Uncle Jeffy's Sketchbook! - 8-3-12

Last peek at my sketchbook for the week.  I flipped back to the beginning (from before I put it away, not getting how sketchbooks work, probably back in 2008-9)

I think my concept here on page 1, was to make the sketchbook an anthropological notebook written in the 1920's and 30's by the worlds dumbest explorer.  See here the hilarity as he discovers an elephant (not knowing that they'd already been discovered) and miscategorizes it as an insect.  Hilarity ensues?

Then I think I got the concept of doing a strip featuring EVERY comic and cartoon character EVER created.  Not thinking about the logistical nightmare of telling an understandable story with 8 million characters, I just thought it would be cool to see.  I kind of did that any way (and will again) with my "A 'Slight' History of Golden Age Comic Book Super Heroes" thingy I do here from time to time.

Here's me attempting (and liking) my take on the Duck's (Donald and Daffy) and then being thwarted by that dang hard-to-draw-for-me-anyway, Mickey Mouse.

My horrible Mickey meeting Daffy Duck, Superman and Ko-Ko the Clown at what ever event I imagined them all meeting at.  Batman and The Yellow Kid look on.

You see, I'd never really drawn other peoples characters before.  I have always (from a very young age) known that it's the cartoonists style that makes the feature cool, the character comes second.  Jack Cole's Plastic Man is awesome.  Joe Staton (who is extremely talented in his own rigth) doing Plastic Man was a bad take on a character and missed the point.  So at 45-6 years old, I was trying to see if I could even draw them, and have them be recognized.

Here's a sketch of me looking bad-ass with my posse:  Goofy, Donald, Mickey, A horrible Bugs Bunny, the Golden Age Green Lantern and being evesdropped on by a very Bob Clampett-y Tweety Pie and a sloppy Sylvester.  Over all a decent Mickey there.

Which brings us back to the present as I doodle myself some more.

Sketching trying to find a new avatar for facebook and Twitter and the like.

Not the way Van Gogh spent his time...but I am a cartoonist...and that's a wonderful thing.

Thanks for sifting through this with me this week.

Talk to you soon.

All American Comics - "The Green Lantern"!

Adrift in the sea of my "A 'Slight' History of Golden Age Comic Book Super Heroes", we sail past "Action Comics" and "Adventure Comics" both from National (DC) Periodicals, and onto All American's flagship title "All American Comics"!

This part's a little confusing, you see All American and National Periodical were sister companies, sharing some of the same owners and...well...even sharing the same characters. By 1945 (still in the thick of the Golden Age) they officially merged, so for the duration of my "slight history" I will be referring to them as one and the same. Only some lawyers pen separaes them anyway.

All-American Comics hit the stands in April 1939. Another great anthology book of the periiod, sporting lots of different types of features, it's first anchor strip was "Gary Concord, the Ultra Man"!


Don't let the title fool you, Gary Concord was just another Buck Rodgers knock-off, and the "Ultra Man" subtitles was a little ploy to capture the new Superman crowd. The first real and lasting star of the book was "The Green Lantern"!

NOT the Green Lantern that is soon to be hitting movie screens, that's the silver age Green Lantern, I'm talkiing about the original power ring wearer, Alan Scott!

Created in 1940 by Bill Finger and Martin Nordell, he would wear the ring all throughout the golden age (and even a little beyond).

I've hit on this Green Lantern once before and even posted his origina story from All American #16 here. This Green Lantern's power ring, was just like his better known successor, powered by the wearers will power. Alan Scott's ring was more magical in nature than the sci-fi version of years to come. With it Scott could walk through walls, read people's' minds and all sorts of stuff.


He was ably assisted for a good chunk of his carreer, not by a kid costumed side-kick like so many of his contemporaries, but by a street-tough Gotham City cab driver named "Doiby" Dickles. Why he had a Brooklyn accent in Gotham I can only guess.

"Doiby" was dumb as a stump but loyal and true as all get out.

And here's a little Green Lantern story highlighting our forgotten helper of the golden age of comics, from "All American Comics" #46.

Enjoy!

Talk to you soon.

Bill Finger - Ghost Writer of Bats and Lanterns!

February is chock full of birthdays of my heroes, so I'm doing a few a little before or after the actual date to get them all in. As has been stated before, this blog is "whatever flows through the shallow waters of my mind/head day to day" since my mind tends to wander from interest to interest. In the last week or so I found a mother load of digital copies of comic books from the golden age of the art form (1938-1956...more on this later) and my passion for this of course rose to the top of my head.

Just in time too, because next Monday, February 8th is the 96th anniversary of the birth in 1914 of Bill Finger!



Who? Co-creator of The Batman, that's all!

And The Joker, Two-Face, Catwoman, The Penguin, The Riddler...

It's a long, sad, oft-told story of one creator taking the spotlight away from his partner. The person who always receives the credit for creation of The Caped Crusader, Bob Kane was an attention whore, a credit-whore and all around selfish whore. The list the number of contributing artists and writers who made Batman what he is, is as long as your arm, but Bob Kane made sure that no matter who did all the work...he would get the credit.

But this post isn't about Bob, it's about Bill.

And Bill proves the point I try to make all the time. The hacks can steal from you all they want. At the end of the day, they just have the one thing they've stolen from you, but the artist still has the talent to create MORE. And the hack can whip his dead horse till his arm falls off.

Case in point...Bill also created a little character called The Green Lantern!

NOT the space faring ring-slinger most of you know, but rather the original character of whom Hal Jordan/Kyle Rainer/Guy Gardner/John Stewart were a revamping of.

Alan Scott was a radio announcer who...well...here's the story, from All-American Comics #16, 1940:

Much more magical and fantastical, the Green Lantern stories of the 1940's that Bill Finger wrote went through the gambit of story-telling of the time. From pure adventure like this one, they turned to satire and farce through the early years with Scott's sidekick Doiby Dickles adding to human foibles and drama that kept it interesting,

to romantic-adventure-comedies toward the end of the run with Scott's girlfriend dually acting as The Lantern's arch-nemesis The Harlequin.

Bill did all this while STILL doing all of Bob Kane's dirty work on Batman.

Thanks Bill, for caring more about telling great stories than hogging some fleeting glory! We know who you are and what you did...don't worry!