Paul, Jim, Brick And Jordan

Thursday Story Strip Day.

Sometime after Elmer Wexler did the wartime strip Vic Jordan, Paul Norris took over. This was before he did Secret Agent X9 (which he only did for three months before being drafted into the army). After the war, he got the assigment to draw the Sunday Only JUngle Jim, for which he adopted a Alex aymond style rather than the Milton Caniff inspired work he had been doing up till then. In 1952 he was given Brick Bradfort for which he returned to Milton Caniff again, slowly adding touches of his own style. He was an extraordinaire artist, whose work will certainly be featured in my book on the Milt Caniff inspired artists... if it ever finds a publisher.

Norris Less

Thursday Story Strip Day.

Paul Norris artistic development was a strange one. He started in the early forties as a Caniff imitator as the third artist on Vic Jordan. In the late forties he worked for King Features, illustrating their weekly serials as well as taking over the Jungle Jim Sunday. In the latter particulary, he tried to imitate Ales Raymond's style, but he added more and more Caniff touches as he went along. By the time he took over the daily and Sunday Brick Bradford, he had found his own synthesis, which he kept going for many years. After that he worked on several King Features comic books, including Flash Gordon, where you see his own style falling to the background again. Here are some samples of all of his periods, brought togetehr because I had two color Brick Bradford Sundays.

Jungle Science Fiction

Thursday Story Strip Day.

Having shown some of Paul Norris' work from the early forties (Vic Jordan) and the late fifties (serial illustrations) let's go the whole hog and show some of his Jungle Jim Sundays and Brick Bradford dailies. When I am scanning I always doubt if I should include Jungle Jim, since artistically it is not one of the high points of comics history. But I do have a few, so I have included an uncleaned one. Brick Bradford Sundays are much rarer. Maybe I will share some of either one day. In the samples here you can see his style changing over the years.