Now universally recognized as one of the great caricaturists of the 20th century, one forgets just how much product that Mort Drucker has turned out over five plus decades. It’s all good. Here’s Mad’s Easy Rider spoof.

http://grantbridgestreet.blogspot.com/2010/09/sleazy-riders-by-larry-siegel-and-mort.html

Terry Beatty shows us some of little-remembered artist Jimmy Thompson’s Heavens to Betsy (as well as a little of his Robotman) over at Scary Terry’s Blog.

http://terrybeatty.blogspot.com/2010/09/forgotten-cartoonists-jimmy-thompson.html

Here’s a cover gallery for the first nine issues of National Lampoon, the once influential magazine  showcase for some amazing comics parodies as well as some amazing comics by the likes of Vaughn Bode, Shary Fleniken, Ralph Reese, Gahan Wilson and Jeff Jones.

http://thewarriorscomicbookden.blogspot.com/2010/08/national-lampoon-1-9-1970.html

Finally today, here’s a complete story from the great Lou Fine’s late fifties-early sixties newspaper strip Adam Ames, a soap opera strip with a mystery bent and some of the most realistic strip art of its day.

http://allthingsger.blogspot.com/2010/09/is-there-anything-finer-thursday-story.html

For our third Back-to-School installment of comics created by college students, we return to Ohio State, home of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, to take a peek at some of the cartoons that Ireland did while at OSU. Below, the cover from two copies of his 1909 collection, Teck Haskins at “Ohio State” (Also “Towser” — his dog). The book had a quilted cloth cover, atop which was pasted a sticker with Ireland’s cover art. Ignoring that the quit pattern differs on the examples shown (and possibly varies on every copy), the slight difference in book dimensions, plus the color of the ink on the pasted cover art – to match the quilt color — indicates these are different printings. Which is earlier, I have no idea. (Perhaps the 35 cent price on the left-hand copy, versus absence of price on the right-hand copy, offers a clue.)

Click on any picture to enlarge it.

Following, W.A. Ireland’s introduction to Teck Haskins, plus the opening cartoon showing Teck (and Towser) headed to college. 

Living the college life…

Below, what Teck became best known as — a rabid Ohio State football fanatic. The majority of cartoons and humor in Teck Haskins at “Ohio State” involve his devotion to team & game (becoming ridiculously extreme further in). 

Teck Haskins at “Ohio State” was published by Lea-Mar Press of Columbus, Ohio. Below, Ireland gives his publisher a plug, redrawing their faces from photographs as per the style of As We See ‘Em caricature books of the era.   

W.A. Ireland’s second published collection of Teck, had a baseball-angle, so we’ll see him again in another month, during the World Series. 

Meanwhile next Monday, we’ll close (this year’s) Back-to-School theme, with excerpts from a second 1850 comic book. Click Here to find the prior two weeks’ postings of college student comics.  

Doug Wheeler

CollegeComics

I realize it’s a little disappointing to hear a semi-professional know-it-all such as myself but I really don’t know nearly enough about Golden Age Canadian comic books to write intelligently about them.  Mostly I would  just regurgitate what I’ve learned online, so if this subject is of any interest to any of you (and it really is an interesting little nugget of comic book history that’s not written about nearly enough)  I suggest that you do what I did, Google, Bing and even check  out poor maligned Wikipedia  (the lazy writer’s friend).

I also haven’t read nearly enough Golden Age Canadian comic books; for most of my life they’ve been unavailable, and not a “currently out of print” or a “it’s only a matter of time until somebody comes out with high ticket collection of reprints” kind of unavailable.  I mean a  rock hard “oh, there’s no chance you’re ever going to see any of these” kind of unavailable.  They were just too old and rare and (let’s face it) weird for the American market.

But thanks to the miracle that is the internet (and if any of you want to say otherwise I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to step outside) I’ve been picking up some issues here and there and though some of them are remarkably primitive  (even by American Golden Age comic book standards), there’s some wonderful material in them.

Like JOHNNY CANUCK, created by Leo Bachle when he was only fifteen (something you really need to keep in mind when you read this story).  I don’t suppose Johnny is really all that much different from any number of the  two-fisted adventurers that prowled the back pages of ACTION and MARVEL MYSTERY. And though it could be as ham fisted and flat footed as anything else published back in the Golden Age  it was also weird and wild and odd and earnest.  Mostly thought it was earnest, it had earnestness in abundance.  It was as earnest as all get out.

