Not What It Seems

Tuesday Comic Strip Day.

I have shown some samples of this strip before, but if I had more, I would gladly show them all. In 1952 later comic book artist and pulp writer Lou Cameron did a shortlived series that can be seen as a precursor to the later Mad magazine. His So It Seems featured a Mad-like series of illustrations of a comic premiss every day. I don;t think he influenced anyone with this - not Harvey Kurtzman, who never actually went for this type of humor, nor Al feldstein, who did not need inspiration. In my book Behaving Madly (about the Mad magazine imitations of the late fifties) I did not have room to show this (or any of the other precursors) but I do mention it, when Mr. Cameron shows up in some of the later pardoies I did include in the book. Apparently he was very much suited to this type of work, only no one ever knew, so he only did it sporadictly. Sy Grudk, who took over from him, didn't always follow the concept to the letter, but he did keep it going into 1953, although it may actually have run shorter than I know, because some of these strips have different dates on them.