Saturday Leftover Day.
I am scanning a lot of 11971 Sunday News sections right now, so I see a lot of Dondi. And even though I like it, I don't think it is so great I need to scan every one. So I chose a good story to represent here, where Dondi meets a witch... or doesn't he? I was missing two of the Sundays, so I asked my friend Michael Vassallo (whom I know has scanned almost all of The Sunday News) to provide the two I was missing. Sadly, I asked for the wrong dates, so now I am missing only one. I'll ask him for the other and add it later.
Irwin Hasen was e pretty good artist, who got his start in the forties at DC at the time when all the artist were egging each other one to use the Milt Caniff and Noel Sickles tricks. Ales Toth was the greatest and admired, but others who joined in were Carmine Infantino, Gil Kane, Mort Meskin, Bernie Krigstein and Hasen. He did so very well and took the style to his Dondi strip, when that started in the mid fifties.
I met Hasen when he was interviewed on stage by my friend Danny Fingeroth at one of the later New York Comicon conventions (I think it was 2016). He told about the many other periods in his career, all in funny little anecdotes. A natural storyteller.
I loved reading Dondi growing up in the 1960's and '70's. The one storyline I still remember is when he was studying the U. S. Constitution, and learned that he would never be able to accomplish his goal of becoming President because he wasn't born in the USA. His adopted Dad made him feel better by telling him that, while that goal could never be reached, Dondi lived in a land of opportunity where he could become anything else he put his efforts into.
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