Dick Buchanan's Cartoon File: Wordless Gag Cartoons 1944-1964

My thanks to Friend-of-this-blog Dick Buchanan. He has wandered the dusty piles of his old magazines and scanned in a selection of fifteen cartoons without words and shared them with us. Take it away, Dick!

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At one time or another several magazines had a feature titled “Too Funny for Words” featuring cartoons without captions. Here are some cartoons that fall into that special category--some amusing if not necessarily “too funny” cartoons by some of the best cartoonists of their time.

1. AL ROSS. For Laughing Out Loud. July-September, 1963




 

2. GEORGE la MENDOLA (George Dole). 1000 Jokes Magazine. Fall, 1950




3. CORKA. (Jon Cornin & Zena Kavin) Liberty. August 10, 1946




 

4. CLYDE LAMB. Judge. October 1953




 

5. TOM HENDERSON. Collier’s. July 8,1955




 

6. VIRGIL PARTCH. Liberty. September 9, 1944



 

7. TON SMITS. 1000 Jokes Magazine. March-May, 1962





8. CEM (CHARLES E. MARTIN) The Saturday Evening Post. September 29, 1962




9. CHARLES ADDAMS. True Magazine. October 1949






10. BOB BARNES. 1000 Jokes Magazine. Fall, 1950




 

11. JOHN GALLAGHER. Collier’s. March 16, 1953



 

12. HENRY SYVERSON. Look Magazine. January 28, 1964




 

13. PETER PORGES. The Saturday Evening Post. September 29,1962




14. STAN HUNT. 1000 Jokes Magazine. May-July, 1955



15. CLYDE LAMB. 1000 Jokes Magazine. Summer, 1951



FYI: In May, 1955, The Gag Re-Cap (a publication for cartoonists and gag writers covering major magazines) reported that out of 94 magazines there were 924 cartoons published, of which 20% were no caption gags—194 to be exact..

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Thanks, Dick, for this amazing selection.

- This has been an edited rerun from December 22, 2016.

"Hidden Things" 1938 Hidden Picture Children's Book

"Hidden Things" is a 1938 staple-bound booklet full of hidden pictures. This is an inexpensive product designed to keep a kid busy. The publisher, Saalfield Publishing Company of Akron, OH was one of the biggest publishers of children's works in the world from 1900 to 1977. There are no credits on this book (aside from a "D + D Downs" on the cover), but they employed Ethel Hayes and Frances Brundage for many of their books. 

The drawings are inky, complex and not necessarily very cute in, for instance, a Raggedy Ann sort of way. Saalfield owned the rights to Johnny Gruelle's Raggedy Ann and Andy. 

Confession: I was not always successful in finding all of the hidden things and, sadly, there isn't a kinda "teacher's edition" page where we see any sort of solution. 

AI Slop: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Via HBO MAX's YouTube:

Some Buck Rogers Drawings by Dick Calkins

Here are some illustrations from some of the Big Little book series of Buck Rogers. The Buck Rogers comic strip began January 7, 1929 and ran until July 8, 1967. Dick Calkins was the initial artist on the strip from 1929 to 1932, with Russell Keaton doing the Sunday strip chores during those same years. Rick Yager drew it from 1932 to 1958, and then George Tuska illustrated the feature from 1959 until its demise. So, chances are it may or may not have been Dick Calkins who drew the work below. Buck Rogers spawned a lot of merchandise as well as movie and TV series, and kept a lot of people busy churning out product.

I would love to see a Buck Rogers movie that captures this "will be that was" kinda future. 

 

Meredith, NH Celebrates a Year of "Archie" Creator Bob Montana

 

Main Street artist Paul Moreau works on a life-size image of the character Betty from “Archie” comics as part of a multifaceted celebration of “The Year of Bob Montana” in Meredith. (Courtesy photo)

 

Via the Laconia Daily Sun:

Meredith celebrates a year of Bob Montana

MEREDITH – For no more reason than Veronica going on yet another spending spree or Jughead dodging another Miss Grundy homework assignment, the Meredith Historical Society is celebrating 2025 as “The Year of Bob Montana” in tribute to the local creator of the “Archie” comic franchise.

With cooperation from the Winnipesaukee Playhouse, the Winnipesaukee Flagship Corporation, several Meredith businesses and the local public at large, the society’s tribute includes: a museum display of Montana artifacts, life-size figures of Archie and his gang created by local artists, and staging a rediscovered play written and directed by Bob Montana in the ‘50s for the Meredith Village Players theater group.

