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.

"Manduck the Magician!" - Bill Elder - Mad Monday!

Mad Monday this week begins "Mad" (THE COMIC BOOK) #14 from 1954!

And the issue breaks out in high gear with Bill Elder and Harvey Kurtzman's take on the then already legendary AND still relevant "Mandrake the Magician" as "Manduck the Magician".

Dig in kiddoes...when it comes to Kurtzman/Elder, there's no need in MY analyzing it...just dig in.

Dig in deep!

Talk to you soon!

Moe Yoe Sirocco Comic Strip Figurines - Unca Jeffy's Toy Box

Happy Saturday and time for another dive into Unca Jeffy's Toy Box -

Here's some more of those nifty sirocco statuettes celebrating classic comic strip characters, sculpted by Craig Yoe Stodios, hand painted and numbered and distributed by Dark Horse Comics.

Here's Uncle Walt Wallet and orphaned Skeezix from Frank King's "Gasoline Alley"...

Chester Gould's iconic hard boiled detective, "Dick Tracy"...

Chic Young's "Blondie"...sigh...how'd Dagwood get so lucky?...

Lee Falk's "Mandrake the Magician", one of the forerunners of comic book super heroes (and as we'll see in the comig weeks and months in "A 'Slight' History of Golden Age Comic Book Super Heroes", direct inspiration for at least a score of said heroes)...

And Billy DeBeck's original little ne'er-do-well, "Barney Google"...

More of these to come. I really think they're 9 kinds of cool!

Talk to you soon.

Lee Falk Interview - King Comic Heroes part 7

Pioneer Book's "King Comic Heroes" chugs on with an interview by the creator and writer of "Mandrake the Magician" and "The Phantom" himself, Lee Falk.

This guy held both of these characters very close to his heart and scribed them for decade upon decade. Read on!

Talk to you soon.

Mandrake the Magician and The Phantom - King Comic Heroes part 6

"King Comic Heroes", Pioneer Book's tribute to the heroic comic strips carried by King Features Syndicate in newsapers for decades (over half a century in this case) brings us a spotlight on the pair of strips created and written by Lee Falk...Mandrake the Magician AND The Phantom, no less!

Read on, Kiddoes!

Talk to you soon.

This Blog Don't Write Itself!

Our story:...The Mysterious Shadowy Figure is about to exact retribution from Jeffy when...

We interrupt this thrilling story of intrigue for out regular blog feature "Uncle Jeffy's Almanac of All Cool Things!"

Lee Falk: of Phantoms and Magicians!

Born April 28, 1911, Lee Falk would have been 99 years old today!

Most of my heroes of the comic strip world are specific in their breed, they are the writer/artist that creates a strip and is the sole driving creative force behind it. Lee Falk is one of the few exceptions.

Creator of TWO long running strips, "The Phantom" AND "Mandrake the Magician" both drawn by other people, but scripted by Falk from their inception in 1938 and 1934 respectively right up until Lee's death in 1999! Both strips are STILL running in syndication by other artist/writer teams and both still hot properties 75 years after their births for movies and TV.

Because Falk was not the artist, I'm more familiar with the strips themselves than him. I tend to learn a lot from my heroes by just observing their drawing sensibilities and personality of line than anything else. A lot that I glom from the Internet seems to be a lot of hyperbole, probably partially cooked up by Falk himself and built on over the years, there's a lot of talk about him being a playwright, stage director and stage producer.

I'm taking all of that with a grain of salt, but somehow I do believe he himself handled the scripting chores of his two strips by himself, right up till his death. They were his babies. They were his adventures.

Here's some samples of Mandrake from the 1930's and The Phantom from 1949. Both of these are re-edited from strip form to accommodate reprints in comic book format. Normally I wouldn't go for that, but hey...it's the scripts we're highlighting here, not the layout of the artist!

Enjoy!

And The Phantom...these were culled from dailies...hence black and white...ahhhhhhhh glorious black and white!

Thanks Lee! For keeping the adventure going for three quarters of a century...and beyond!

Now back to out thrilling, edge-of-your seat serial!

See y'all tomorrow!