Showing posts with label The Gay Thirties. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Gay Thirties. Show all posts
Saturday, November 07, 2020
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.
Friday, September 13, 2019
There's An AP For That
Saturday Leftover Day.
Hank Barrow was an interesting artist, who worked at the AP bullpen like (and sometimes alongside) Milt Caniff, Mel Graf, Noel Sickles and George Wunder. I have show some of his stuff here earlier, including a long run following Milt Caniff on The Gay Thirties, many of his political cartoon from a private stash I have from 1941 to 1944 and what I consider his best solo work - the illustrations for the late forties Sundy only feature Things To Come. He also did spot illustrations and specialty pieces for AP - some of which I have show as well, but I found a couple new ones. I also cme across his obituary from 1985 and from that, some of his earliest work for a local paper in 1930.
Here are two originals for Things To Come I came across earlier this year. If there is one thing you want to take a look at in my links underneath, it's this delightful and totally forgotten feature.
Hank Barrow was an interesting artist, who worked at the AP bullpen like (and sometimes alongside) Milt Caniff, Mel Graf, Noel Sickles and George Wunder. I have show some of his stuff here earlier, including a long run following Milt Caniff on The Gay Thirties, many of his political cartoon from a private stash I have from 1941 to 1944 and what I consider his best solo work - the illustrations for the late forties Sundy only feature Things To Come. He also did spot illustrations and specialty pieces for AP - some of which I have show as well, but I found a couple new ones. I also cme across his obituary from 1985 and from that, some of his earliest work for a local paper in 1930.
Here are two originals for Things To Come I came across earlier this year. If there is one thing you want to take a look at in my links underneath, it's this delightful and totally forgotten feature.
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
Past, Present and Future
Monday Cartoon Day.
For many years Associated Press did not only provide comic strips and political cartoons with their syndication services, they also had a comic comic section of their own, the same way King Fatures had a section of their own called Puck. Of course, AP primarily was a journalistic servic, which provided articles, photos, statistical graphics and other newsrelaed items. Most of their collaborators worked from an actual bullpen, including those that did comic strips. This means that they could always get theor artists to do some incidental work. Between 1932 and 1944 artists such as Milt Caniff, Noel Sickles, Mel Graff, Hank Barrow and several others did spot illustrations for news items, short stories, kids stories and magazine features. They were also switched between their strips, although my guess is that they did that from home. I do get the impression that some of these strips (like Scorchy Smith and Patsy in Hollywood) were owned by AP, though and they were the ones who assigned the artists. That's how Hank Barrow ended up taking over Milt Caniff's panel The Gay Thirties and probably how the artist Morris took over Scorchy Smith from George Tuska in the late fifties.
Sometimes these artist broke free of the AP stronghold. Milt Caniff didn't stay long and neither did Milt Graff. George Wunder, who took over Terry Pirates from Caniff in 1946 had worked in the AP bullpen as well. But for me, one of the greatest, unknown talents from that pool was Hank Barrow. Working in a style similar to that of Caniff, but slightly more cartoonish, he first came to the fore when he took over the aforementioned Gay Thirties. He also joined Noel Sickles and Walt Scott in drawing plitical cartoons. i have shown samples of allthree, which I find more than worth looking at. I have whole stack of Barrow cartoons waiting to be scanned. But his best work, for me, can be fund in the Sunday only feature Things To Come, a half pagae collection of cartoon illustrated items about future inventions. Unlike the later (and similar Closer Than We think (which ran from the late fifties to the early sixties) Barrows future projections often were less science fiction and more social science. If an invention was mentioned, usually not the invention itself was shown, but the way it would change people's lives. That suited Barrows drawing style and the results are remarkable, you will agree.
In my whole career as a collector I have only seen one AP section in color. On the websites I use to access old newspapers I have only found two runs of Ap sections in black and white microfiche, bot of which were short runs not covering the whole fifteen year period this section was distributed. The Barrow samples I have here are all I could get from one of the sites.
For many years Associated Press did not only provide comic strips and political cartoons with their syndication services, they also had a comic comic section of their own, the same way King Fatures had a section of their own called Puck. Of course, AP primarily was a journalistic servic, which provided articles, photos, statistical graphics and other newsrelaed items. Most of their collaborators worked from an actual bullpen, including those that did comic strips. This means that they could always get theor artists to do some incidental work. Between 1932 and 1944 artists such as Milt Caniff, Noel Sickles, Mel Graff, Hank Barrow and several others did spot illustrations for news items, short stories, kids stories and magazine features. They were also switched between their strips, although my guess is that they did that from home. I do get the impression that some of these strips (like Scorchy Smith and Patsy in Hollywood) were owned by AP, though and they were the ones who assigned the artists. That's how Hank Barrow ended up taking over Milt Caniff's panel The Gay Thirties and probably how the artist Morris took over Scorchy Smith from George Tuska in the late fifties.
Sometimes these artist broke free of the AP stronghold. Milt Caniff didn't stay long and neither did Milt Graff. George Wunder, who took over Terry Pirates from Caniff in 1946 had worked in the AP bullpen as well. But for me, one of the greatest, unknown talents from that pool was Hank Barrow. Working in a style similar to that of Caniff, but slightly more cartoonish, he first came to the fore when he took over the aforementioned Gay Thirties. He also joined Noel Sickles and Walt Scott in drawing plitical cartoons. i have shown samples of allthree, which I find more than worth looking at. I have whole stack of Barrow cartoons waiting to be scanned. But his best work, for me, can be fund in the Sunday only feature Things To Come, a half pagae collection of cartoon illustrated items about future inventions. Unlike the later (and similar Closer Than We think (which ran from the late fifties to the early sixties) Barrows future projections often were less science fiction and more social science. If an invention was mentioned, usually not the invention itself was shown, but the way it would change people's lives. That suited Barrows drawing style and the results are remarkable, you will agree.
In my whole career as a collector I have only seen one AP section in color. On the websites I use to access old newspapers I have only found two runs of Ap sections in black and white microfiche, bot of which were short runs not covering the whole fifteen year period this section was distributed. The Barrow samples I have here are all I could get from one of the sites.
Monday, September 03, 2012
Oh Happy Gay
Monday Cartoon Day.
I the early thirties Milt Caniff took over Colonel Gilfeather from Al Capp, like him a AP staff artist. After a couple of months he changed it into The Gay Thirties, a gentle humor panel about bygone days. That in itself was taken over by another AP artist, Hank Barrow - who was no slouch either. Of all AP staff artists he may be the most unjustly forgotten one.
Monday Cartoon Day.
I the early thirties Milt Caniff took over Colonel Gilfeather from Al Capp, like him a AP staff artist. After a couple of months he changed it into The Gay Thirties, a gentle humor panel about bygone days. That in itself was taken over by another AP artist, Hank Barrow - who was no slouch either. Of all AP staff artists he may be the most unjustly forgotten one.
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