"Ripup's - Believe It or Don't!" - Wally Wood - Mad Monday!

"Gopo Gossum!" - Wally Wood - Mad Monday!

"Poopeye!" - Bill Elder - Mad Monday!

Mad Mondays continues with Mad THE COMIC BOOK #21!

Harvey Kurtzman, Bill Elder, Popeye, Tarzan, Superman!!!!

As good as it ever got.

Enjoy!

Talk to you soon.

Cartoon Tools - and Their Mis-use!

Finishing up work on my 24 Hour Comic Book (that's 7 day comic book to YOU, mister!) and struck by the crutches cartoonists fall on in order to get what they're saying across.  Some good, some so archaic and dated, that they're near indecipherable for the modern reader.  Putting this thought into "strip form" even made the "set-up + set-up = punchline rhythm of a strip stuck out like a sore thumb for me.

What have we learned from this examination?  Only what we've always known.  Charles Schulz was a genius and Jim Davis is STILL a worthless piece of shit.

The experiment proves the science.  All is right in the world.

Talk to you soon.

"Katchandhammer Kids!" - Bill Elder - Mad Mondays!

Mad THE COMIC BOOK #20, and Bill Elder and Harvey Kurtzman hit the newspaper comic strip well again for a spoof of "The Katzenjammer Kids".  This is chock full of chicken fat!...not just from Elder but from Kurtzman himself as he lampoons the pidgin-German language which I'm sure he was exposed to from childhood right up to when this comic came out in the med-1950's.  It's a little hard for us in present day homogenized America to pick up on, but second nature for Kurtzman, Elder and the kids of the day.

Take the effort though, like the broken French in a Pepe Le Pew cartoon...there's larfs a plenty therein!

Thanks to kind reader H. McNulty for correcting a couple of points in my original post...good to have friendly proof-readers out there to watch me back.  :)

Talk to you soon!

Sunday Funnies - March 12, 1960 - part 4 of 4!

Good Sunday morning to ya, and the last of my postings from the Toronto Star March 12, 1960.

This batch has some more classics/after they were classics.  More of the syndicate squeezing out every penny they could from a once successful strip.  Much of the blame lay with the local editors though, for demanding the syndicates keep the strips on life support.  And of course the audience.

Still, kind of comforting waking up to find the same four-color pals and gals every week...Henry, Nancy, Sluggo and the rest were certainly respites from the daily bombardment of cold war news stories filling the rest of the papers in 1960.

And Blondie and Scamp were enough to forget the sweaty five-o-clock shadowy face of Tricky Dick wanting to beat JFK.

The Sunday Funnies did their job, dangit!

Enjoy!!!

Sunday Funnies - March 12, 1960 - part 3 of 4!

Part 3 of my posting of "The Toronto Star" from March 12, 1960.  Thanks to Katherine Collins who in last week's comments, pointed out the city of the paper.

This time around, the "Superman" newspaper strip.  May be the first time I've posted any of those in the ol' blog and it's a Lori Lemuris!  Awesome!

Here's some post-Caniff "Terry & the Pirates" by George Wunder.  This is one of the few examples of a comic strip, where it changed creators hands and became something just as valid, albeit totally different.  The Hal Foster to Burne Hogarth "Tarzan" is the other that come to mind.

"Bringing Up Father" still in his cut-away coat and spats and without George McManus.  The syndicates just won't let a cash cow die.

Harold Grey is still at the helm of "Little Orphan Annie" in 1960, but as crazy old man conservatism gripped the guy, THIS strip became something all together different than in it's salad years as well.  

Splitting the page is Ferd Johnson's "Moon Mullins" another strip from an earlier time that the syndicates kept on life-support too long.  Still with all these aged features short-comings, they were nice to see.

Talk to you soon.

Sunday Funnies - March 12, 1960 - part 2 of 4

Sunday morning and back again for more 4 color fun delivered to your doorstep for pennies a serving.  Another glimpse back to the days before newspapers wanted to charge you a dollar for page after page of advertisements and actually offered content between said ads.  SOME even had news!

Part 2 of my scans of the March 12, 1960 edition of the "Star".  I'm sure I knew what city the "Star" was in when I bought it, but this info is lost to the passing sands of time I suppose.  

Today we see Milton Caniff's mature soap opera "Steve Cayon".  So far from his adventuresome "Dickie Dare" or "Terry & The Pirates" days, yet changing for all the right reasons.  Deft inking and layouts and adult characterization and good solid storytelling.

Harry Weinert's "Vignettes of Life" another of the hodge-podge/anthology strips of the day.  Easy to read, easy for the editor to lop off 1/2 of and run ads or another feature instead.  More commerce in action...it is what it is.

Lee Falk's "Mandrake the Magician".  Past it's prime here for sure, but 1960 still doesn't seem out of time for MM as 1968 will.

Full bore centerspread with three (count 'em 3!) strips to a double size page.  Far better than the last time I looked at a paper and saw as many as 6 on a regular page.

Mell Lazarus' "Miss Peach", "Ripley's 'Belieeve It or Not'" and Jimmy Hatlo's "They'll Do It Every Time".  The strip page was evolving as tastes were and rightfully so.  These strips are breezy, easy to read and easy of the eye.

Nothing wrong with any of that, I learn more and more as I mature as well.

Talk to you soon.

Sunday Funnies - March 12, 1960 - part 1 of 4!

Here's some Sunday Funnies for your enjoyment.  Not much time for my comments (which aren't that relevenat anyway) because I'm in the car right now (6:53 am) heading for "The Dark Knight Rises".

Dig in, kiddoes....I'm sure you'll dig it.

"Bringing Back Father!" - Will Elder - Mad Monday!

Mad THE COMIC BOOK #17 from November 1954.

The cover looked like this...kind of...

...but, actually more like this.  

The entire issue was printed upside down.  Even the experience of holding their comic book was meant to feel funny.

I love Kurtzman HARD!

Here's Harvey Kurtzman and Bill Elder's take on that comic strip classic by George McManus "Bringing Up Father", "Bringing Back Father".  Even in the few short decades since the original had premiered, the notions of a drunken Irishmen and his abusive, harpy of a wife just weren't socially acceptable anymore.

c'est la vie.

Ah, the good ol' days.

Talk to you soon.