Saturday, October 13, 2012

 

Herriman Saturday

Saturday, March 21 1908 -- Having done cartoons and interviews with both Battling Johnson and Fireman Jim Flynn in preparation for the big match, Herriman and sportwriter H.M. Walker can't think of anything more to say about the fighters today. So, casting about for a story, their attention lights on referee Charles Eyton. Eyton is very well-regarded in L.A. boxing circles for his professionalism and neutrality, and has been the third man in the ring in all the big bouts of the past three years.

The Hen Berry 'weazel hat' sidebars are getting downright kabuki-like.

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Just a note to let you know, a lot of us count on these Herriman Saturdays as guaranteed cartoon goodness to cleanse our pallette every week. Your hard work is much appreciated!
 
Thanks Jeff!!
 
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Friday, October 12, 2012

 

Ink-Slinger Profiles: Blake Haddon


Blake Smith Haddon was born in Lebanon, Pennsylvania on January 12, 1892. His birthplace was recorded in the U.S. Army, Register of Enlistments, 1798-1914, and his birthdate was recorded in the Pennsylvania, Church and Town Records, 1708-1985, both at Ancestry.com. In the 1900 U.S. Federal Census, he was the only child of Fred and Jesse, who lived in Lebanon at 810 Chestnut Street. His father was a laundryman. He had a listing in the Lebanon Directory 1909: “Haddon Blake, laundry 1017 Cumberland h 221 S 4th.”


The 1910 census recorded Haddon in Hagerstown, Maryland at 206 Locust Street, where he boarded. His occupation was laundryman. According to the U.S. Army, Register of Enlistments, he enlisted on February 18, 1912. His description was five feet five-and-a-half inches, blue eyes and dark hair. He received an honorable discharge February 15, 1915. The Oswego Daily Palladium (New York), February 13, 1915, reported his plans.

Discharged from Army.
Corporal Haddon to Study Drawing in Boston.

Corporal Blake Haddon of Company C, Third Infantry, and well known cartoonist, will be discharged from that regiment tomorrow afternoon. Mr. Haddon will leave for his home in Lancaster, Pa., and will then leave to study his particular line of work at one of the drawing schools in Boston. Mr. Haddon’s drawings, while member of the Third Regiment, have attracted considerable and have appeared in the Palladium. It is said that he had had offers to do magazine work while in Boston and will probably accept.

He has not been found in the 1920 census. In 1930, he lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota on Tenth Street. He was a “commercial traveler” for a wholesale paper company. The Minneapolis Tribune published his Gopher Tales beginning in October 1935. His follow-up panel was recorded in the Catalog of Copyright Entries, Part 1, Group 2, Pamphlets, Etc., 1937 New Series, Volume 34, Number 11: “Haddon (Blake Smith)* Minneapolis. Badger tales— © Sept. 23, 1937: A 84589 37761”. The badger is Wisconsin’s state animal. [Badger Tales as yet unfound in any newspaper -- please let me know if you locate it -- Allan]


That panel was followed by one for Iowa. The Ogden Reporter (Iowa), July 7, 1938, announced the new feature.

Nearly everyone is acquainted with the globe-trotting Bob Ripley and daily feature of drawings regarding unusual happenings throughout the world.

Starting this week The Reporter hopes to make its readers as well acquainted with Blake Haddon who, although, not yet a globe-trotter, combines his artistic ability with authentic facts in presenting a feature entitled “Tall Corn Tales”.

This is a sketching which combines words and drawings to tell of little known and unusual facts regarding our own Hawkeye state of Iowa. The facts are all historically correct, and besides being entertaining, the feature will prove of much educational value to readers.


It also offers a means whereby Reporter readers may obtain extra pin money by submitting actual facts to Mr. Haddon who pays one dollar for each historical fact or oddity pertaining to Iowa history which he accepts for publication. Valuable documents should not be sent as he is unable to return any contributions.

