Here’s a look at DC’s licensed Bomba comic book from the sixties, easily my favorite Jack Sparling artwork.

http://ripjaggerdojo.blogspot.com/2012/04/b-is-for-bomba.html

One of my all-time favorite funny comic books, here’s Fractured Fairy Tales, based on the Jay Ward cartoon.

http://www.bigblogcomics.com/2012/04/fractured-fairy-tales-october-1962.html

Here’s a lovely gallery of the legendary cartoonist George McManus whose Bringing Up Father outlasted him to run 87 years!

http://potrzebie.blogspot.com/search/label/george%20mcmanus

Finally today, some very young and obviously enthusiastic Keith Giffen channeling his influences in some fun black and white artwork.

http://diversionsofthegroovykind.blogspot.com/2012/04/black-and-white-wednesday-witch-world.html

Just when you think you’ve heard every song related to comic books, comic strips and cartoons, along comes one you never imagined! Today’s cartoon tune is straight from Toonerville and it comes to us by trolley.

Click the link below to enjoy the Toonerville Trolley.

Toonerville Trolley - Raymond Scott

There may no longer be any urgency in pointing out the parallels between the corrupt & morally lacking present Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, and the G.O.P.’s 1884 Presidential nominee, James Blaine. But, having already dug out and scanned a large number of Blaine cartoons — including several in the twenty-two cartoon Tattooed Man series — it would be a shame not to post them.

Above, from the centerspread of the July 30th, 1884 issue of Puck magazine, He Can’t Beat His Own Record. In this cartoon by Puck founder, Joseph Keppler, Sr., Blaine is shown losing a race to his own tattooed shadow — analogous to his being losing the Presidential race (as he did) because of his record of corruption and indiscretions, the hilights of which are tattooed on his shadow.

Click on the above cartoon, to both view it in detail, and read the tattooes.

The wreaths decorating the tent in the background, have ribbons saying they are compliments of Blaine’s Wall Street Stock Manipulator backers, Jay Gould, Cyrus Field, and Russell Sage (who together were parodied as “The Three Honest Men of Wall Street” (not!))

Below, from the same July 30th, 1884 Puck issue, the editorial prose accompaniment piece for the above cartoon.

To read more about the above cartoon — and other cartoons in The Tattooed-Man series, click here to read the article, One Misdeed Evokes Another: How Political Cartoonists Used “Scandal Intertextuality” Against Presidential Candidate James G. Blaine, by Harlen Makemson of Elon University.

Doug Wheeler

ElectionComics TattooedMan NYPuck KepplerSr

Looks like we won’t be gettin a centennial re-enactment of what was probably the U.S.’s worst intra-party battle for the Presidential nomination — the 1912 fight that split the Republican Party in two. It would have been fun to watch (for Democrats), but we’ll have to be satisfied to re-live the 1912 Election, via Cartoons Magazine.

Above, from April 1912‘s title page, by cartoonist William Charles Morris, we see the late-to-join-the-race Teddy Roosevelt jealously grimacing at the larger flower bed of “delegates” being watered by happy incumbent president William Howard Taft.

Beneath, cartoons involving the intra-party fight, and how public opinion was being driven away from the G.O.P.

Click on the above & below pictures, to view the cartoons in detail, and read their captions.

Below, by Ole May and Harry J. Westerman, Democrats enjoying the show…

Doug Wheeler

ElectionComics

Back from a weekend of playing Wisconsin’s massive three-day Trivia contest (from Kentucky via long-distance) to find that legendary comics artist Tony DeZuniga, co-creator of Jonah Hex, is in a bad way and needs our help.

http://comicartcommunity.com/2012/04/tony-dezuniga-in-critical-condition/

Another Valiant Annual? Yes, another Valiant Annual, but this rather late entry features a couple of characters we haven’t dealt with yet. But I’ve got to confess that I was sold on this one as soon as I saw the cover; I literally thought, “Oh, cool, a robot!”

First up, The Prisoner of Zenga, a British robot strip with a twist. Its basic horror movie stuff; criminal Max Zerga gets his intelligence transferred into a clunky industrial looking robot (which bares a striking resemblance to Scooby Doo’s Charlie the Funland robot with a drabber color scheme) and becomes “a merciless metal monster that thrived on crime”.

