Johnny Thunder Comic Book Art by Mort Drucker and Sy Barry

Here is a copy of Johnny Thunder No. 3, the July-August 1973 issue. Johnny Thunder was a reprint book, with a standout group of comics artists. The cover is by Alex Toth (likely inked by Sy Barry). There are three stories here, and I wanted to share the last one since it's credited to both Mort Drucker and Sy Barry. Mort and Sy were my fellow Berndt Toast Gang members. Mort is best known for his Mad Magazine caricatures and Sy is best known for his run on The Phantom comic strip. I had no idea that they had ever worked together, but here they are, back in the early days of their careers, grinding out comic pages for DC.

 

The story is "Battle for Mesa City!" written by Robert Kanigher and was first published in All-Star Western #71 in 1953. It's copyright that year by National Periodical Publications. I've included a house ad for DC's new book "Prez," about the country's first teen president.

eBay Sale

My comics sale continues this week. Over 100 to choose from! 

 

https://www.ebay.com/usr/opigus

 

 

Sketches from CARTOONING FOR EVERYBODY by Lawrence Lariar

Here are some sketches from CARTOONING FOR EVERYBODY by Lawrence Lariar, copyright 1941 by Crown Publishing.

Above: Lawrence Lariar self portrait.

Lawrence Lariar was a cartoonist, a cartoon editor for PARADE and LIBERTY, a novelist, and one of the most prolific authors of "How to Cartoon" books. He edited the long-running BEST CARTOONS OF...  series of books from 1942 to 1971. He married his agent, Susan Mayer in 1935 and they had two children. 

Beginning in 1957, Lariar had a decade-long affair with the mother of cartoonist Bill Griffith, which Bill turned into an award-winning graphic novel in 2015: INVISIBLE INK: MY MOTHER'S SECRET LOVE AFFAIR WITH A FAMOUS CARTOONIST.

Lawrence Lariar died in 1981 at the age of 72.

If you are building a shelf of books about cartooning, it's inevitable you'll run into a Lariar book. Thanks to him, we have many gag cartoonists' work between hardcovers that may have otherwise turned into dust after being published in the throwaway magazine medium..

Here are some sketches by Lariar and a couple of colleagues from CARTOONING FOR EVERYBODY. Unlike his other, later books, Lariar emphasizes the value of sketching and doodling for a number of pages. The nice thing about these sketches is that they look as vibrant and full of life as ever. He's right: sketching from life helps you cartoon.

 

Above: a page from illustrator and cartoonist Greg D'Allessio's sketchbook. (He was married to cartoonist Hilda Terry for 55 years.)

Above: spots by John Groth (1902-88). I love how loose he works. Loose and confident.

 John Groth made a career as a painter and illustrator by focusing on sports and war. He captured the action-packed scenes by witnessing the events first-hand and sketching his experiences. Groth used a style technique called “speed line,” in which he sketched his subjects using rough, unperfected lines and filled the lines in with watercolors. Upon describing his technique, Ernest Hemingway, whom Groth spent time with during World War II, wrote, “None of us understood the sort of shorthand he sketched in. the men would look at the sketches and see just a lot of lines. It was a great pleasure to find what fine drawings they were when we got to see them.”

He also was a artist-correspondent during the Korean and Vietnam wars. Groth was also the art Director for Esquire magazine.

From his rogallery.com biography.

 

 Above two pages again by John Groth "with no preliminary pencil understructure."

Above: cartoonist Jack Kabat with some freehand fanciful doodles.

Above: a sketch from Lariar's sketchbook that he sold to the New Yorker as a spot drawing.

Above and below: some more finished sketches of middle-aged women and kids. "Study these doodles and originate a few."

My thanks to my friend, the one and only Don Orehek, for passing along this great book. Don was the best and I miss him. 

 -- Edited from a blog entry of August 22, 2011.

"Twinkle The Star That Came Down From Heaven" by Jay Williams and Mazin

"Twinkle The Star That Came Down From Heaven" by Jay Williams was a regular feature that appeared in Humpty Dumpty's Magazine for Little Children. The name on the art was "Mazin." Copyright its respective copyright holders.

My grandmother would bring up to a dozen of these little magazines. They would be packed in her luggage when she visited during Christmas in the 1960s. She worked for my great uncle, a doctor, in California. Since she usually brought a year's worth at a time, I believe these were pulled from the waiting room. 

Anyway, I had not seen them before or since -- until I ran into a copy at a thrift shop a few weeks ago. There were a couple of different magazines: Humpty Dumpty's and Children's Digest. The Digest had Tintin reprints. That I remember. 

Everyone knows about Tintin.

But Twinkle -- Twinkle has been forgotten. A six page Twinkle story was in most issues of HD, back in the day. Here's my earliest copy, from November 1957, that I bought from eBay. Twinkle alternately intrigued me and terrified me when I was a tot. I mean, look at those trees: leafless, bare of most branches. The woodcut approach was none too cuddly in my little kid eyes. 

And the star of the strip was literally an anthropomorphic fallen star. So weird. 

There is little on the web about this feature, which ran from the 1950s to the 1960s I believe. The table of contents would sometimes (sometimes not) credit Twinkle as by Jay Williams, a prolific children's book illustrator. I don't know if Mazin and Mr. Williams were one and the same. 

Now that I'm older, I like the style ... but I still think it's weird that a star is friends with forest animals.
 

-- Edited from a blog entry that originally appeared on September 25. 2013.

Jack Cole Tribute in ACE Comics Presents Daredevil Battles the Claw (1987)

 

From the 1980's B&W comics boom, comes this on-issue wonder: ACE Comics Presents Daredevil Battles the Claw by Jack Cole (1914 - 1958). This isn't YOUR Daredevil, this is the original golden age of comic books superhero guy named Daredevil. There are two stories that are reprinted in black and white in this issue: "Presenting: The Claw," ("The Claw has his minions burrow under the Atlantic Ocean so that he can attack New York City (and America) from underground. Fortunately Bart Hill is there when the Claw attacks and he changes into the Daredevil to put a stop to the attack." - The Grand Comics Database) and an early Silver Streak story, "The Finger of Death Points At Silver Sreak," which, I'm sure, is nowhere near as mad and ambitious as The Claw digging his transcontinental tunnel for the Nazis. There are also a couple of essays about Cole, his life and influence. 

There's a tribute to Jack Cole by Jerry De Fuccio. De Fuccio and C.C. Beck comment on recreating the "Daredevil Battles Hitler" story, originally drawn by Cole. The Art of Jack Cole piece is by Ron Frantz (uncredited). Source: The Grand Comics Database.

I bought this issue back in the day, and haven't seen these articles since then. Here are the essays in their entirety:

 

By the way, the cover is by Steve Ditko.

Video: CBS Sunday Morning: The Irreverent Legacy of Mad Magazine

It's not every day that you turn on the TV and see two people you know chatting about Mad Magazine, but that's what happened on CBS Sunday Morning when host David Pogue (who I went to school with) talked to Steve Brodner (the great editorial cartoonist, who I've known at least since 2007) yesterday. The subject is the Norman Rockwell Museum's Mad Magazine exhibit, which Steve co-curated with former Mad editor Sam Viviano. And to top it all off, Garry Trudeau's wife introduces the piece. Here's the clip:

 

Mike's eBay Sale Preview

More comics at my big eBay sale. There's a lot more than these up on the site now. The ones here all start at 99 cents. No reserve.