Mr. Haddon has run a similar feature pertaining to Minnesota history in the Minneapolis Tribune for the past two years. Instead of giving exclusive publication rights to daily papers in this state he is giving weekly papers the opportunity of purchasing that privilege in each county. The Reporter has such publication rights in Bone county.

These and many other unusual bits of interesting information are contained in the “Tall Corn Tales” feature which starts in The Reporter this week on page two.


The Ogden Reporter (Iowa) 7/7/1938

The Iowa Recorder (Greene, Iowa), June 29, 1938, announced it would publish Tall Corn Tales beginning July 6 and continue for 26 weeks. 

In September 1940 Haddon discontinued Tall Corn Tales in favor of a new feature titled It's In The Bible, which began the first week of October.  


Progress Review (La Porte City, Iowa) 5/1/1941

Haddon was recorded, in the 1940 census, in Eau Claire, Wisconsin at 111 Emery. The cartoonist, who had two years of high school, worked at home. The Iowa Recorder, April 3, 1946 reported the addition of the Bible and yet another Haddon panel.

Two new weekly features are now appearing in this paper. “It’s in the Bible,” by Blake Haddon, is the artist’s non-sectarian portrayal of little known facts to be found between the covers of the “Good Book.” Romance, adventure, politics and statesmanship are linked with modern times and the historical past. Mr. Haddon will pay one dollar to the contributor of any Biblical item accepted by him for use in the future.

Also, by the same artist, is ”Iowa Oddities,” presenting interesting facts about people, places and things throughout the Hawkeye state in pictorial draftsmanship.

The Waterloo Daily Courier (Iowa), May 30, 1946, noted his marriage:

At Caledonia, Minn., May 25, Mrs. Claribel Hendrickson, former Decorah music teacher, and Blake Haddon head of the Midwest Newspaper Feature syndicate, LaCrosse, Wis., were married. Mrs. Haddon conducts piano classes in LaCrosse and Holmen, Wis. Haddon was formerly connected with the Minneapolis Tribune art staff.


The last evidence of It's In The Bible running is found in July 1947, and for Iowa Oddities the latest found is from October 1946, though there is indirect evidence as late a February 1947.


According to the U.S. Veterans Gravesites, Haddon passed away September 18, 1954 and was buried at Ft. Snelling National Cemetery, in Minneapolis; his rank was second lieutenant. A family tree at Ancestry.com said he died in New Richmond, Wisconsin.

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Thursday, October 11, 2012

 

Ink-Slinger Profiles: Rick Fletcher




Richard Eugene “Rick” Fletcher was born in Burlington, Iowa on June 1, 1916. His birthplace is from his National Cartoonist Society (NCS) profile, and his birthdate is from the Social Security Death Index.

In the 1920 U.S. Federal Census, he was the youngest of two sons born to Russell and Maude. They lived in Burlington, Iowa at 604 South Gunnison Street. His father was a railroad foreman. The 1925 Iowa State Census recorded him in Burlington at 418 South Leebrick Street. He was the second of three children.

The 1930 census recorded Fletcher in Burlington at 909 Garfield Avenue, where he was the second of four children. His father remained with the railroad. In the book, Dick Tracy and American Culture: Morality and Mythology, Text and Context (2003), Garyn G. Roberts wrote, “Fletcher started his career at age 18 as the one-man art department of Tri-City Star in Davenport, Iowa. He had no formal art training but learned his craft by studying art books in the public library of his native Burlington, Iowa.” The Official Nebraska Government Website has samples of Fletcher’s artwork used on flour sack puppets, “while he was an artist for the Rudy Moritz Advertising Co. in Davenport, Iowa.”

Fletcher has not been found in the 1940 census. He enlisted September 29, 1942, according to U.S. Veterans Gravesites at Ancestry.com. On his NCS profile it said, “During WW II served in the ETO in 5 campaigns with the 83d Inf[antry] Div[ision], a Bronze Star and a Captain's rating. In 1946 joined art staff of the Chicago Tribune. Studied comic strip technique under the late Carey Orr, Pulitzer Prize winner.”

