Waugh Is Mine

Sunday Double D Day. 

Some years ago I collected a whole lot of Sunday strips from the Midland Reporter Telegram. The MRT was a NEA paper, which means that they had all of the lesser known and lesser distributed strips from that syndicate, some of my favorites (and very hard to find). Unfortunately the mico-fiche scans were very bad, ranging from way too dark to far too light. Cleaning out my files, I decided to share them anyway for the unseen gems that may be among them. 

Much like Scorchy Smith NEA's avdenture strip Dickie Dare is mostly remembered for it's first artists.  Dickie Dare was started in 1933 by Milton Caniff. When he left in December 1934 to start his own strip Terry and the Pirates, the strip was given to Coulton Waugh, who continued it in a similar but very ideosyncratic style, for which he was very well known. It helped of course, that he wrote one of the first books about newspaper comics, The Comics (1947). In 1944, when he left the strip to work on Hank (1945), his wife and assistant, Odin Burvik, took over Dickie Dare in 1944–47, followed by Fran Matera (1948–49). Waugh eventually returned to the strip in 1950–58 with the 12-year-old Dickie growing up to become a Navy Cadet. And like Goode and Willard, Burvik and Metera were almost ignored for their contributions. 

Fran Matera was the very difinition of a journeyman artist. A few years ago I bough a set of late forties samples he did to get new work (probably after Waugh returned) and it showed he could do any style needed. After a meeting with Kerry Drake artist Alfred Andriola (and doing some ghost work for him), he shortly worked in comics before getting Dickie Dare. He mostly worked in a cheap and easy Milt Caniff style, which shows in his work for Dickie Dare, his short-lived strip Mr. Holiday and his ghosting jobs for Nero Wolfe (1956), Rex Morgan MD, Judge Parker and Appartment #G. He also drew the short-lived The Legend of Bruce Lee and took over the drawing (and later even writing) of Steve Roper and Nomad in 1985. In between all of this he did short stories and series for the Catholic Treasure Chest magazine.

Scorched Worth

 Sunday Cleaning Day. Some years ago I collected a whole lot of Sunday strips from the Midland Reporter Telegram. The MRT was a NEA paper, which means that they had all of the lesser known and lesser distributed strips from that syndicate, some of my favorites (and very hard to find). Unfortunately the mico-fiche scans were very bad, ranging from way too dark to far too light. Cleaning out my files, I decided to share them anyway for the unseen gems that may be among them. I am starting with the much maligned Sunday run of Scorchy Smith by Rudlow Willard. Although it is no way as impressive as Frank Robbins' run ten years earlier, it is also a lot better than Edmund Goode's run inbetween. And it is actually not badly wirtten. After Willard left in 1952, the daily and Sunday Chores were taken over by A. C. Hollingsworth in a spectaculary artful style. After a year George Tuska stepped in and continued it until he was asked to do Buck Rogers. Both runs are completely disappeared from newspaper strip history books and actually were one of the reasons I started this blog. I shared a few color samples from my own collection and managed to find more of both series. Holingsworth's is pure science fiction and spectacular. Tuska took it back to it's American Pilot roots and delivered a very tight crime/spy series in a Milt Caniff light style. The Scorchy Sundays stopped in December 1955 and I have yet to see a printed version live.