That’s what I think anyway.  It was only a matter of time until someone woke up and revived some of these characters and happily that’s happening in the upcoming Moonstone title NORTH GUARD.  The guy in charge is Ty Templeton who is (a) brilliant and (b) Canadian (his comic STIG’S INFERNO is available for absolutely free online viewing at his website; go read it right now) so I have high hopes.  There’s part of me that’s still a little amazed Roy Thomas never put in legally non-actionable versions of some of the Golden Age Canadian characters into one of his many WWII era comics.  Which is a shame since it would have nice seeing JOHNNY HAZARD artist Frank Robbins try his hand at this (sometimes) aviator hero during his run on THE INVADERS.

So, as a special request for Stephen DeStefano I present the very first appearance of JOHNNY CANUCK.

Click on any picture, to enlarge it.

This being Labor Day, I’ve bumped our Back-to-School entry to tomorrow, to today present, in its entirety, the 1927 published pamphlet, The case of Sacco and Vanzetti in Cartoons from The Daily Worker. Above, are the publication’s front cover and introduction.

The case of Sacco and Vanzetti collects cartoons by artist Fred Ellis, which had appeared that year in the American Communist Party publication, The Daily Worker.

Back in the early days of the Labor Movement, when companies openly — and with the support of the police & elected officials — hired thugs to beat, shoot, and murder striking workers and strike leaders, the communist party was a part of the labor union movement, and the unions welcomed them. (Ironically for the Communist Party, by providing an alternate means for workers to negotiate with company owners, organized unions helped deflect the U.S. masses from heading down far more radical paths (such as communism and fascism), which several other nations slid into during Great Depression I.)

In the below August 2nd, 1927 Daily Worker cartoon, titled “Gentlemen of the Committee, This is the Evidence”, Ellis illustrates the widespread contention that evidence supporting Nicola Sacco’s and Bartolomeo Vanzetti’s innocence was deliberately being ignored (they were accused of a double-murder and robbery) — and, that the two were instead, in truth, on trial because of their politics.

Italian immigrants Sacco & Vanzetti’s case, additionally touched on the issue of immigrant labor (a hot topic still today!). Involved in attempting to stay their executions, and prove their innocence, was the ILD (International Labor Defense).

Not to diminish the subject, but I do have to comment here — I have to wonder if the below two 1927 cartoons (in which Ellis compares Sacco & Vanzetti’s Massachusetts ordeal, to the Salem Witch Trials), might not have been seen by some of E.C. Comics’ artists, and served as an inspiration (conscious or not) for Tales from the Crypt’s Crypt Keeper.

Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were executed on August 23rd, 1927. Click on Nicola Sacco’s final letter to his son, to read it, hear the letter set to song by Pete Seeger, and read some more concerning the case. Fifty years later, on August 23rd, 1977, the governor of Massachusetts declared August 23 as Sacco/Vanzetti Memorial Day, stating that they had been unfairly tried and convicted and that “any disgrace should be forever removed from their names.” (Find this in the above link.)

Ten years after Sacco & Vanzetti’s executions, the controversy concerning their treatment erupted again, over the representation of their trial in the Works Progress Administration’s Guide to Massachusetts (which would have preferred the issue buried & forgotten). Read Christine Bold’s article in the Massachusetts Historical Review (Volume 5, 2003) to learn more.

Click here to find prior Super I.T.C.H. posts involving historical cartoon depictions of Corporate/Capitalist Malfeasance and/or Labor issues.

Doug Wheeler

financial reform

The seventies Marvel team of Doug Moench and Paul Gulacy re-teamed for “Blood on Black Satin” at Warren. A cut above the usual Eerie fare, it was later reprinted as a one-shot from Eclipse.

http://grantbridgestreet.blogspot.com/2010/09/blood-on-black-satin.html

Sequential Crush presents a nicely illustrated piece on Art Saaf, one of those DC artists who turned up from time to time in seventies superhero tales but more often than not toiled in the anonymous kingdom of romance comics.

http://sequentialcrush.blogspot.com/2010/09/artist-spotlight-art-saaf.html

Here’s a late period tale of Lois Lane from Superman Family in the mid-seventies, particularly notable for not having the big blue boy scout boyfriend appear at all!

http://gayforloislane.blogspot.com/2010/08/lois-in-cat-suit-enough-said.html

Finally today, we here at I.T.C.H. heartily congratulate our Guru and his muse and missus on their latest publication, Griffin D.A.N. Yoe, and we’re joined by hundreds across the blogosphere including The Big Blog of Kids’ Comics which serves up a special comic for the newest li’l ITCHer!

http://www.bigblogcomics.com/2010/09/little-archie-in-moon-muddle-post-for.html

SKY ROCKET COMICS #1 has a very Golden Age sounding title, a striking, albeit gruesome and racist cover and two features of interest.