Roberts said, “From 1953 to 1965, Fletcher drew the well-known historical strip ‘The Old Glory Story’ for the Tribune Syndicate….in collaboration with Athena Robbins…” According to Ron Goulart, in The Funnies: 100 Years of American Comic Strips (1995), the Tribune had the distinction of having two cartoonists named Richard Fletcher. Today’s subject is Rick Fletcher. Dick Fletcher was the artist of Jed Cooper. The
 Park Forest Star (Illinois), February 3, 1953, profiled Rick Fletcher but referred to him as Dick. 


Dick Fletcher Feature Strip Makes Debut

Along Marquette street people are pointing proudly at No. 114 as the home of Dick Fletcher, one of the creators of a feature strip which made its debut Saturday in the Chicago Tribune.

But they aren’t nearly so excited as Dick and Beverly Fletcher are themselves over the fact that the strip which has been in the making for two years has finally made its debut and has already been syndicated and placed in newspapers in Philadelphia, Boston, Seattle, Baltimore, Fort Worth, Kansas City and Brooklyn.

The strip is in color and is called “The Old Glory Story.” It is “different” in that it will give the children—and the adults—who follow it real history about the flag of this country. In Saturday’s first installment readers saw the landing of Columbus in America and the flags which he brought to these shores.



Here Two Years
Historical material for the weekly strips is gathered by Athena Robbins, a copywriter in the advertising department where Dick is an illustrator. Two years ago she came to Dick with the idea and asked him to do the art work.

Dick is 37 and, with his wife and two-year-old Kathy, has lived in Park Forest almost two years. They lived in a rental unit at 27 McCarthy road before moving to their present three-bedroom home on Marquette street.

One of those bedrooms has been converted into a studio for Dick. It is here that he works on the strip. A gate at the door keeps Kathy in hearing distance but discourages any direct “help” at the drawing board.

On Saturday night Dick and Bev went to a gathering at a friend's house where they met another couple whose son was a Cub Scout. The youngster had read the first of Dick's strips on the flag that morning and liked it so much that he had already started a scrapbook.

“That really thrilled me,” said the happy Mr. Fletcher.


The NCS profile said, “In 1963 began his 15 year association with the Dick Tracy comic strip, as Chester Gould's assistant. On Dec 26, 1977 Fletcher took over as sole artist on the strip when Chet retired. Max Collins of Muscatine Iowa does the writing….”

Roberts wrote, “…On Friday, March 11, 1983, Rick Fletcher produced his final work for Dick Tracy. The next day, he went into Memorial Hospital for McHenry County near his home in Woodstock, Illinois. On Wednesday, March 16, 1983, the greatest comics artist of guns, hardware and machinery in the history of the medium died….” The Tribune reported his death the following day and made a correction on April 3.

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Thank you for posting this about my grandfather! What a nice passage about his debut as an artist! :)

Kind regards,
Jessica Fletcher
 
1963 seems wrong, since 'Rick' was one of the names mentioned as the group of people working on Tracys filler strip for the Chic Trib, The Gravies. Indeed, on his bio page, 1961/2 is mentioned as the true date.

 
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Wednesday, October 10, 2012

 

Obscurity of the Day: Laff-a-Day






I don't know if a feature that ran for over sixty years can rightly be called an obscurity. But I'm doing it. So there. Laff-a-Day is the same sort of feature that almost every syndicate offered -- daily gag cartoons by *kaff *kaff* the greatest gag cartoonists in the world.

