Let’s start today with some dated, heavy-handed “relevance” from 1971 in which Bob Haney teamed up the Caped Crusader with the Teen Titans with great art and storytelling by the great Nick Cardy.

http://grantbridgestreet.blogspot.com/2011/01/batman-and-teen-titans-in-rebels-in.html

Here’s Pogo’s papa, Walt Kelly, showing how a master cartoonist does works with a whimsical, smile-inducing, completely wordless non-Pogo tale from a 1946 issue of Dell’s Animal Comics.

http://fourcolorshadows.blogspot.com/2011/01/elephunnies-walt-kelly-1946.html

Here’s a site where you can legally download government giveaway comics from over the years, many of which feature characters such as Pogo, Blondie, Spider-Man, Superman and Captain America!

http://contentdm.unl.edu/cdm4/browse.php?CISOROOT=/comics

Finally today, as the Comics Code withers on the vine this week, here’s the emasculated post-code version of Bob Powell’s classic “Colorama” from Harvey’s Black Cat Mystery.

http://thehorrorsofitall.blogspot.com/2011/01/colorama.html

I said elsewhere the other day that Marvel’s Master of King-Fu was the best written comic book of the seventies and here’s the proof-an excellent 1979 Doug Moench story with art by Mike Zeck and Gene Day.

http://diversionsofthegroovykind.blogspot.com/2011/01/random-reads-smoke-beads-and-blood-by.html

Here’s a full issue of Charlton Bullseye, that company’s seventies fanzine, here spotlighting two previously unpublished Ditko stories including a sixties Captain Atom story newly inked by John Byrne.

http://waffyjon.blogspot.com/2011/01/fandom-library-charlton-bullseye-2.html

20th Century Danny Boy takes an informed look at Marvel’s Kiss comics of the late seventies and uncovers some ultra-rare John Romita, Jr original concept art of the still popular rock group.

http://ohdannyboy.blogspot.com/2011/01/original-art-stories-john-romita-jrs.html

Finally today, Four Realities has up a number of fun recent posts on Sheldon Mayer’s wonderful Sugar & Spike, done in the wake of DC’s announcement that they will be finally archiving the surprising fan-favorite strip.

http://fourrealities.blogspot.com/

The Chicago scene is rapidly emerging as one of the hippest - and happiest - places for women’s indie comics. Boasting such talents as Lucy Knisley (Stop Paying Attention) and Corinne Mucha (Maiden Housefly Comics), Chicago is livening up printed comics and the web with witty, idiosyncratic, and beautifully-illustrated comics by women (and some men, too).

One of the most engaging and delightful of the Chicago artists is Sarah Becan. Her award-winning mini-comic Ouija Interviews features twee little ghostly characters telling painfully fascinating stories and spouting some rather obvious truths. These life lessons from beyond the grave are somehow made less pedantic by the ghosts’ incredulity. We sense them looking at back at us from the page, as if saying, “I mean, duh! You needed me to tell you that life is short?” Becan transfers that same talent to her web comic about food and body image. You can get your daily menus, recipes, and irony at I Think You’re Sauceome.

Meanwhile, Becan’s highly ambitious and genuinely interesting comic Shuteye eschews the often whimsical sweetness of the Chicago style in favor of a provocative, and sometimes quite dark exploration of the true nature of the dream state. Becan is expert at exploring violence without leaving her reader feeling violated. This is a rare skill, all too rare in contemporary comics.

Sarah Becan is an artist worth watching, and her Shortpants Press is a great place to do it. Not only will you find copies of Becan’s own work, but you’ll be introduced to the artists that she is watching. She is fast emerging as a leader: as artist, publisher, and promoter. We had a chance to interview her late last year, and hope you enjoy her sparkling personality as much as we do!

ITCH: What was your first comic strip/cartoon/comic?

Sarah Becan: Ok, you will laugh, but when I was about 9 years old I submitted a 4-panel comic strip to Cricket Magazine, a literary magazine for kids.

