Here is an old magazine ad for US Savings Bonds showing Chic Young's drawing process for a BLONDIE daily comic strip. My pal Leif Peng came across this while scanning magazines for his terrific Today's Inspiration blog. Here's Leif:
Found this while scanning something for Today's Inspiration. Thought you might like it for your blog...I agree with Leif. It all looks pretty slicked up and doesn't have the necessary construction lines. It appears like dear ol' Blondie just pops into focus out Mr. Young's amazing cartoonist brain!
Supposedly a Chic Young 'step-by-step'... but if it really is, then Young must have been a frigging Zen Master Cartoonist, because there's no sign of any real construction, its just a sort of "coming into focus" process, unlike anything I've ever seen!
More likely, he did the strip the usual way, then, for the sake of this ad concept, did a two stage "deconstruction" to reverse the process down to something that looked like a rough sketch but less messy than the real rough sketch. What do you think?
-- Edited from a blog entry nine years ago today.
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6 comments:
I wonder whether the "first stage" was actually traced off the finish.
Even more dubious since there is a widespread belief -- more than a rumor but not documented -- that the art for the strip was ghosted through much of its run. The story is that when Young's first son was born, he also became the baby in Blondie, but the real-world child died and Chic went into an understandable depression and took a year off, with the strip being ghosted in his absence. It is widely believed he only returned in a supervisory position and may have written the gags but never drew the strip again.
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I wonder if that's true, about Chic Young's abdication from the strip. I've heard and read the rumours for decades. Somebody must know the facts. I just want the facts, ma'am!
I asked at KFS once and the response I got was that they're heard it but couldn't confirm it one way or the other. Important to note that, beyond the year of mourning, he did continue to create the storylines -- the rumor is only that he never drew it again. Sad story and not beyond belief.
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