The idea sounds great. Your paper gets a daily gag cartoon by the same guys you see in the New Yorker, Saturday Evening Post and all those other great magazines. The only problem is that these cartoons are the ones rejected by all those great and glorious magazines. Once Cartoonist X has sent a stinker around to all the major markets, and then to the second tier markets, and then maybe some trade publications, he then stuffs it into yet another envelope and sends it off to every newspaper syndicate which runs one of these gag cartoon features (most did). Assuming that there is some vaguely discernable gag, or in the case of the really famous A-list cartoonists, some random ink blots on the paper, one of the syndicates will accept it and put it in their daily gag cartoon feature.

King Features' version was called Laff-a-Day, and it was available from January 8 1936 to sometime in 1998. For the record, that's almost 20,000 bad cartoons sold -- and probably a few funny ones that got in the mix somehow.

And just for good measure, since sometime in the 2000s specially selected cartoons from the long and illustrious history of Laff-a-Day are now included in the King Features Weekly Service package, and, at last check, Charles Brubaker found them actually running in at least one paper, Tidbits of Madison County, a free ad rag out of Tennessee.

Our samples above are all from the first year of the feature, were hand-picked for their *ahem* humorous content, and include gems by Adolph Schus, Courtney Dunkel and some 'famous cartoonists' I don't recognize. All of whom should probably dig themselves out of the grave and go on a brain-eating zombie rampage straight to my door at the thought that quite possibly their only cartoon represented on the web is one of these stinkers.

Comments:
Well, that finally explains why I never thought any of the "Laff a Day" cartoons in my local paper were funny. Not that I was losing sleep for the last thirty years wondering.
 
Didn't King had another feature called "The New Breed", which had the same concept, only with newer, unknown cartoonists?
 
Yes, they did. Edgy cartoons accepted by King after being rejected by edgy magazines presumably.

--Allan
 
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Tuesday, October 09, 2012

 

Ink-Slinger Profiles: Gilbert A. Geist



Gilbert Allan Geist was born in Pennsylvania on January 29, 1879, according to his World War I draft card. In the 1880 U.S. Federal Census, he was the third child of George and Ella. They lived in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. His father was a railroad station agent. The Pennsylvania, Church and Town Records, at Ancestry.com, said he was admitted to the Presbyterian Church of Frankford on December 6, 1895.

The 1900 census recorded the family in Philadelphia at 4659 Penn Street. Geist was the third of five children. His birth was recorded as “January 1881”. In the Milwaukee Sentinel (Wisconsin), April 23, 1944, ‘Bugs’ Baer recounted an incident between Geist and Abian “Wally” Wallgren.

...The incident raises the delicate problem of how far a dramatic critic may go. I quote one from the eminent Abian Wallgren of the West Philadelphia Porch Gazette.

Speaking of the dramatic efforts of the late Gilbert Allen [sic] Geist in the Centennial Tableaux of 1906, Prof. Abian wrote, “Mr. Geist would smell on ice. And if you took him off the ice, then the ice would smell.”

Geist challenged Wallgren to mortal combat. And there was a duel with swords at 30 paces.

Neither man was injured. Or at least not enough. Got Geist lived to become a teacher at Texas A. and M., while Wallgren became the Wally of the Stars and Stripes, circa 1917.


In 1906 Geist produced In Birdsboro for the Philadelphia Press Sunday section. After his work at various Philadelphia newspapers he moved to College Station, Texas. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, August 29, 1909, published an article on college faculty changes.

Gilbert Allen Geist, whose signature upon much of the art work in the columns of the Public Ledger of Philadelphia is familiar to the readers of that paper, is to be of the teaching force of the A. & M. college of Texas. Prof. F.E. Glesecke, who is at the head of the department of architectural engineering and drawing, has secured Mr. Geist as a teacher of drawing to succeed one of the instructors who closed his engagement with the college in June. Mr. Geist took a two years course in drawing at the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art, in Philadelphia, and spent almost a year at the Art Students' League in New York. Since finishing his school work he has been connected with the art staff of the Philadelphia North American, the Philadelphia Press and the Public Ledger and has conducted a class in drawing at the Y.M.C.A. in Philadelphia.