It was for a contest, and it won a prize, and got reprinted very, very small in the magazine. I can’t even remember it completely, but there was a boy, and he was fighting Captain Hook on the plank of a pirate ship, and then in the last panel it was revealed he was arguing with his swimming instructor and stubbornly refusing to dive off the diving board. It was very Calvin-and-Hobbes inspired. That was officially my first printed comic. I did some editorial and political cartooning in high school and college that I’m not very proud of, and I contributed to a few anthology projects here and there, but the first comic project that I really attacked in earnest is probably the first Ouija Interview.

ITCH: What are you reading right now?

SB: Vanessa Davis’s Make Me a Woman is my latest treasure. It’s a gorgeous book full of gorgeous drawings, very real and raw and honest. I absolutely recommend it!

ITCH: What is your guilty pleasure? At least, the one that really answers an ITCH!

SB: Oh, video games. I play Katamari and Okami and a few others, but I’m especially addicted to Persona 3 and Persona 4 from the Shin Megami Tensei series, they’re an interesting blend of high school dating simulator and monster fighting. Whenever I’m in the middle of a huge stressful project, I will find time to play, because in the game, while I may have to fight monsters, manage friendships, save the world and still take my final exams, at least I don’t have to work on that huge stressful project.

ITCH: Who was the first cartoonist/animator you met?

SB: Art Spiegelman. I saw him speak at UW Madison maybe 12 or 13 years ago. I was really impressed with how he kept lighting new cigarettes off of old ones while he was giving his talk. Afterwards I waited in line to have him sign my copy of Maus, and shyly chatted with him about wanting to draw comics too, I’m sure I was the 1000th person that night to tell him that.

ITCH: Which dead cartoonist/animator would you most like to meet?

SB: Walt Kelly, hands down. He’s why I got into comics in the first place. My grandparents collected Pogo Possum, and when I was visiting them as a child I’d hide in the closet and read them cover to cover. Obviously the subtle philosophy and politics of them were lost on me then, but Pogo can be enjoyed on so many levels.

ITCH: What would you say?

SB: I think I’d mostly just thank him profusely, and then yell at him for setting the bar so high.

ITCH: What has been the highlight of your career to date?

SB: This last SPX I was on a panel with Vanessa Davis and Gabrielle Bell, and I was a little lightheaded with excitement to be at the same table as the two of them, I admire their work so much.

ITCH: Please tell us a little about your latest project.

SB: I’ve got two main things going on right now. I’m trying to finish up my Shuteye series - I have one more story planned for it, which will loop back around to the first story, I’m writing it right now. I’m also doing an almost-daily webcomic called I Think You’re Sauceome which is part food diary, part in-depth examination of my issues with body and self-image. I’m also working on a Sauceome comics cookbook to go with it.

ITCH: Which old-time cartoon character do you most identify with?

SB: Is it bad that my first instinct is to say Churchy Lafemme from the Pogo books? He seems to vacillate wildly between boundless optimistic confidence and over-dramatic misery and insecurity, which sounds about right.

ITCH: If you could have any superpower, what would it be?

SB: Once, I told my boyfriend that I wished my superpower was being able to give cars flat tires whenever they cut me off on my bike, and he told me that my superpower could be accomplished with a nail gun.

We love hearing the news that Becan is working on the conclusion to her fascinating dream series Shuteye. We’re dancing around with excitement! Becan shows every sign of emerging as a major talent, and her work is well worth following. If you enjoy the witty travails of today’s hip and urban middle-class women, then we recommend signing up for the I Think You’re Sauceome RSS feed. If you enjoy something a little less easily-defined, yet even more engaging, check in frequently at Shortpants Press. If you’ve missed collecting Shuteye or The Ouija Interviews, now would be a good time to start tracking down the out of print stuff, and collecting the new stuff. Pay careful attention to the subtleties of Becan’s art and storytelling. In these subtleties lie the seeds of immortality. We’re sure of it!