The first, ALIAS THE DRAGON is about your basic entry level costumed crime fighter with a fire gun named The Dragon.  Yes people, there actually was a Golden Age Dragon, something that even Eric Larson, the creator of The Savage Dragon didn’t know.  He hasn’t said anything since I brought it to his attention but knowing Larson as I do (from, you know, reading every single issue of SAVAGE DRAGON) it’s probably only a matter of time until his Dragon and this Dragon meet.

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And the second, Doctor Vampire, a guy who went around killing vampires for a living who decided to name himself after the very thing he hates. I mean, seriously, he’s renamed himself “Vampire”, he answers to the name, “Vampire”.  Anytime someone says “Vampire!” he doesn’t know if it’s in the sense of  ”Um, I just spotted a vampire down by the pool house” or “Excuse me, Vampire, do you prefer, Manhattan or New England Clam Chowder?”

Wow; I literally could not make this up.

Dan Flagg was a newspaper strip set during the Vietnam War era and created by Don Sherwood, an artist with a most impressive signature but who seemed to use a bit too much photo reference. I never realized the character was used in backup stories at Charlton, though.

http://www.thecharltonstory.com/2010/08/don-sherwoods-dan-flagg.html

Here’s an interesting essay about some controversy and bad blood between artists Howard Nostrand and Bob Powell, illustrated with a whole bunch of samples from the Bat Masterson newspaper strip.

http://allthingsger.blogspot.com/2010/09/badmouths-of-west-thursday-story-strip.html

Here’s the second (of three) parts of a beautiful Carl Barks storyboarded penciled “script” for one of his final actual comics works, for Gold Key’s Junior Woodchucks title in the 1970’s.

http://sekvenskonst.blogspot.com/2010/09/where-theres-smoke-part-ii.html

Speaking of Gold Key, around that same time they had an adaptation of the popular horror soap opera, Dark Shadows. While it wasn’t the most faithful adaptation ever, Joe Certa’s art gave it a style all its own and the series outlasted its TV version by several years.

http://www.goldkeystories.com/2010/09/dark-shadows-creatures-in-torment.html

In 1906, Latonia, Kentucky–a smallish area of Northern Kentucky even now, just South of Cincinnati, Ohio–was apparently quite the hotbed of drinking and gambling and Sunday carousing! Here we have a trio of editorial cartoons from the local newspaper, the Kentucky Post. Although quite stylish and lovely and even signed, I’m afraid I don’t know who the artist was. Based on context, however, as well as the fact that he throws in a little book censorship, I believe the point of these is that, in his opinion, the bluenoses in power were overreacting juuuuuuuust a tad.

These were reprinted in NORTHERN KENTUCKY HERITAGE in 1994.

For our second week of comics published by college students — in honor of the Back-to-School Season — we present the circa 1850 sequential comic book, The College Experiences of Ichabod Academicus, by Yale University student William T. Peters.

Peters structured Ichabod Academicus into four chapters, covering his four years of college. This being our first presentation of Ichabod, the below is his Freshman Year. Ichabod’s format & layout is patterned after that of Swiss graphic novelist Rodolphe Töpffer, while Peter’s art style appears influenced by French cartoonists such as Cham (who got his start copying Töpffer comics) and Daumier. Enjoy!

Click on any picture, to open an enlarged version.

Chapter Two (Sophomore Year) of The College Experiences of Ichabod Academicus, will be presented next year at this time! Slightly sooner – next week — we’ll present some of Billy Ireland’s Teck cartoons, published while he was at OSU. Click on Sidney Wells’ “Life at College”, 1922-24 to view last week’s Back-to-School entry.

Doug Wheeler

CollegeComics

We start today with a typically surreal silver age Superboy story. In this one, with art by the feature’s longtime artist George Papp, young Clark acts out his jealousy issues of his alter ego with a life-sized puppet!

http://johnglenntaylor.blogspot.com/2010/08/schizophrenic-superboy.html

After I was lucky enough to appear opposite the original radio Henry Aldrich (Ezra Stone) in an episode re-creation in the early 1990’s (as Homer Brown), I started collecting the Henry Aldrich comics from Dell and found the work of Bill Williams to be delightful. Here, Stanley Stories detects the possible input of John Stanley in an Aldrich story!

http://stanleystories.blogspot.com/2010/08/i-think-this-is-stanleys-work-from.html

Back to DC for part one of a 1970’s Batgirl back-up story written by Frank Robbins and showcasing some slambang layouts by Gil Kane given a particularly polished finish by Murphy Anderson.

http://www.kingdomkane.com/2010/08/clue-seven-foot-tall.html

I’ve long had a soft spot for the Mad imitations of the 1950’s and here we have the first one I ever actually saw, Riot # 4 from Atlas (Marvel) featuring the art of Joe Maneely and Archie legend Dan DeCarlo.

http://themagicwhistle.blogspot.com/2010/08/riot-4-1-of-3.html