The 1910 census recorded him on the Texas Agriculture and Mechanical College campus, where he was a teacher. On September 12, 1918, he signed his World War I draft card. He was a professor at Texas A&M and named his mother as his nearest relative.

According to the 1920 census, Geist was a widower and lived on campus. Later that year he married Emily Kurtz Dulaney on June 24, 1920 in Seaford, Delaware. According to their marriage certificate he was living in Philadelphia and she in Seaford. Emily was 13 years his junior.

In the 1930 Census the couple lived in Bryan, Texas on South Washington Avenue. He was still teaching at A. & M. College. Texas Painters, Sculptors & Graphic Artists (2000) said: “Geist was an instructor in architecture and drawing at Texas A&M College, College Station (1910-33). His distinctive illustrations appeared in student publications of the period.….”

After retiring from Texas A&M, he returned to Philadelphia where he worked as an architect for the federal government. Geist passed away September 12, 1937 in Philadelphia, as reported in the New York Times the following day. He was buried at Fairview Cemetery in Macungie, Pennsylvania according to Roots Web.

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Monday, October 08, 2012

 

Hogan's Alley Interview with some Guy

When a new book about comics history is published, it's a cause for celebration in the Hogan's Alley offices. When such a book's author is also a Hogan's Alley writer, it’s especially exciting. The University of Michigan Press has just published "American Newspaper Comics: An Encyclopedic Reference Guide, " which is just what the title would indicate: a guide to every U.S. strip ever published, with start dates, stop dates, ghost/assistant information and more. We talked to Holtz about his wonderful new book, which will be worn and dog-eared as we use it for fact-checking and trivia, and asked him to expand on his project.  

HA: This is a tremendous book. I think cartoonists should be sworn into their contracts with one hand on it.

AH: If it means each one has to buy a copy of the book, I think I could be persuaded to favor that motion. On the other hand, I can imagine a cartoonist with a shiny new syndication contract leafing through the book and coming to the uncomfortable realization that most everything has been done before, done well, and yet in most cases failed anyway. Talk about an undiluted dose of harsh reality!  

HA: What is the genesis of the project?

AH: As a young newspaper strip collector--I'm now firmly in the middle-aged, verging on old fart, category--I was buying any old strips I could get my hands on, and I wanted to know what the heck it was I was buying. Over and over, though, I found that the strips, if they weren't acknowledged classics, were ignored entirely or the information was sketchy in the available reference books. Worse, there was a surprising amount of information that was clearly wrong. Having come to comic strips via comic books, I was used to having an excellent reference like the Overstreet guide. I saw the need to develop a reference to newspaper comics that tried to be all-inclusive. Not a price guide per se, but a reference that would say how long each feature ran, who worked on it and when, and other basic information. Twenty-five years of research later, voila! 

HA: I can't even begin to imagine the challenges involved in researching all this information. But what sort of information proved especially elusive?

AH: Oddly, the early years of the newspaper comic strip are the easiest to document. The originating newspapers, the ones that syndicated features to other papers, generally ran all the material they offered, so if you index them, you have an excellent reference to that syndicate. Provided, that is, that the newspaper microfilm record is complete, which is seldom the case. After the mid-1910s, though, syndicating newspapers rarely ran all their own offerings, so from then on you have to review many, many newspapers looking for the ones that started the feature earliest and ran it latest. It's tremendously time-consuming, and a hit-or-miss proposition. Even popular features can become very elusive near the beginning and ending of their runs. Believe it or not, I searched for decades trying to verify the generally accepted starting date of "Blondie"--finally a few years ago another researcher found the strip starting on the right date, in the Wisconsin News, of all places, and passed the information on to me.  

HA: Talk about some of your "a-ha!" moments, when you uncovered a nugget that eluded you for a long time.