And as always, thank you Sarah!

I was a latecomer to the illustrative art of Pat Boyette but here he is in fine form from a 1975 Charlton comic based on Hanna-Barbera’s short-lived cartoon series, Korg 70,000BC.

http://comicreadinglibrary.blogspot.com/2011/01/korg-70000-bc-3.html#more

Here’s another great comics stylist, Gil Kane, with the first of several parts of what many consider his finest moment-the 1968 magazine format graphic novel, His Name is… Savage.

http://cloud-109.blogspot.com/2011/01/gil-kane-gets-savage.html

The only Disney comic that I read as a child was Gold Key’s Super Goof, a superhero spoof starring Mickey’s traditional sidekick, Goofy. Here’s a story from his first issue as drawn by Paul Murry.

http://www.bigblogcomics.com/2011/01/super-goof-in-thief-of-zanipar.html

From Hugh Hefner’s legendary magazine, Trump, arguably the ultimate satire magazine, Bhob Stewart shares Harvey Kurtzman’s Candid Camera parody with art by Wallace Wood.

http://potrzebie.blogspot.com/2011/01/wood-chips-26-candid-camerapix.html

Next in our series on theatrical cartoons, we feature a small sampling of pages extracted from a souvenir booklet (given away? sold?) in 1911, in the B.F. Keith’s Philadelphia theatre. Benjamin Franklin Keith owned a chain of theatres in the northeast U.S., in which he featured a travelling circuit of vaudeville acts. Artist Charles Bell of the Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper, provided cartoon drawings of the acts, published both in Keith’s theatre programs, and in the Inquirer. In 1911, these cartoons were gathered into the booklet, Cartoons of Featured Acts which appeared at B.F. Keith’s Theatre, Philadelphia, Season 1910-11.

Click on the above & below pictures, to open larger versions.

The hilight for comics fans, is a depiction of Bud Fisher (below page, top right), who would stand on stage and draw and talk about his comic strip characters, Mutt & Jeff. Known as “chalk talks”, such “acts” from cartoonists — famous and not — were quite popular at this time.

Also found in the below page are: Roberty’s Dancers from the Folies Bergere (or claimed to be), Maurice Freeman, Sumiko Japanese Prima Donna (soprano of the Imperial Opera House, Tokio), Paul Dickey, song-writer/actor Gus Edwards, and Tim Cronin, who a decade earlier was a leader within the White Rats — a Vaudeville actors union fighting a syndicate of theater owners.

On the below page, we have: Walter & Georgie Lawrence, (Frank) Milton & the Delong Sisters, Linden Beckwith, Ernest Pantzes Company, the Mabelle Fonda Troupe, Wilfred Clark, and lastly, Conroy & Lemaire, a racist blackface comedy duo typical of the period.

In the next excerpt, humorist Will Rogers is the most famous performer (today) found in B.F. Keith’s booklet. Also found on this page are Mary Norman, Jos. Harts, ventriloquist Tom Edwards, Arthur Whitelaw, Irene Franklin, and the team of Alexander & Scott.

The stand-out in our final sample page, is comedienne Lillian Shaw, controversial for her then-perceived “brazen sexuality”. Other acts on this page are: (Professor) Herbert’s Dogs, Edward Abeles (star of the first filmed version of Brewster’s Millions, 1914, by Cecil B. DeMille), the Armanis, the Eight Geisha Girls, Eva Tanguay, Anna Chance, and her husband, Charley Grapewin (Uncle Charley in the 1939 version of The Wizard of OZ).

