Big League

Thursday Comic Strip Day.

When I showed the black and white Sunday pages of Henry Lee's Biff Baker a couple of weeks ago, I realized I had to sit down and start scanning my two yera long run of Captain Easy Sundays from the mid forties, by Walt Scott. In 1943 Roy Crane left his strip to start Buz Sawyer - a strip he owned himself in contrast to the NEA owned Easy. Walt Scott had been Crane's assistant so he seeemed like the perfect guy to take over. And I think he did quite well, but (comic) history has not been kind to Scott. I have never read any history of the comics that did not ignore or even badmouth Scott's run. Of course, he had impossible competition. Raoy Crane was a a tremendous artist who influenced many others, from Superman inventor Joe Shuster to Mad and Cracked master John Severin. At the same time Scott picked up the sunday the daily was continued by Leslie Turner, who was not the comic artist Crane was (how could he be), but he may have been one of the most competent artists ever to work in the newspapers. He kept the daily strip sequence at such a high level that is remained a competitor for Crane's own Sawyer. Walt Scott, in contrast, was a solid but somewhat stiff artist. He had also worked as a pitch in artist at Associated Press and would keep doing the occasional assignment and political cartoon for them. After he left Easy in the late forties, he started his own strip Little People, which was also quite stiff but benefited from a more whisical approach. He is rightly remembered for that. To me his strength on Easy is the same as his weekness on all of his work - a great sene of design (sometimes at the cost of the animation of his characters). He also drew very pretty women and as the years on Easy went by, the writers picked up on that.

Here we see a long run of his first year of the strip, at first unsigned but his traits are clearly there. The reason
I felt I had to show this after doing Biff Baker is te fact that the same triats show up in that strip. So either Scott helped out on that strip or Henry Lee assisted him. My guess is the former, by the way.

How Did We Get Here?

Saturday Leftover Day.

I just remembered I have been saving this Thanksgiving strip for more than a year now (having forgotten to use it last year). It's by Walt Scott, a Associated Press staff artist who did a lot of special illustration series, christmas strips, political cartoons and other stuff, before taking over the Captain Easy Sunday strip in the late forties and into the early fifties and launching his own strip The Little People on the coattails of that. Scott was a very stylized artist, whose sometimes stiff artwork worked best for me in his political cartoons, he also could draw pretty women quite well, but he only got to se those in Captain Easy. And comic history (and histrians) have not been kind to him about that. Coming after Roy Crane and while Leslie Turner was doig the daily can't have helped. But as I say, his women are quire nice and as a stylized artist, his designs (and especially his colors) are always interesting. All this fell into it's place when he started doing Little People - but there the subject and the lack of humor was always a turn-off for me. One of the best things he did in my eye was the Christmas Carol adaptation he did as a Christmas strip like this one. I have shown it before, but I may repeat it this Christmas. It is similar to this one, but I likeit just a little bit better.

Enjoy the weekend, my American friends. In spite of everything.

Not So Easy But Still Easy

Thursday Story Strip Day.

Walt Scott took over the Sunday Captain Easy from Roy Crane in the late forties and continued it into the fifties, until the team that produced the daily took over the Sunday as well. His Easy has been neglected and maligned because he clearly was no Roy Crane. Then again, who is? Well, actually Leslie Turner, who took over the daily strip was the next best thing to Crane as he had been his assistant on the last few years of the strip. He actually was a very skilled artist and there are some who like his Easy as much as Crane's. Walt Scott was an NEA utility players, who was used to do political cartoons, specialty drawings and drew a lot of their special Christmas strips. He is best know for creating and drawing The Little Folk, where you can see his skill as a designer and a cartoonist. Which is all to say he was less suited to an adventure strip. Still, there are two areas he excelled at: the design of the strip, especially in the way he used color and pretty girls. In fact, the girls alone deserve him more attentio than he has had over the years. To give him the attention I think he deserves, I have bought a couple of yeras of his Sundays, which I will share when I have scanned and cleaned them. Until then, here are a couple from the end of his run in black and white and one I did myself, just to whet your appetite.