artist Carl Wexler. Neal Adams joined a couple of years later and took the Wexler style to a whole new level. Scheuer then began to take from Adams in such a way that it is sometimes impossible to tell them apart.

Mel Casson was a New York cartooonist, who created the delightful stip It's Me, Dolly with Alfred Andriola. He had a very modern style, but seems to have dumbed it down in later years. He was a client of Tony Mendez, who had a lot of his stuff in her files (kept at the Billy Ireland Museum in Columbus, Ohio). It shows a very hip and fresh cartoonist - more than this ad does.

A later ad, which looks as if it could be the later work of Carl Wexler.

This time I am pretty sure the ad is by Stan Drake. He has said his work was appreciated so much that he was one of a few artists allowed to sign his work, but I have never seen one and neither is this.

Not from Johnstone and Cushing, but interesting nonetheless. Al Hirschfeld was a prolific artist of immense importance to American culture and I am surprised that no one has ever presented a complete list of his work. I have shown many previously unknown samples on my blog and here he is again in an ad for a movie theater magazine.

Another longrunning series tht will have to be included if there ever is a book done. Started by Rube Goldberg and continued by a series of Johnstone and Cushing artists deep into the forties.

The illustrators' style in full force.

Two examples of the long running Philip Morris series of ads done by Lou Fine. The first one, a regular one (of which I have shown many if you follow the link) and the second one one of a few of the last ones, when Philip Morris became the sponsor of the I Love Lucy show and Fine switched to Lucille Ball and Ricky.

Another Lou Fine ad from a series that ran only for a couple of years, but keeps impressing. The ghostlike character was invented at the end of the previous decade and may have been an influence on many such characters in other ads as well as comic books.

This looks like Lou Fine's work and I have stated so in the past, but lately I have been wondering if it isn't the work of one of the more popular illustrators, Gunnar Peterson, who adapted his painted style to linework.

A very uniqua ad, which seems to have been done especially for the local area of this paper (The Milwaukee Journal). Only today I saw that the credit for this ad says it is by Freberg and Albertinco (?). Could this be Stan Freberg? The puppets, the ad connection and the humor seem to fit. Is there a Freberg fan out there who can enlighten me?

Another `lou Fine series, Sam Spade for Wildroot hair tonic, did not only appear in the newspapers, but it was recut to be used in the comics as well.O= Another ad strips that got this treatment was Captain Tootsie.

A newer one, but I had never seen it before, an ad with thepopular cartoon series by Bil Keane.

One of the artists who continued the Pepsi Cops strips was later Howdy Doody Sunday strip artost Chad Grothkopf.

Something To Read Over The Holidays

Thursday Story Strip Day.

Neal Adams' work was made to impress and boy did it! I first read his breakout newspaper strip Ben Casey in the Menomenee Falls Gazette and sadly that was also the last time I read it. Due to whatever circumtances this strip has never been reprintable, which is too bad becaus eit was not only very well drawn, but also a very engaging soap opera strip with a little bit of social comentaru thrown in. I am most sad that I never got to read the Sunday only color episodes And collecting them is almost impossible, due to price and lack of supply. So, here is what I had to work with - the first few weeks as shown in the Gazette.

The Adventures of Tom Scheuer

Wednesday Advertising Day.

Recently I found out that former Timely Atlas and Johnstone and Cushing artist Tom Scheuer has written a biography. After he years as a commercial artist he worked as a ghost for several artists. Changing his name to the way it was spelled, Tom Sawyer. He went on to write for television and eventually became the headwriter of the longrunning detective series Murder She Wrote. Since I am a television writer, this biography is a double treat for me. I have placed a link to Amazon to the right. To go with that I have two samples of advertising strips, that I think are his. Fans of comic strips will see that he was a great influence on Neal Adams, or rther that Neal Adams took what he and others had done in the illustrator's style and morphed it into something even more gripping. The ad under that is a lot erlier and probably by Elmer Wexler, another Johnstone and Cushing employee, who did a lot of work in this style. All three of them are represented on this blog with lots more, if you follow the link.

Ads For Mens

Wednesday Advertising Day.

