Sunday, February 01, 2009

Associated associates

Monday Cartoon Day.

I looked and found some more political cartoons by Noel Sickles, which I actually think are great. He started doing them in late november 1936. In April 1937 they start to get less and less. Other artists pitch in, until an artist called Morris takes over. This artist and the way he signs his name is interesting to European comic fans. He signs his name the same and the same way as Lucky Luke artist Maurice the Bevere did later. De Bevere was in America with Rene Goscinny in the late forties and early fifties, when this Morris was still around. When he came back to Europe he created his cowboy hero Lucky Luke and started signing his stories Morris. Just like this American guy.

Mike Barrow was a fellow AP artist, who had won best political cartoonist prize in 1934. Around this time he also takes over Milt Caniff's The Gay Thirties panel cartoon in a style that is remarkably similar to Caniff's. The few cartoons he does this month are not bad either.

March 1 1937:


March 2 1937:


March 3 1937:


March 5 1937:


Morris, April 1 1937:


Barrow, April 2 1937:


April 5 1937:


April 8 1937:


April 10 1937:


April 19 1937:


April 22 1937:

3 comments:

fortunato said...

Morris is John Milton Morris (1907/1994), that worked as political cartoonist for Associated Press and on THE GAY THIRTIES, NEIGHBORLY NEIGHBORS e SCORCHY SMITH.

Al said...

Thank you so much! I just bought a giant two-sided original cartoon by this Morris and I was so confused as his signature is so much like the Belgian cartoonist of the same name!

Ger Apeldoorn said...

Yeah, I always thought it a coincidence that there was an AP cartoonist called John Morris as wel as it being the pseudonym of Maurice de Bevere, who lived and worked in new York from 1948 to 1954. Still, the first and original one is all over the place at AP, even doing the last months of Secret Agent X-9 before John Lewis (Bob Lubbers takes over).

But, when the Belgian Morris worked in New York, doing his weekly comic strip Lucky Luke, he used to work on both sides of his paper to save on postage. Although you would probably recognize it immediately if you had bought a double page of Lucky Luke, he also did some small cartoon and illustration work for Moustique and other magazines. Usually cartoons. Could you send me a scan or scans at geapelde@upcmail.nl. If you have found an unknown cartoon or illustration by de Bevere 1. it will eb worth a lot of money and 2. I am in contact with the people whoa re doing the art show (and recent book called l'Art de Morris) for the upcoming Angouleme comics festival and they might be interested as well.