Sunday, March 31, 2013

I Caniff You Caniff

Saturday Leftover Day.

I can never get enough of George Tuska in the fifties.







Friday, March 29, 2013

A Tatch Unstringed

Friday Comic Book Day.

Sterling was a small publisher with a small output and an even smaller life span. In 1955 they published six titles (two of which were the same with a title change). Constant factor in all of those was Mike Sekowsky, who was either the packager or a good friend of the publisher. He is the only artist in every title and did just about every cover. As always, he only did the pencilling, with the inker unknown. Sekowsky was a fast and competent artist, who work from the early fourties to the eighties or nneties. His work can be rushed and formulaic, but at it's best he is a very good storyteller. Apart from doing all that comic work, he ghosted many newspaper strips as well.

Here is an ad for some of Sterling's titles, with the cover to one of the most interesting ones, the late fifties code sanetized 'hoor' book Surprise Adventues. I have always liked this cover. The biggest surprise here is the fact that there is no story related to it in the book. So with that, I have another Sekowsky story from the early fifties, that sems to fit the bill.















Thursday, March 28, 2013

Scott Of The Seven Seas

Thursday Story Strip Day.

I mentioned Walt Scott and how he took over the Sunday version of Captain Easy when Roy Crane left to do Buzz Sawyer. He doesn't do well in the history books and indeed, his version of Easy is nothing compared to Crane. But he does have a nice clean style and a great sense of design. And his girls aren't too shabby either. And at least this version is still an adventure strip. When Leslie Turner too over the Sundays (after doing only the dailies alongside Scott on the Sundays) he turned it into a sort of gag strip (very well drawn, though). I don't think Scott did these until Turner took over. His own strip The Little People started in 1952, so he couldn't have done both. As you can see, these Sundays should be seen in color, not in the crappy black and white microfiche form I have here. I have included a couple of color scans of my own, where you can see how lovely the colors were. Same goes for The Little People, by the way. I have many samples of it's fifteen year run, but very few of those work in black and white and clogged-up grey.