Nemo #6: Floyd Gottfredson's "Mickey Mouse" and V.T. Hamlin's "Alley Oop" revisited

April 1984's "Nemo: the Classic Comics Library" issue #6 felt like they had renewed vigor for covering the diversity of the great American art-form. Covering everything from the iconic to the fantastic to the "hidden-in-the-archives", and hitting their stride with features like the continues autobiography of Allen Saunders to their "Fantasy in the Comics" to the "Penmen of the Past".

I've just recently posted 2 of the articles from this issue (it's kinda what got me started archiving ALL the issues) so today, in the interest of some semblance of order and to ensure no one missed these, we have a little re-dux, then I'll bring you the rest of this chock-full-of-goodness issue tomorrow!

Here's your little guide to all that goodness coming in the next couple of days!

And look, here's Richard Marschall's editorial speaking of the fleeting nature of paper and the treasures lost. Almost like he was commanding me from 26 years ago to digitize and preserve.

A clever man, there!

The first article up was on Mickey Mouse's comic strip godfather, Floyd Gottfredson who was finally getting some recognition for his decades of ghosting the VASTLY underrated strip. It was previously posted here on May 5 on what would have been Gottfredson's 105th birthday. In case you missed it, follow this handy link.

Later in the magazine, and also previously posted in this blog, was a short article and nice retrospective look at the work of V.T. Hamlin on his landmark strip "Alley Oop". This was posted on May 10th on what would have been Hamlin's 110th birthday. A handy dandy link here to that post. Alley Oop is a strip so many folks have heard of or know of, and here's a nice chance to wet your beak on the actual thing...read away, you'll fall in love. I promise you.

I'll be posting the rest of the issue over the weekend and the next few issues over the next week.

After about the 4th of July I am going to try to keep the "Nemo" posts to a once a week thingy so I can get back to some other things I like to talk about. It's been very cool sharing these with you folks and will continue till I have them all done and it's afforded me a chance to kind of take the month of June off while I attend to BS from the real world.

Let me know, if when I switch to a once a week schedule for "Nemo" if you would like me to post an entire issue all in one day, or if that would be too cumbersome for y'all to enjoy and you'd prefer an issue be spread over two weeks. I'm game for anything!

Talk to ya later!

V.T. Hamlin and the Caveman Everyman!

Born May 10, 1900, today would have been the 110th birthday of V.T. Hamlin!

V.T. Hamlin was an ambitious, energetic, imaginative young boy. A penchant for athletics but being on the smallish side he created a fantasy world where the average guy, not of great intelligence, but very capable and resourceful was the star.

A veteran of World War One he also got an adult dose at an early age of the ordinary guy in EXTREME situations. From this foundation he gave us Alley Oop, the time-traveling everyman caveman!


There was such a good response the other day to my posting on Floyd Gottfredson's birthday of scans from "Nemo" magazine, I just couldn't resist leaving it on the scanner stack when I saw that the cover feature was Alley. I am so enamored by things that happened "before-my-time" I sometimes assume that if it appeared "after" everyone else must have it. "Nemo" was a great magazine that I would read cover to cover with every issue and I happily have the entire run sitting here on my bookshelf where it belongs...had cover or no.

This first page is NOT from Nemo, but rather the intro to a Ken Pierce reprint of Oop strips.

Here's the Nemo article. One of the drawbacks of printing technology is that color is so cost-prohibitive, especially in publishing for a niche market. As great as Nemo is, there was a little lacking when they would reproduce Sunday strips in black and white. But hey, they still offer a great opportunity for letting us see these great strips.

And it gives me another level of appreciation for blogging and digital technology, where I hope to see these strips in glorious full color one day. Until then...enjoy!

Thanks V.T.! Your melding of humor and adventure was inspirational. Like E.C. Segar and Roy Crane you saw what a gorgeous well of inspiration and great story-telling it can be!

See y'all tomorrow!