Monday, October 31, 2011

Off To Work We Go

Monday Cartoon Day.

Alan Holtz of The Stripper's Guide call George Scarbo a 'true workhorse of the NEA Features Syndicate'. Every syndicate worth it's money had a subscription service, where you could get a whole package of stuff to fill your newspaper with: articls, columns, photo services, comics and little illustrated features. To provide allt his, these syndicates employed staffs of talented young artists. The AP syndicate was known for having All Capp, Milton Caniff, Noel Sickles and Mel Graff. I have also shown work of one of their lesser known workers, Hank Barrow. Another artist associated with them was Morris, who even did the AP strip Scorchy Smith for a short while in the early sixties. George Scarbo worked for NEA and specilized in caricatures and funny animals. He later became best know for his Sunday only comic strip The Comic Zoo and was the first artist to illustrate NEA's later famous Christmas strips. He also did lots and lots of specialty art and panels, which I am showing here.






























Sunday, October 30, 2011

The Case of the Notorious Imposter

Sunday Meskin and friends Day.

Another George Roussos episode. He seems to have taken over the series here, although here and there in the GCD sone involvement by Meskin or Robinson is sometimes noted. I am not sure. Just as I don't know if I should continue showing these lesser Roussos episodes or jump straight ahead to the remaining later Vigilante stories by Meskin.










Saturday, October 29, 2011

A Good Seeing To

Saturday Leftover Day.

The Quality books of the forties and fifties were filled with talent. Most of the attention has gone to the origin issues and the superheroes started in the early forties, but for me some of the best work is to be found in the late forties and early fifties and not in the superhero department. Artists like Alex Kotzky, Bill Ward, Gill Fox and Reed Crandell were producing work that still holds up today. And of course the two great artists/writers Jack Cole and Klaus Nordling. Each had their own style, though there were similarities. And each had a tremendous output, sometimes helped by ghosts or assistants. For the work of Jack Cole, there is the excellent blog of Paul Tumey. He showcases and anylazes the work of Plastic Man's creator like noone could and I strongly urge you to go and visit it. There is a new post on the later dark Plastic Man stories now, that really gives you some insight. As well as a couple of great stories. Some time ago, he devoted a post to a couple of Bob and Swab stories by Jack Cole. This series of short stories about two navy men, which ran in Hit Comics (I believe) was always thought to have been created by Klaus Nordling, one of a series of funny series, including Lady Luck (which he took over from others), Penn Miller and his best remembered creation The Barker. But apparently, some of the earlier unsigned ones were done by Jack Cole. And if you see them on Paul's site, there is no doubt. No more than a couple, all the others are by Klaus Nordling and they are signed.

Which brings me to todays post. Yesterday, I ran across another unsigned Bob and Swab story in another title, one of the last issues of Candy, a teen title Quality did until well into the fifties. It is not by Cole and looks remarkably like Klaus Nordling's work. But funny that he ddn't sign it, as he signed everything I have seen. My only other guess would be it's by Gill Fox.





Friday, October 28, 2011

A Small Super Package

Friday Comic Book Day.

I am not really a Superman fan and the comics of the forties usually leave me cold, but a whole unpublished Superman story for sale on Heritage is just to much for me to resist. Read it here and tell me why this was scrapped...