Nemo #7: Eugene "Zim" Zimmerman and more Allen Saunders

"Nemo: the Classic Comics Library" #7 from 1984 draws it's 1st anniversary issue to a close with a couple of it's continuing features that kept me coming back for more!

First in "Penmen of the Past" they highlight the work of Eugene "Zim" Zimmerman. One of the young upstarts who took to the new technology of print reproduction in the 1880's, when hard printing plates no longer needed to be etched now wood carvings laboriously chipped over. For the first time we could get the subtle line of the artist reproduced for the mass audience, straight from pen and ink.

And boy...did he work magic!

"Nemo" #7 also brought us part 4 of Allen Saunders' autobiography, "Playwright for Paper Actors". I've got to tell you, back in the days of buying these issues off of the newsstands this was a feature I often just skimmed through, but now with 26 years between us and a broader appreciation for all things, I'm really enjoying reading this.

Grand stuff!

After capping off 1/2 an issue dedicated to Carl Barks and his work on Walt Disney Comics, "Nemo" gives us a hint at what's to come...an ENTIRE issue devoted to one strip!

And one of my all time favorites, Harold Gray's "Little Orphan Annie". If all you know about this strip is bad Disney Corporation bastardizations and cute takes on the Broadway musical or the tempered meandering strip that existed after Gray's passing...you don't know what you're missing.

Over the next 4 days I'll post this issue and help spread the word that this was a strip which was truly what this medium has to offer in showing one man's vision and art. A true extension of Gray, "Little Orphan Annie" is true art, and these articles in "Nemo" are part of what hipped me to it a quarter of a century ago.

Talk to you soon!