Fun and Elephants

Friday Comic Book Day.

Today a couple more pieces by Irv Spector, which were sent to me by his son. The first is a cover and two pages from 3d Features Jet Pup. I don'[t know if there are any more pages bu Spector in this book, but I don't think they were drawn aspecially for 3d. The figure on the right on the cover is his, surely. The others could be by another artist.





This Spenser Spook cover is from Giggle #97, which makes me curious about Giggle #98:


And finally, like last week, I want to end this with some work by Walt Kelly. Several people have noted the resemblence between Spector's work at this time and that of Kelly. Next week I want to try and show some of Howie Post's stuff, another artist who waas influenced by Kelly in some phases of his career. As you can see, Kelly's own comic book work was a lot less polished than his work on Pogo. But it also gave him more room to created stroyboard-like sequences full of action. THis rarely seen sample is from Animal Comics #22, which makes it from before Pogo's succes as a newspaper strip.

Some more Spector Speculation

Saturday Leftover Day.

Easy day for me as all the images are grabbed from the internet. Some are no longer available, though.

Over at John Kricfalkusi's blog some readers mentioned how much Irv Spector's style in the mid fifties looked like Walt Kelly's. The similarity is extra clear when you compare Spector's comic book work to Wlat Kelly's comic book work. I think both have their roots in solid animation principles and experience, but there are differences.

First off, let me show you another iggle Comics cover that could be by Spector. His son Paul mentioned that the cover of Giggle #96 was by his father. This one from #98 is less clearly so. The inking line is there.... but the characters and poses are not familiar to me.



In the same issue is another spenser Spook stoy, which does not seem to have been drawn by Spector, but rather by the regular Spenser Spook artist, whoever that may be. Is there anyone who can help me with that?



Here's another Spenser Spook splash from Giggle #94, also not by Spector.



Paul Spector has been showcasing the animation work of his father over at another blog. Try the link to Michaeel Sporn's blog and scroll down for some of Spector's storyboard from his work in the sixties for Famous Studio's and some cartoons of his period in the Signal Corps by cartoonist Cobean. Somewhere along that, there are also some cartoons Spector did when he was working on Chuck Jones' animation special about Pogo. Here are two of those images from that source.





And now for the real thing. A Pogo story from Pogo Comics #9 in 1952. As you can see, Walt Kelly spend a lot less time with these comic book stories than he did on his newspaper strip. That mkaes them more cartoony and fast. Lots of delicious slapstick, which he didn't always get to use in the newspapers. For those of you who though Spector's multi-panel house on the onepager Osh was special, have a look at the two panel tree Kelly draws. And it wasn't the first time he did that either. I'd say it's a case of great minds thinking alike. Pogo comics is one of the things that has come down in price with the advent of e-bay. These were books that were well sold, so they turn up regularely on e-bay, just as old Mad's and Playboys hardly cost anything these days. I want to start selling some of my surplus stuff on this blog at some point. If there are any takers, I could offer a complete set of Pogo comiccs (including the earlier Four Color books) on cd at a reasonable price.

Irving's Spectres

Friday Comic Book Day.

This week I got an issue of Giggle comics in the mail, that I believe has a Irving Spector cover. It's #99 and I am showing it here with the first Spencer Spook story, which I believe to be by him as well. Spenser Spook was a regular feature of Giggle comics, which took over the book somewhere around this time. The strip was usually drawn by other artists. In fact, the issues directly surrounding it are downloadable from Goldenagecomics.co.uk and the Spenser Spook stories in those are clearly by different artists, probably Dan Gordon and someone else. There are two reasons I think this six page story might be by Spector. First I seem to recall his son Paul telling me or somewhere online that his father worked on Spenser Spook. Still, he could have been talking about the covers only. Secondly, I think the style is really a lot like that of Googy. There were more artists working in the faux Kelly style at that point. But Spector had a loose inking style, that none of the others can match. There's something about that light feathering of the shadow parts that seems to stand out to me. Also, if Dan Gordon had drawn this, the eyes and teeth of the characters would have been different.

Either way, it's a lovely story to have a look at. For those of you who are interested in composition, have a look at those appearing and disappearing pots and chairs and paintings on the wall. The artist uses anything he can to frame the characters in his story, not minding how the same floor or wall on the same page was drawn. The result is silly and inconsistent, but it makes for some fast reading.