Before my computer issues, I started a brand spanking new blog back at the beginning of the month. SHADES OF GRAY celebrates the artwork of the late comic book artist and sci-fi illustrator Gray Morrow. I was hoping to have it all painted and shiny before going public but at least I’ve got some content up. Check it out now and watch it grow in weeks to come.

http://graymorrow.blogspot.com/

This weekend is, as I’m sure you all know, Jack Benny’s birthday. It’s also Presidents Day. What you may NOT realize (especially if you’re male) is that it’s also Valentine’s Day! Here’s some handsome John Romita art from a Marvel romance comic of 1971 to remind you.

http://tencentdreams.blogspot.com/2010/02/john-romita-broken-heart-valentines.html

There is, of course, one comics blog where it’s always Valentines Day and that’s SEQUENTIAL CRUSH which this week is to be congratulated on its 100th post, a clever comparison of comic book kisses as drawn by more than a dozen artists! Happy Valentines Day, Jacque!

http://sequentialcrush.blogspot.com/2010/02/100th-post-special-kiss-test.html

Finally, this weekend also marks the start of the Winter Olympics and RIP JAGGER’S DOJO celebrates with more Charlton covers than I would have guessed possible featuring winter sports themes.

http://ripjaggerdojo.blogspot.com/2010/02/charlton-winter-olympics.html

The following three examples bring our Victorian Age Commercial Romance Ads to an end (for now). But a special sweet (non-advertising) Valentine tale awaits you tomorrow!

The below are pages from Part 3 of the 1901 edition of Barker’s Komik Picture Souvenir - a premium cartoon book sent to purchasers of various Barker’s medicinal products for humans and farm animals. Barker’s premium cartoon books first saw print in 1892, each reprinting Barker’s cartoon advertisements of the past (some dating back to the late 1870s). The annual Barker’s Illustrated Almanac, first published in 1877 (for the 1878 edition), and continuing to at least 1932, also published cartoon ads.

The artist behind Barker’s woodcut-style illustrations is unknown.

Doug Wheeler

ValentinesDay AdvertisingStrips

Harken back to the Good Old (Old, old, old) Days — the 1870s to 1890s — when America was God-Fearing, and Marriage wasn’t based on cheap values, but rather on the finest products money could buy!

First, two examples of heated romance, Free Enterprise-style…

Next, this young woman knows how capitalism works, bartering herself for a dreamy “Domestic”-brand sewing machine!

She has made a wise choice, perhaps because she read ahead, and is aware of the dangers illustrated in our final example…

…a Demonstration of how good, old-fashioned free market values defend the moral foundation of American Home & Family, against the seductive corruption of those naughty French! Take that, you shameless European harlot!

Doug Wheeler

ValentinesDay AdvertisingStrips

In honor of this week’s storms on the East Coast, we present this strip by comic artist Frank Bellew, Sr., first published in Life Magazine, on March 15, 1888.

Doug Wheeler

BellewSr NYLife

Another heroic example of Romance saved by a commercial product!

This circa 1870s fold-out comic strip giveaway promoting Jackson’s Best chewing tobacco, is suspected to be the work of comic artist Charles Jay Taylor (its art style is similar to his at this point in time). Taylor is best remembered for his later work in Puck Magazine.

If not for the Food & Drug Administration’s socialist agenda of preventing the Free Market from offering cures such as shown here and the prior two days’ posts, we would all be enriched with the benefit of a multitude of such products (while we simultaneously enrich their manufacturers, as God intended)! Why should only the Chinese be free from socialism when it comes to innovative curative products, like Enriched Baby Milk?

Read, and learn the value of an unfettered market…

Doug Wheeler

C.J. Taylor ValentinesDay AdvertisingStrips

Another week I’m told before my computer issues should be fixed but big things are happening here at ITCH and I hate to be left out so let’s try a few links today, shall we? Haven’t been to some of our favorite haunts lately. Wonder what they have going on?

Pappy is always a win and no disappointment here as his GOLDEN AGE COMICS BLOG presents a “pretty” (Pappy’s description) reprint by artist Jerry Grandenetti from FIGHT COMICS. The Eisneresque art here is a far, far cry from his highly stylized comics art from the sixties on!

http://pappysgoldenage.blogspot.com/2010/02/number-682-spy-who-me-loved.html

Speaking of “highly stylized,” our pal the Groovy Agent diverts us to a pair of Archie/Red Circle tales from the 1970′s featuring the Old Wizard, himself, artist Frank Thorne, at his most experimental!

http://diversionsofthegroovykind.blogspot.com/2010/02/random-reads-frank-thornered-circle.html

We find a little more traditional art in a couple of 1940′s tales from Quality’s SMASH COMICS, over at TEN CENT DREAMS, one of which features Eisner’s SPIRIT SECTION backup heroine, LADY LUCK, as drawn by the unsung Klaus Nordling.

http://tencentdreams.blogspot.com/2010/02/two-from-smash-comics-valentines-week.html

Finally, today (as you probably noticed above)-Dick Briefer’s well-remembered FRANKENSTEIN, here from the strip’s more serious period, in a 1953 strip described as “memorably gruesome.”

http://thehorrorsofitall.blogspot.com/2010/02/ghoul.html

Comic strip ad from 1883, artist unknown.

Installment 3 of this week’s commercialization of romance…

Doug Wheeler

TheatricalCartoons ValentinesDay AdvertisingStrips

Paint! Paint! Pant! Pant!

Love how those comic book babes in horror comics were always blond and wore red dresses (though “Anna, a peasant girl” is kinda a strawberry blond). And love the rip-off from EC’s old witch. Some nice moody panels in this tale from Uncanny Tales #24, 1954. You can’t avoid taxes or this comic story simply called…

When it comes to comic strip heroines, Daisy Mae is at the top of the heap. Not many cartoon characters can match her résumé.

In addition to her role as Li’l Abner’s love interest in the long-running comic strip, Daisy Mae has been a cover girl – not only on comic book covers but on the cover of Time magazine!

Daisy Mae’s lovely face and figure have also graced candy machines and buttons, and she has been a star of stage and screen. There’s even a Daisy Mae statue (created by Yoe Studios, the gracious hosts of this very blog).

And Daisy Mae is one of a just a handful of four-color females to have appeared on a U.S. postage stamp. Take that, Broomhilda!

Given her successful career, it’s no surprise that Daisy Mae had a song written about her. The B side of “Fire of Love,” this record dates from 1958 and was recorded by no less a star than the late Jody Reynolds (who is now enjoying his own Endless Sleep).

To listen and dance, click the link below:

Daisy Mae - Jody Reynolds