Doug Wheeler

TheatricalCartoons AsWeSeeEm AdvertisingStrips

Over at his Dojo, our old buddy Rip is serializing the chapters of one of the two great Golden Age All-Winners Squad stories spotlighting Captain America and Bucky, Miss America (no relation), The Human Torch and Toro, The Sub-Mariner and, today, the Whizzer!

http://ripjaggerdojo.blogspot.com/2011/01/all-winners-squad-part-3-destruction-in.html

Here we have a real rarity, originally published in Swank of all places, Harvey creators Sid Jacobson and Howie Post with the JFK Comic Book printed while the president was still alive in 1963.

http://hairygreeneyeball2.blogspot.com/2011/01/jfk-comic-book.html

Most people consider Brian Bolland one of the great comics cover artists of all time but originally he did quite a bot of interior work, also including this obscure DC sci-fi strip published as a backup in Madame Xanadu.

http://grantbridgestreet.blogspot.com/2011/01/fallin-down-to-heaven-by-j-m-dematteis.html

Finally today, a brief history of DC’s Phantom Stranger along with a complete reprint of the only issue featuring Neal Adams art on the main story.

http://thewarriorscomicbookden.blogspot.com/2011/01/phantom-stranger-4-there-is-laughter-in.html

It’s been a while since we’ve spotlighted Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang. So why not now?

There are LOTS of Peanuts songs (almost as many as Batman!) and we’ve selected this week’s comics tune from the Vince Guaraldi catalog. Vince is famous for “Linus & Lucy” from the score of the TV special. Here he takes Charlie Brown’s famous expression and turns it into a song. Good grief? GREAT grief, I say!

Click the link below to listen.

Oh, Good Grief! - Vince Guaraldi

One Golden Age character who always fascinated me back when I was a kid and obsessively pouring over the pages of Steranko’s History of Comics was Quality’s Uncle Sam who appeared in National Comics and eight issues of his own title Uncle Sam Quarterly. Part of it was purely a matter of optics; it’shard not to appreciate the beauty and dynamism that artist Lou Fine put into his work, especially in covers like this…

…and this…

But I was also struck by the pathos and wish fulfillment of the premise created by Will Eisner in 1940. In Sam’s first appearance,”The Coming of Uncle Sam”, young Buddy’s father is killed for speaking out against a domestic fascist group (which unfortunately has a “torn from today’s headlines” quality to it these days) called The Purple Shirts. When he cries out for someone to protect America he’s visited by Sam who after telling him “men don’t cry” (which even given the rigid gender roles of the time seems a tad heartless to me) and together they bring his father’s killer’s to justice.

Following this Sam and Buddy go off on a series of patriotic adventures which frequently put the ten year old Buddy in harm’s way in the fight against the Axis. And for kids who were too young to enlist during the war wish fulfillment couldn’t get much richer

While other star spangled heroes managed to survive well past the end of WWII Uncle Sam’s career was fairly brief, his last appearance coming in National Comics #45 in 1944.

If I had to guess I’d say at least part of the reason for his short-lived career was due to the fact that while Uncle Sam was clearly a great idea for a comic book character, the actual execution was problematic. No doubt the writers and artists had an increasingly difficult time figuring out how to create suspenseful adventures for someone who was essentially all-powerful and had no weaknesses (other than the editorially dictated blow to the back of the head which for purposes of plot convenience could temporarily incapacitate anyone this side of The Spectre). There were basically two different kinds of Uncle Sam stories; the ‘serious’ ones and those that were more wildly fantastic.

“Raiders of the Deep” drawn by Lou Fine (and according to the Grand Comic Book Database possibly written by Will Eisner) is a pretty solid example of a ‘serious’ Uncle Sam story. I’m putting ‘serious’ in quotes because while they dealt more directly with the war (and could be fairly violent even by Golden Age comic book standards) they were just as wild, frantic and kinetic as the most fantastic ones.For instance “Raiders” opens with Buddy and Uncle driving through the streets of their home (they have a home?) “Everytown” in Sam’s “ancient and ramshackle jalopy” (of course there’s no explanation why someone who was capable of bounding great distances like the 1939 Superman would need a mode of transportation, let alone this one). Sam is just enough of an authority figure to Buddy that he’s trying to get him into school but but the boy has a better idea. I’m sure like a lot of boys his age at the time he’s drawn up plans for a new kind of Navy vessel that’ll win the war; the “Bumble Boat”. And naturally Sam decides to whip up a prototype in his “workshop” (hey, if Santa has one, why not Sam?).

