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John Held, Jr.’s “Civilization’s Progress”
A look at John Held, Jr.'s "Civilization's Progress", from Liberty magazine in 1931 and 1932.
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George Lichty: The Slingiest Ink-Slinger of ‘em All!
A look at the ink-slinging goodness of George Lichty
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Jay Irving’s Willie Doodle, 1946 Promotional Book
A look at a 1946 "Willie Doodle" comic strip promotional book.
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Milton Caniff’s Master Class II – The First Steve Canyon Sunday Page – January 19, 1947
A brief analysis of Milton Caniff's brilliant introductory Steve Canyon Sunday page from January 19, 1947.
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Ralph Bakshi: Construction of an Ink Slinger
A look at Ralph Bakshi's recent studio work from 2023.
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Sundays In The Funnies With Bud
A look at Bud Blake's wonderful Tiger Sunday pages.
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Gaar Williams: The Indiana Ink-Slinger
The life and comic strip artwork of Gaar Williams.
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Milton Caniff’s Master Class – The Final Terry and The Pirates Sunday Page – December 29, 1946
A look at Milton Caniff's final Terry and the Pirates Sunday page.
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Pen Bites Man: The Inkslinging Virtuosity of Edward Sorel
A look at Edward Sorel's memoir "Profusely Illustrated", as well as work from his illustration career.
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Noel Sickles’ “Bud’s Meaco Comics”!
A look at Noel Sickles' first professional comic strip work, done years before Scorchy Smith.
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Russ Johnson Sells a Gag
Russ Johnson sells a gag in MIster Oswald, his classic hardware store comic strip.
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Mal Eaton’s Scratchy Big Feet
Mal (short for Malcolm) Eaton (1902-1974) was a New York-based cartoonist who was the artistic second cousin (three times removed) from the great T.S. Sullivant. While Eaton did not have the anthropomorphic chops of Sullivant, he did share a sense of wonderful stop animation-like figure movement, as well as that lively, scratchy pen line that both artists employed. Eaton was not a cartoonist of great renown. His most well-known newspaper feature was Peter Piltdown, which took place during the civilization of the Ice Age people, more commonly referred to as cavemen. The strip featured the main character Peter, Inna-Minnie, and my personal favorite Pookie, who dressed in a plaid one-piece…
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Bully For Edwina Dumm!
Edwina Dumm (1893-1990) remains one of the great unheralded ink-slingers of the 20th century. Edwina, as she signed her work, was doing some of the most beautiful drawings found on the comic strip page from the early 1920s through the 1930s. The line quality found in her Cap Stubbs comic strip was full of thick and thin bounciness, which helped convey the wonderful action in her strips. In addition to the quality of the line work was Edwina’s wonderful figure drawings. It didn’t matter if they were humans or animals. Edwina’s figures moved effortlessly in an animated fashion, combining a beautiful sense of realistic movement in comic strip bodies. So…
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George Clark’s WWII Neighbors
I’ve written about George Clark’s wonderful artwork previously, in my long-defunct Inkmunk blog. Clark remains one of the great cartoonists of the mid-20th century. He also remains a woefully underrated great cartoonist. There are a host of reasons why an artist falls into the underrated category. In short, Clark’s two main daily features, Side Glances (1928-1939) and The Neighbors (1939-1974), did not have reoccurring characters, which can result in less of a connection with the audience who never has a chance to develop an ongoing relationship with any specific characters. We’ve seen a similar situation with TAD Dorgan’s Indoor Sports and Outdoor Sports panels, as well as many of Clare…
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Roughing It With Bud Blake
I grew up in central New Jersey. Kendall Park to be exact. Our circle of family friends were largely transplanted New York Jews from Brooklyn and the Bronx. This was a vibrant group of opinionated story and joke tellers who could laugh and argue with the best of them. Many, if not most of the circle of friends, were natural performers for whom the spotlight was never bright or large enough. Some of them, including my father, appeared in amateur stage productions over the years, but most of those took place before I was cognizant of what was going on. But what I was aware of were the productions that…
Odd thoughts, observations, meditations and meanderings about comic, cartoon and illustration artwork
