You'll Never Strike It, Rich

Saturday Leftover Day.

This week, John Kricfalusi linked to my Jack Kirby posts (which meant a lot of new visitors). He has given his own blog a new look and while I was rummaging around there, I found a an interview with Hank Ketcham's replacement on the Dennis the Menace Sundays that was quite interesting. In his commentary, John mentioned what he believe were some of the assistants working for Ketcham while he was still alive. Most of the names were familiar to me, but I was pleasantly surprised to see the name Bob Bugg among them. Bob Bugg was an comicly inclined illustrator who worked in a style pretty similar to that of Jack Betts, whose work I have shown here before. I don't think he worked for Johnstone and Cushing, as Betts did, but he did get a lot more magazine work than him. I often ran into Buggs work while I am looking for Betts and when they are nog signing, it can be hard to tell them apart. Next to each other there styles are different, but they are very similar. If antything, Bugg's style is more like that of Ketcham. Funny thing, it even is so in the earliest samples I have of it, from the first year of the Dennis the Menace strip. If Ketcham influenced Bugg, it was through his cartoon work. Or they may have similar starting points. Anyway, it must not have been a stretch fo Bugg to join Ketcham's staff. He may have percieved it as a letdown after many years of magazine work, but hey; a man's gotta eat.

I also think Bugg was the artist for the terrific series of Sgt. Bilko ads for Camels in 1956. I have about all of them in various papers, but like the 'Duke' Handy ads for Philip Morris by Alex Kotzky, they still have to be scanned in. So what I am showing here are three of the black and white jpg's I have from NewspaperArchive. I think you will agree, they warrant a complete collection (at least here). As for why I think these are by Bugg, look at the fingers in the fourth panel of the second one and then follow the link to the second Mort Weisinger peice he illustrated.

After that two unsigned pieces from This Week, a fluffy magazine insert in Sunday Comics in the style of today's Parade Magazine. Hank Ketcham and Mort Walker drew cartoons for This Week, Jack Betts turns up as illustrator. But these two are typically by Bugg.

Plugging A Hole In The Bugg

Wednesday Advertising Day.

Last December I uploaded all I had of Bob Bugg's series of ads for Camels featuring Sgt. Bilko. Since then I found one more and a couple of Camels ads Buggs drew before taking on Bilko. These are possibly the best newspaper strip ads from the late fifties. Not only are they delightfully drawn in Bugg's unique style, but they also feature some spot on caricatures. If you haven't seen the December post, I urge you to have a look. After this he did another series for Weston, which are quite remarkable as well. And I found and added another one.

A Bugg In A Rug

Wednesday Advertising Day.

Monday I said that that day's subject Bob Bugg never had a strip of his own. But he almost sort ofdid, actually. And I have shown some of those earlier. In the late fifties he did a two weekly Sergeant Bilko strip for Camels cigarettes. I have almost the complete run of those and one say I will get around to scanning them all in and making a complete run of it here. For now you will have to do with just a couple more. If you like them, you can follow the tag to see others. Including one in black and white that I have in color here. The one tier version sis a new oddity that I had never seen before. I don't know if it was a cut down version of a normal one or especially made. My guess is the former.

Camels apparently used an advertising agency that liked doing newspaper comic ads. Their run of ads from the earlier fifties with celebrity endorsements is famous and I have a couple more of those as well. Again, their are more if you follow the link.

Inbetween those two series, in the mid-fifties, they did a short run of a more comical series drawn by Dik Browne (with or without help of Gill Fox). These represent some of Browne's funniest and best drawn advertising work and seemed to have gone on even after he started Hi and Lois and 'left' advertising. Again, there is more in previous posts.

Puff The Magic Advertising Tool

Wednesday Advertising Day.

I think I first became a fan os Bob Bugg's work when I came across his Sgt. Bilko Camels ads. They were one of the first series i actively collected and I am proud to say I think I got all of them (which you can see if you follow the link). Imagine my surprise when I found that he did another cigarette ad series, this time for Winston's (also from Reynolds, the coigarette company that cares about comic advertising). I showed as many of those as I can, resorting to poorer black and white copies from online sources to get a complete as possible. So now I have not only found two more of my own, I also found out that the I Love Comix site, who do what I do (share comic Sunday comic strips) in a more organized fashion. I have linked to them before and noted that they sometimes use my scans as well. All for the greater good. So I went back and copied what I have of Bob Bugg's 'other' cigerette series, a delightful satirical set and added the new ones to form a new 'compelte' set.

Lifestye Advise

Wednesday Illustration Day.

I first became aware of Bob Bugg when I realized he was the artist of the extremely funny Sgt. Bilko series of ads for Camel in the late fifties, most of which I have shown in an earlier post. He worked mainly as an illustrator in the fifties. I like his open style, which reminds me of the work of Hank Ketcham. I guess they shared the same influences. From somehwere in 1954 he started illustrating the columns of E. V. Durlng for the King Features produced Sunday Pictorial Review, a weekly newspaper section filled with gags, articles, stories.... and illustrated columns. Famous contributors to thoese columns were people such as Virgil Partch, Otto Soglow, Milt Gross, Colin Allen, Ralph Stein and of course Bob Bugg. I have a set of self made scans and a couple from Google News Search, which are just for the illustrations.

Bob In The Breeze

Saturday Leftover Day.

At the Ohio State library I came across a Bob Bugg ad which I photographec and spend some time on to (sort of) correct it. Follow the link for more of Bob Bugg surprising advertising career.

Would You Walk A Mile For This Man?

Wednesday Advertising Day.



One of the goals I set myself when I started this blog, was to show and collect as many of the Sgt. Bilko ads for Camel from the late fifties. I did not know then, that the artist was Bob Bugg. Research and comparison has since made that clear to me> I have also shown a few samples of an earlier series he did for the same tobacco company (but a different brand), which was just as impressise and irreverant. But the Sgt. Bilko series was a great succes. It ran for over a year, with new ads appearing every two weeks. I can't think of a better way to tie in the main character of 'your' television show with your brand. These days, they would call it perfect synergy. But everything comes together here. Phil Silver's wonderful character couldn't be more suited to the selling aspect of these ads. Because the tobacco company also sponsored the show, Silver's posed for photo's wuth a cigarette in his mouth, which were used for the lower portion of the ad. I consider it the high point of fifties comic book ads, together with Alex Kotzky's "Duke" Handy (which I will also try and show in full). What we have here is nowhere near a complete run, but it is everyting I have for the first year. If the frequency was indeed every two weeks, I may be missing four of the first 18 ads. One is a weird interlude, a Bilko-less ad also drawn by Bugg on the same schedule. What happened there? I am also not sure if the three one tier ads I have were shortened versions of a longer one. But for now, enjoy. There will be more.