AH: I think most people would consider me a complete looney if I publicly admitted to some of the thrilling moments I've had reviewing microfilm. Don't make me admit that squinting at some blurry comic strip on microfilm and finally discerning the scribbled signature of a third-rate cartoonist on a strip that was forgotten a century ago can be a red-letter day at the library. I'm afraid researching comic strips isn't like being in "The Da Vinci Code." But finding previously unknown comic strips by George Herriman, Milton Caniff and other acknowledged masters does give me an extra big thrill, just because I know that in those cases I'm not the only one who will be interested in the discovery. I suppose that some of the most memorable moments have not been while looking at microfilm--shocking, I know. Writing about old newspaper comics on my website has put me in touch with the relatives of some of my favorite early newspaper cartoonists. It is a huge thrill to talk with someone who actually knew one of these pioneering cartoonists. And they too are thrilled that someone remembers and respects the long ago work of their relative. Hearing stories about these guys, making real people out of the bylines, is amazing.  

HA: In the course of your research, did any trends become evident to you that you hadn't picked up on before, in terms of genres, demographics, etc.?

AH: I think what has amazed me most is the number of cartoonists who have managed to place features with their local newspapers. Locally produced features have long been a vibrant part of good newspapers, and that continues today. It is tremendously time-consuming for me to find and document these features, so they are frankly a thorn in my side. However, I do love them. They demonstrate that any cartoonist who has a work ethic, some talent, and can sell themselves, is able to get a newspaper slot if they really want it. It also heartens me that newspaper editors, who otherwise often seem almost hostile to comics, appreciate the value of local content in their papers. The neat thing, and aspiring cartoonists should take note, is that though business is bad for newspapers these days, that only improves them as a market for local talent--as long as you work somewhere in the free to dirt cheap zone. Editors recognize that a strip with some local flavor, or a cartoon highlighting local history, can be a significant draw. And once you're in the paper, you're building a resume, gaining experience, and generally making yourself indispensable -- a good investment in your future!  
HA: You've also done a lot of prior research into the history of the newspaper syndicates, so you went into this project with a lot of foreknowledge. Even so, did you discover anything notable about the syndicates, either those few still around or the long-forgotten ones? 

AH: Syndicate history is the black hole of comic strip research. There is so little information about the syndicates available. The trade papers for newspapers considered them little more than a necessary evil, so there's not much information there, and few syndicate people wrote memoirs. Since I consider understanding the syndication business essential to understanding newspaper comics history, it is more than a little disheartening how little I've learned in all these years. To give you an idea, there was a syndicate that existed for about 40 years called World Color Printing. They specialized mostly in pre-printed Sunday comic sections. They were a pretty major player in their day, but information is so scarce I'm still not sure of the answers to many basic questions about them. The syndicate was based in St. Louis, and I made a special research trip there in search of information. I came away with few new insights, but I did manage to find the building in which they operated. It was a two-story brick structure, probably once part of a whole row of smart brick buildings, but now standing all alone, everything once surrounding having been demolished years ago. It was now situated in the middle of a storage lot used by a chemical company, and since it held toxic chemicals it was surrounded by a tall chain link fence, topped with razor wire. I couldn't get near the building, but I could make out from a distance that above the front window, which was now boarded up, there was a concrete header engraved with the name World Color Printing in fancy newspaper script. It was a quasi-religious experience for me, or maybe like Ahab seeing Moby Dick breaching. For so long I had followed the trail of that syndicate, that to be confronted with a physical manifestation of its existence was tremendously moving. Perhaps it is best that it was behind barbed wire, because had I been able to touch the building I might well have been completely overwhelmed.  

HA: What would you cite as a strip you were previously unaware of that you consider a lost gem? 

