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Friday, April 4, 2026

Circus Freak! And the Winner is…

We have a winner-and a few wieners who didn’t follow directions, but what the heck, some of my best friends are hot dogs! And here are the 1938 Circus The Comic Riot mystery artists revealed…

(click for a closer look

Artist #1: I think everyone got Basil Wolverton right. The funny-style Disk-Eyes the Detective strip he did in Circus was signed Dennis Langdon but this Spacehawks strip was signed by his real name. Wolverton’s very first published work was in Circus. Editor Monte Bourjailey spied this atempted newspaper syndicate submission and ran Spachawks in Circus. In the 60s Wolverton even commented on the short lived three issue comic’s quick demise: “Perhaps the format was to blame. It was 12 panels to a page, a maddening rule even for a Lilliputian stamp designer”.


(click for a closer look)

Artist #2: I thought this was gonna be a hard one and a lot of people did get it wrong but a few stalwart comic historians came through with Ed Nofziger. Ed was a cartoonist “specialist”, becoming the go to guy for cartoon animal cartoons.


(click for a closer look)

Artists #3. This was the biggest surprise for many folks. This strip is by one of the artists in Clean Cartoonists’ Dirty Drawings: Bob Kane! Some people guessed that, but because Kane was known to use many uncredited assistants on Batman they added the snide remark that he probably didn’t really draw it. But, this was before he was famous and in his primitive Big Foot style and there probably wasn’t any budget for hiring so so I’m sure this is pure Kane, Sugar!


(click for a closer look)

And who won a copy of Clean Cartoonists’ Dirty Drawings? The winner by decision of the judge (me!) is…

RODRIGO BAEZA1A!!!

(Rodrigo send me your address and your book will be on its way!)

A number of other sharp comics fans and historians got the answers right but Rodrigo was the first. I based that decision on the fact that Rodrigo was the simply first to get me the correct answers, Thanks to all that entered. The contest, alas, soon became compromised when people started posting the answers on message boards. So instead of drawing from a hat I’m just choosing Rodrigo. But, to be fair and nice to the others guessed correctly in an email or a message board, etc. send me your name if you are in that category by midnight, Tuesday night, April 8th to yoecomix(at)hotmail.com. Mark the subject line: Clean Cartoonist Second Chance. Anyone NOT following precise instructions this time is O-U-T! I WILL pull one name out of my beanie and announce the winner by the end of next week.

If you didn’t win Clean Cartoonists’ Dirty Drawings you can still order the book and Amazon has it for almost seven bucks off if you act now and you click below! See the dirty drawings of Carl Barks, Dan DeCarlo, Rube Goldberg, Jack Kirby, Dave Berg, John Severin, Bruce Timm, Adam Huges, Syd Hoff, Matt Baker, Cuck Jojes, Milton Caniff, Alex Raymond, Bob Kane, Mort Walker, Steve Ditko, Ernie Bushmiller, Charles Schulz, Dr. Seuss…69 cartoonists in all!

Didn’t win? Click here to order your own copy!


C. Yoe (in the funny papers)

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One Response to “Circus Freak! And the Winner is…”

  1. D. J. David B. Says:

    I’ve got it! The answers are Basil Wolverton, Ed Nofziger and Bob Kane. Oh crap! Was I supposed to send that in an email? Never mind.

I.T.C.H is looking forward to your thoughts. Please, no flame. Thanks!

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