Terry And The Cowboys

Saturday Leftover Day. 

I ama bog fan of Ray Bailey, who worked as an assistant to Milt Caniff in the early forties and went on to do two daily and Sunday newspaper strips of his own; Bruce Gentry in 1945-1950 and Tom Corbett in the early fifties. After that he returned to Caniff (in a way) by becoming the main artist on Dell's Steve Canyon comic book series (it is rumored Caniff still did the heads himself, although it is clear Bailey could do those as well). What I didn't kno, is that he did a lot more at Dell (and later WEstern), who remained his main emplyer well into the sixties, working for such titles as Turok and Boris Karloff Mysteries. I am going to get as many of those pages and stories as possible. Here is one of the earliest, a nice little western he did in 1957. In fact, he contributed two stories to this issue (the last of the series) with John Buscema doing the third. This is the second one, which I found the most impressive of the two. It was another return for Bailey, who had done a Sunday only called Vesta West for the Chicago Tribune syndicate's Comic Book in 1943, while still working for Caniff.

Oh, What A Lovely War

Sunday Surprise Day. Here are some more cartoons by Hank Barrow from a larger collecion I bought on Ebay. Most if them had the date cut off and are undated. Hank Barrow was a contemporary of Milt Caniff and Noel Sickles (who did similar political cartoons at the same time). They met at Associated Press in the thirties and early forties and worked for various features there. Barrow even took over Caniff's daily panel The Gay Thirties for a short time in the thirties. Although similar in style, Barrow never develeoped into a comic strip artist, staying with cartoons instead. In the late forties he had a delightful Sunday Feature called Things To Come, with beautifully drawn cartoons with social and scientific predictions of the future. To show how unique his style was, I have added a couple of cartoons by temporaries, wich were also included in the box I got on Ebay. All of the work mentioned above is shown elsewhere on this blog if you follow the links below.

Nervous Disposition

Saturday Leftover Day.

In the late thirties Milt Caniff and Noel Sickles collaborated on a couple of Sunday newspaper ads under the pseudonymn Paul Arthur. In fact, you can find most of them on this blog if you follow the link. Recently I came across two unsigned ads from the same time period that look oddly similar. All evidence point to them not being by Caniif and Sickles, but I am not 100% sure.

The Great Kid

Saturday Leftover Day.

I have shown many of Hank Barrow's work for Associated Press. As a cartoonist he was the equal of the other famous AP cartoonists of the thirties and forties, Mel Graff, Noel Sickles and Milton Caniff. And better than some of the others. Here is one of his few sequential pieces, even it is illustration based.

Starting Up Is Hard To Do

Thursday Confession Day.

Many times I tried to get the blog going again. After many months of intensive scanning for a new book I am doing here in Holland (and some other distractions) I finally have time again to clean up my many scans for this blog. But knowing that the pressure will be on as soon as I start up again, I keep putting it off.

So I have decided to start doing this weekly first. Lower the pressure. The posts will be phenomenal. Without the daily grind I have been able to collect the rarest and most impressive of my scans. Starting next Saturday you will be seeing new posts every week. I hope you will come by and enjoy.

For today, I have an oddity. A promotional piece by Milt Caniff for the Newspaper industry I have never seen before. I did see two similar pieces from the same period, by Virgil Partch and Mell Lazerus. I don't know if this was a paid promotion, or if some cartoonists got togetehr and decided to do this. But it sure is well done. I wonder if there are more.

Block It, Buster!

Wednesday Advertising Day.

Regular visitors know of my love for the work of Ray Bailey. A forgotten figure, the one time assistant of Milt Caniff is one of the best (and most faithfull) of the Caniff imitators in the field. He had two succesful strips of his own, Bruce Gentry and Tom Carnbett, both of which I have shown liberally. One of the rarest Bailey items to get is the 1945 information booklet Blockbusters for oil. I don't think it's because of rarity, because I see it quite often. But always, the seller wants to have a really high price for it and only showing the outside, it is a lot of money to spend on a gamble. Luckily, one seller recently photographed the insides as well, so at least you know what you are getting. Not as exciting as some of the information booklets I have seen (check my site for those of Lou Fine, Dan Barry and George Roussos), but at least it is completely in strip form. here are the photos for this seller. If I ever get it, I will show you the real thing.

Comic And Not So Comic Journalism

Wednesday Educational Day.

Here are some selected pieces from Associated Press in the late thirties and early forties. I guess, these would come as part of the package you got when you subscribed to AP's news service. They had a staff of artists and photographs that provided visuals for their stories or sometime even pure visual bits. From this pool of talent came a lot of the early realitstic artists, such as Al Capp, Milt Caniff, Noel Sickles, Mel Graff, Hank Barrow and George Wunder.