AH: Comic strip research is a good fit for me. Because of my highly inquisitive nature, it's important to find something new and exciting on a regular basis to keep my interest fresh. So when you ask a question like that, you'll probably get a new answer every few months. I suppose the one that really blew me away recently was an incredibly obscure strip called "The Theatrical Alphabet." Don't bother looking for it in the book, it was discovered after that was put to bed. This strip ran as a five-part series in the Baltimore Herald in 1901. The series illustrates a poem about theatre-folk in the alliterative form of A is for Actor, B is for Box Seats, and so on. The poetry is pretty awful in my opinion, and the art is by a very minor cartoonist named A.Y. Hambleton. So what in the world makes it a gem? Well, it turns out that this piece of doggerel was written by none other than one of the greatest and most influential writers of the first half of 20th century, H.L. Mencken! For any reader not familiar with Mencken, whose fame I suppose has simmered down somewhat these days, a discovery like this is about on a par with finding out that Robert Frost wrote dirty limericks or Stephen King scripted Care Bears cartoons. The other nice thing about this discovery is that it was a real community effort. Cole Johnson discovered the strip and sent me scans, I identified the cartoonist, and then when I ran it on the website, a reader identified the poem as having been written by Mencken--our readers are a freakily brilliant bunch. Isn't that awesome?  

HA: As you continue your research, will owners of your book have a way to get updates or errata? 

AH: Good question, and I'm currently in a dialogue with my publisher on this exact point. We need to come up with some solution since the research still goes on. For now, I do continue to constantly post the fruits of new research on the website, but I do not post book updatesspecifically.  

HA: I know the personal sacrifices that a project like this requires. The long nights and weekends only represent the tip of the iceberg. Can you talk a bit about what you consider the toll something of this scope takes on you? Would you honestly do it again if you knew what you were getting into?

AH: Hmm...could we go back to questions about comic strips? It would by simple and convenient to blame my research work for any ills in my personal life and career, because it's certainly true that it is ridiculously time-consuming, and it sometimes causes me to stint on the attention I give to my 'real' work and relationships. However, when I start thinking that way I invariably remember that old saw, "Well, at least it keeps me out of bars." Not saying that I would become a barfly if I didn't have my newspaper research, but rather that there would surely be some other consuming passion to take up that space in my life. If I wasn't doing this, I would surely be trying to do something -- whether it was solving issues in genetic engineering or amassing the world's biggest ball of dryer lint, there would be something monumental in the works. On the other hand, when I embarked on this project twenty-five years ago I assumed that it would be completed in ten years--maybe less if I caught a few breaks. I mean, really--newspaper comics? How much research could that take? Hoo-boy. 

____________________________ 

"American Newspaper Comics: An Encyclopedic Reference Guide" is not the cheapest book, but if you're serious about comics history and getting your facts straight (and settling arguments among your fellow fans), it's indispensable. You can order it from Amazon (with a deep discount) via this link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0472117564/tag=hogansalleyma-20. HOGAN IS TWITTERING: If you'd like to receive cartooning news and the occasional cartooning-related observation from Hogan's Alley, we're HOGANMAG on Twitter. We recently began sending Twitter followers a "Today in Comics History" fact a day that has been fascinating. For example, did you know that on this date—September 28—in 1909, "Li'l Abner" creator Al Capp was born? You would know all this and more by following @Hoganmag on Twitter! Just click http://twitter.com/hoganmag. A SITE FOR SORE EYES: Our completely revamped website is proving a big hit with readers as we continue to make archival material available. Check it out at http://www.hoganmag.com. We just posted our long oral history of SpongeBob SquarePants at http://cartoonician.com/2012/09/the-oral-history-of-spongebob-squarepants/. THE BEST DOLLAR YOU'LL EVER SPEND: If you're a Kindle owner, you can now own our story of the rise and fall of the Johnstone and Cushing comics studio for just 99 cents! Check out a sample at http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Fall-Johnstone-Cushing-ebook/dp/B009AYWQ3G/. Thank you for reading. Please visit our website at http://www.hoganmag.com and our shop featuring classic comics characters at http://www.hoganshops.com.

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Sunday, October 07, 2012

 

Jim Ivey's Sunday Comics


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