Thursday Story Strip Day.
One of these days Twomorrows will publish a new book on the life and works of Dan Spiegle. He may be best know for the Crossfire and Hollywood Superstars series he created with Mark Evanier for Eclipse in the eigthies, but he had been around for a long time by then. I hope the book will give exstended attention to his work on the cowboy newspapern strip Hopalong Cassidy he did in the early fifties. It is beautifully drawn and very nicely colored and deserves some recognition. I have been saving up samples good and bad over the last few years and would love to share a complete run. Instead, I am sharing whatever I have and hope to ad more later. I guess the strip is relatively unknown because a. cowboy strips, once all the rage, are out f fashion the last few years; b. there were comic strip versions from Fawcett and DC (by Gene Colan no less, so follow the tag to see some of those) that are more familiar and c. there might be copyright issues with the owners of the whole Hopalong franchise.
am starting here with wht I have of 1950. Only one color scan in this year, there will be more later.
Evanier praised Spiegle not only for his skill but certainly for his speed. Mark would write elaborate crowd scenes in his scripts just to keep Dan busy and try to buy some time, but Dan would knock them out as efficiently as everything else and with no effect in quality.
ReplyDeleteSpiegle's rival in being fast and good would certainly be Sergio Aragones, with whom Evanier collaborated on "Groo the Wanderer."
I was a fan of Crossfire, because of the setting and Spiegle's storytelling skills. Still, I was surprised by the mature quality of his work on Hopalong. It certainly beat the Fawcett version and even the DC version by Colan, which was always a bit too bland for me. All in all this may be the best newspaper western of it's time. The color work on the Sundays is especially stunning.
ReplyDeleteI believe Spiegle's last, or most recent, comic strip work was on the short-lived '90s revival of "Terry and the Pirates," replacing the Hildebrandt brothers.
ReplyDeleteIf he's still alive, he'd be 92 years old.
Apprently, he is still alive.
ReplyDeleteWhat always impressed me most about Dan was that he is a sweet man and a perfect gentleman. That he could look at any object and then be able to accurately draw it from any angle whatsoever was a incredible bonus. Publishing Crossfire and working with Dan (and Mark, of course) remains one of the highlights of my career.
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