Then there’s ”War In Kid-Land” drawn by Mad’s Dave Berg (and possibly, according to the Grant Comic Book Database, written by Will Eisner) which is one of Sam’s more most fantastic adventures. Miners are abandoning their mines because of giant sightings (!) and seeing as how the mines were an essential defense industry FDR himself sends for Uncle Sam. While investigating Sam and Buddy find themselves in an underground civilization created by the immortal children the Pied Piper of Hamlin took to the center of the earth (which is, let’s face, an idea so good I’m aching to steal it). The kids are being terrorized by the evil giants and witches and goblins of Fairy Land and after our heroes give the giants a trashing we have this rather odd moment…

Which given their treatment of Germans and the Japanese is a pretty unusual sentiment to come across in a WWII era comic book.

For no apparent reason even the comics that focused on the adventures of a single character also had back-up features; Uncle Sam Quarterly #2 had the first and only appearance of Margo the Magician. It’s a pretty interesting take on that Golden Age staple the Mandrake the Magician imitator; like Mandrake Margo’s power derive from hypnotism but she’s just figuring out how to use her powers, putting her at a distinct disadvantage as she struggles to survive in Japanese occupied China. It’s a handsome and stylish feature written and drawn by Bill Bydem which we know because he signed his work but sadly the artist is unknown to both me and the internet

I was never a fan of Magnus, Robot Fighter but I am most definitely a fan of that series’ major artist, Tarzan‘s Russ Manning. Here’s a typically well-drawn tale from the year 1966.

http://www.goldkeystories.com/2011/01/magnus-robot-fighter-no-15-august-1966.html

Not exactly a new joke, but here we find some clever juxtapositioning of various Popeye covers over the years that makes a fairly convincing argument as to exactly what the one-eyed sailor has been smoking in that pipe all these years.

http://ripjaggerdojo.blogspot.com/2011/01/poteye-sailor-man.html

Stan Lee’s Atlas comics of the fifties often featured art from some of the best…even if they hadn’t quite reached that level yet. Here’s a whole issue of Menace from 1953 with work by Gene Colan, Russ Heath, Bill Everett and John Romita.

http://goldenagecomicbookstories.blogspot.com/2011/01/menace-6-august1953-stories-by-stan-lee.html

Finally for today, here is a nicely drawn selection of traditional “girls’ comics” from the UK in the late seventies, specifically from the 1979 Diana Annual.

http://kb-outofthisworld.blogspot.com/2011/01/british-girls-comics-diana-annual-1979.html

Last week was a big week for fans of Laurel and Hardy what with TCM having a massive marathon. Now we start this week with some rare Laurel and Hardy DC comics from the 1970′s.

http://diversionsofthegroovykind.blogspot.com/2011/01/sunday-funnies-rare-laurel-and-hardy-by.html

That last story was from the one and only DC issue but here, from a piece I posted in 2009, is the cover of what should have been the second issue, featuring Stan and Ollie meeting Superman.

http://booksteveslibrary.blogspot.com/2009/04/stan-and-ollie-meet-superman.html

Bernie Krigstein, one of comics early experimental stylists, is seen to good advantage here in one of his many post EC stories done for Stan Lee’s Atlas Comics in the late 1950′s.

http://allthingsger.blogspot.com/2011/01/panelist-saturday-leftover-day.html

Finally today, here’s Rowland Wilson, Syd Hoff and others with a selection of the almost lost art of single panel cartooning, this from a 1960 issue of the venerable Esquire.

http://themagicwhistle.blogspot.com/2011/01/got-in-argument-with-missus-last-night.html