I was scanning some 1961 papers and came across these late newspaper strip ads. Not soon after these the genre died out completely. These probably are among the last ones done by the Johnstone and Cushing company for newspapers. Many of their biggest talents had gone on to other things. Creig Flessel had found work as a newspaper strip artist, first as a fill-in for the Saint and soon after as the new regular artist of David Crane, which he continued until late in the sixties. Dik Browne had left the company in the mid-fifties when he became the regular artist on Mort Walker's Hi and Lois (although he kept doing an ad here and there and The Tracy Twins for the Johnstone and Cushing produced comics section of Boy's Life). Gill Fox had also gone into newspapers, first doing Bumper to Bumper as an irregular Sunday only for the New York Sunday News, then doing the daily Dennis the Menace imitation Wilbert and finally taking over The Neighbours from George Clarke. Bill Williams took on various jobs as well, most recognizable for several kid and juvenile comic books, including Dunc an' Loo with John Stanley. Leonard Starr had started his own newspaper soap opera strip, On Stage and Jack Betts had fallen of the earth in 1957 (although his daughter told me an intriguing story about his last days, which I will share sometime.

Most familiar of the people who were still working at Jonstone and Cushing are Elmer Wexler, Al Stenzel, Tom Scheuer and Neal Adams. I have talked with Adams about this period, who mentions Wexler as his great inspiration but also his creative combativeness with Scheuer (who later went on to fame as a television writer as second headwriter on Murder, She Wrote). It seems one of the reasons Adams' work looks so much like Scheuer's - he wanted to show he could to the same quality work in less time. I also corresponded with Scheuer (now Sawyer), who looked at my blog and commented:

"None of the Tintex ads you sent were mine. And I really can't identify who did them.

About how we worked at J&C: the first year or two I commuted 5 days per week, had a drawing table there -- along with, as I recall, Dik Browne and Ralston (Bud) Jones, among others (Starr had by then departed) -- because Al Stenzel and Tim Johnstone (and others, I'm sure) pointed out that being the new guy, and still unknown by name or style at the ad agencies, I would get a lot of the rush-work that came in, for which the client did not specify that it be drawn by a particular artist. Of course, if I got an assignment that took more than a day, I would do most of the work at home. Then, as I developed a reputation (by 1958), I no longer went there except to pick up or deliver a job. And, after I moved to Westport, CT., in 1960, I almost never went to their offices -- there were so many illustrators and cartoonists living in that area, that there was a very successful messenger service. We'd drop our artwork into a bin near the door of his house at whatever hour (usually late night or early morning), and it would be delivered to one's client before 10 AM. And, he would bring us our assignments (layouts, scripts, etc.) when he returned to Westport.

Incidentally, I just revisited your amazing site, and the pieces you did about my artwork (and that of others), and specifically, CHIP MARTIN. The last one of those I drew was 1962-02. after that, I'm pretty certain it was Neal. And of the VICEROY pages, I did the following:
1959 --10-30
1960 – 06-05 – 07-10 – 08-07 – 12-11 -- --------
1961 – 04-16 – 05-14 -- 05-21 – 06-18
Also, two 1961 DATELINE ads: 04-16 – 06-25

Incidentally, a story you may find amusing. I've not seen or spoken with Stan Lee since about 1956. And about two weeks ago, I did something I'd been  meaning to do for years: I sent him an email, re-introducing myself, included several .jpegs of artwork I'd done for him at Marvel/Timely, and said I'd love to reconnect. Next morning the phone rang. It was Stan! We had a wonderful 15 minute chat, and hope to get together soon."

In the ads below we see evidence of Schreuer, Stenzel and possibly Wexler.

The first one is the most unsure. It could be Schreuer's work, but it could just as well be an advertising artist slumming with line art.

The three Mennen ads seem to have been done by the same team. I mostly see Schreuer and Stenzel. In the first ad, the main ad looks like Scheuer's work to me and the bottom row looks like Stenzel. In the second one the roles are reversed. This time the main ad looks like Stenzel's work and the topper like Schreuer's. The third one is less obvious, but probably Schreuer and Stenzel again.

The last one is another Viceroy ad, which Mr. Scheuer commented on. Since it falls in the run he mentions as his, I am sure I can attribute this one to him too.

Adams Of Arabia

Wednesday Advertising Day.

My regular visitors will now I like newpaper comic strip ads that use or advertise movies. These two are special, because they seem to be aprt of a series and they are probably drawn by industry giant Neal Adams. I say probably, because at the time of these ads was already doing his newspaper strip Ben Casey (daily and Sunday) and his former collegue at Johnstone and Cushing Tom Scheuer had a very similar style. Still this looks like Adams' work to me - and they are fun. Since these type of ads usually appeared once every two weeks, there could be two more inbetween.