Fox-A-Week

Wednesday Advertising Day.

I showed a couple of sets of illustrations from 1953's Story-A-Day magazine, one from Mel Lazerus and one from Jack psarling. These by Gill Fox were what I actually bought the magazines for. I like his versatile style and have showed work from many phases of his career. Here he channels the then current 'modern' look of kid's illustrations.

One Sparling My Fall Makes

Wednesday Illustration Day.

Last week I showed illustration work by Mel Lazerus for the 1953 New York weekly children's magazine Story-A-Day. Or at least what I had of those issues. Today I have a similar lot, by Jack Sparling. Sparling was a capable realistic artist, whose work on the comic strip Hap Happor, I am currently showing on Thursdays. After that I will also share what I have of his second newspaper strip, Claire Voyant. Later in the fifties he did another newspaper strip called Mr. Rumbles. In between he mostly worked for some of the smaller comic ook companies, doing quick and easy work for them, concentrating on volume rather than quality. So it is nice to see him do his best in these children's stories. Like the Sundays from the forties, you can see there is a very capable artist at work here.

Peach Perfect

Wednesday Illustration Day.

Story-A-Day was a weekly kids magazine that gave you seven illustrated kids stories every issue. It seems to have been produced in New York, or at least it used some of New York's finest illustrators and comic book artists. One of them was Mel Lazarus, who wold go on to fame as the creator of Miss Peach and Momma. Kids always featured a lot in his modern cartoon drawings and the fit here is a natural. I only have a couple of these issues, but he seems to have ben in all of them.

What Fresh Mel Is This?

Monday Late Cartoon Day.

Mel Lazerus is best know for not one but two hit strips, Miss Peach and Momma. Before that, he worked as a cartoonist and for a short time in the fifties (though we must never forget that three years could never have felt like a short time at the time) he had a daly panel about kids. It was called Li'l Ones and it was.. little. Like Penauts, it was designed to get sold because it did not take in a lot of space, only even less so than Peanuts. So here are some of those short shorts, accompanied by an illustation for Story-a-Day Magazine from the mid-fifties.

Just the facts, princes.

Saturday Leftover Day.

For all the Gill Fox fans out there, I am showing a little extra piece today, I found last week in an unlikely magazine called Story-a-day from 1953. I don't know how long this magazine ran (probably not longer than a year), but is an interesting thing that seems to have attracted a lot of New York cartoonists. In this issue (Volume 1 #13) there is not only a four page story illustrated by Gill Fox, but also one with illustrations by Jack Sparling and a one-page illustrated poem by later newspaper artist Mel Lazerus. I did a bit of googling and found another one by Gill Fox online here, or at least partly so. The same issue (#15) is for sale somewhere online as well and that shows it doesn't only have Fox in it, but also fellow Boy's Life contributor Bill Walsh and the guy who took over Jeanie when Fox left it in 1953, Leon Winik. Hm... do I smell a Johnstone and Cushing connection here?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/50284559@N00/

Now I have to admit I a not a great fan of this particular style of Gill Fox. It may be because I am from 1959 myself and around the time I started reading almost all children's books were done in a style like that. Instead I turned to comic book, which I found a lot more exciting. Having said that, I must admit that Fox's take on this bloodless style is a lot more lively than any I have ever seen. But the fact remains that he wasn't the only one who used it (I have a box full of the pocket sized Children's Magazine with boring 'modern' illustrations that anyone who wants to pay for the shipping can have and Jack and Jill magazine from that period isn't a lot better). In contrast to the other website I am also showing the story, which is written by Jack Webb. Jack Webb was of course famous for writing and producing Dragnet and playing the main character Joe Friday. I have found no record of him writing children's stories, so this might be a fluke or something the biographers missed - or another Jack Webb. I hope any Dragnet fans out there will help me out.