Along for the ride is lab assistant Julian Caine who becomes Zerga’s “slave”, though hopefully not in the bedroom. Unfortunately Zenga never crossed paths with Robot Archie, but wouldn’t it have been cool if he had?

And because I really can’t help myself, here’s another helping of Billy Bunter, The Heaveweight Chump of Greyfriars. As stupid and single minded as Bunter could be, it’s hard to imagine him kicking “Old Qulechy” that way without expecting some kind of repercussions. Perhaps this is a sign of his psychotic break we all saw coming.

And finally here’s Sergeant Strong, another one of those British quasi-superheroes who fought evil, but did it (a) because it was their job and (b) while wearing grown-up men’s clothes. Strong was the victim of one of those scientific accidents that our early comic book astronauts were constantly having. What made Strong unique was along with being as strong as ten men he was just that heavy, which often made day to day life fairly difficult.

Awareness of damage to the environment was rather scant during the Nineteenth Century, so finding any environmental cartoons from this period, is rare. When they are found, it nearly always involves the aftermath/results of some environmental damage caused by Man.

Above, from rear cover of the February 28th, 1883 issue of Puck, comes The Lesson of the Floods, depicting how unregulated deforestation led to the flooding of towns (note the tops of buildings shown on the far left, peeking out from within the river).

Click on the picture above, to view a larger version.

The above cartoon by artist Bernhard Gillam, was created in response to the Ohio River flood of February 21st, 1883, referred to by some locals as “Noah’s Flood”. Deforestation along the Ohio River banks, had resulted in soil washing into the river, filling its bottom and tributaries, so that the minor flooding people were used to, became instead a cresting of the river at 66 feet!

Failing to take this as a lesson in proper land management, the floods occurred again the next year, reaching this time a height of 71 feet. (For the source of the above information, click here on Digger Odell).

Next, from the May 1912 issue (swiped a month early) of Cartoons Magazine, we have a page of cartoons on the Mississippi River Valley Flood of 1912, all focusing upon how a lack of forethought and investment in our environmental future — which would have cost a small amount upfront — instead now costs a large amount, thrown at the disaster, only after it has already occurred! Cartoonists above include Robert Minor, Jr. and William Charles Morris.

Click here, to find our prior Earth Day postings.

Doug Wheeler

NYPuck

Sports, which in the April 1912 issue of Cartoons Magazine, basically boils down to baseball (above), and boxing (below).

Amongst the artists of note to be found in the above baseball section, are Clare Briggs and W.A. Ireland. While below, a typically racist depiction of boxing champion Jack Johnson, who whites resented for disproving their notions of racial superiority.

Click on the above & below pictures, to view the cartoons in detail, and read their captions.

Doug Wheeler

BlackHistory Billy Ireland baseball cartoons boxing cartoons

I’ll confess that Brenda Starr was not my favorite comic strip in the Akron Beacon Journal while I was growing up; back then I found Dale Messick’s art more than a little disturbing. Usually this is where I say how foolish I was back when I was a kid but frankly I still find Dale Messick’s art a little disturbing, in a good way of course. It’s also absolutely individual and idiosyncratic; Dale Messick’s art on Brenda Starr is like nothing else — as you’ll see for yourself in adventures reprinted from a 1948 Brenda Starr comic book. On the cover she’s declared “America’s Favorite Newspaper Comic Strip”, which is demonstratively untrue and inside the text claims Brenda to be “the most beautiful girl in comics”, which is entirely subjective. But also untrue.

Every issue of Cartoons Magazine contained pages of cartoons from around the world, the April 1912 fourth issue being no exception. Today’s posting concentrates on (some) of the cartoons from Europe.

Click on the above & below pictures, to view the cartoons in detail, and read their captions.

Above, What to Let Others Overhear, by British cartoonist W.K. Haselden. Beneath, cartoons from Germany, France, Hungary, and, England (the latter via artist Lawson Wood.

Above & below, two more examples from France.

A second posting of European cartoons from the April 1912 issue will appear next week.

Doug Wheeler

Fliegende Blatter Pele Mele LeRire JournalAmusant London Sketch Emile Villemot