MHS board member George Berman found Montana’s 70-year-old script among artifacts in storage at the Main Street Museum. He and Bonnie Edwards, vice president for preservation, dusted it off and brainstormed an ambitious project to bring the musical “Mutiny on the Mount” back to life.

Contacting the Winnipesaukee Playhouse, they quickly brought Cory Lawson, the theater’s community engagement director, on board. Together, they paid a visit to officials of the historic M/S Mount Washington cruise ship and proposed bringing the play right to the setting in which the play is set – on board The Mount. 

Originally slated for three showings during the sunset dinner cruises on Oct. 1-3, tickets sold out. Three additional performances were added on Oct. 8-10.

“We could not be happier for the success we’ve had putting this all together,” said Edwards.

She and her crew worked through the winter and early spring collecting and organizing a large selection of Montana artifacts into a new display at the museum.

“We are featuring our collection of items about Bob’s life from the time he was a teenager to his extensive involvement as an artist in the town of Meredith,” she said.

Among retailers participating is Galleries at 30 Main Street. Artists Vynnie Hale and Paul Moreau created life-size figures of Archie and the gang to be placed around Main Street, adding to the existing Archie statue at the Meredith Community Park.

For tickets to “Mutiny on the Mount,” visit cruisenh.com. For more information, visit meredithhistoricalsocietynh.org.

Wally Wood's 22 Panels That Always Work!!

Happy birthday to comic book artist Wally Wood (1927 - 1981)

 Everyone needs to see this, and even if you have seen it all ready, it's always worth a revisit. Twenty two great solutions by Wally Wood to make a dialogue-heavy comic page work graphically.

Via Wikipedia:

"Panels That Always Work

"Wood struggled to be as efficient as possible in the often low-paying comics industry.^[47] Over time he created a series of layout techniques sketched on pieces of paper which he taped up near his drawing table. These 'visual notes,' collected on three pages,^[48] reminded Wood (and select assistants he showed the pages to)^[49] of various layouts and compositional techniques to keep his pages dynamic and interesting.^[47] (In the same vein, Wood also taped up another note to himself: 'Never draw anything you can copy, never copy anything you can trace, never trace anything you can cut out and paste up.')^[48]

"In 1980, Wood's original, three-page, 24-panel (not 22) version of 'Panels' was published with the proper copyright notice in The Wallace Wood Sketchbook (Crouch/Wood 1980).^[50] Around 1981,^[48] Wood's ex-assistant Larry Hama, by then an editor at Marvel Comics, pasted up photocopies of Wood's copyrighted drawings on a single page, which Hama titled 'Wally Wood's 22 Panels That Always Work!!' (It was subtitled, 'Or some interesting ways to get some variety into those boring panels where some dumb writer has a bunch of lame characters sitting around and talking for page after page!') Hama left out two of the original 24 panels as his photocopies were too faint to make out some of the lightest sketches.^[50] Hama distributed Wood's 'elegantly simple primer to basic storytelling'^[51] to artists in the Marvel bullpen, who in turn passed them on to their friends and associates.^[49] Eventually, '22 Panels' made the rounds of just about every cartoonist or aspiring comic book artist in the industry and achieved its own iconic status.^[51]

"Wood's 'Panels That Always Work' is copyright Wallace Wood Properties, LLC as listed by the United States Copyright Office which assigned the work Registration Number VA0001814764.^[52]

 

"Homages and tributes to '22 Panels'

"In 1986, Tom Christopher, who had been given a copy by Larry Hama at the DC office in 1978 light-boxed the pages, incorporating a non-linear dialogue, and asked Par Holman to ink it. Holman inked and lettered the piece, and the completed art was distributed through Clay Geerdes' Comics World Co-Op, whose members produced mini- and digest-sized comics. In 2006, writer/artist Joel Johnson bought the Larry Hama paste-up of photocopies at auction and made it available for wide distribution on the Internet.^[49] In 2010 Anne Lukeman of Kill Vampire Lincoln Productions produced a short film adapting the "22 Panels That Always Work" into a film noir-style experimental piece called 22 Frames That Always Work.^[53] Artist Rafael Kayanan created a revised version of '22 Panels' that used actual art from published Wood comics to illustrate each frame.^[54] In 2006, cartoonist and publisher Cheese Hasselberger created 'Cheese's 22 Panels That Never Work,' featuring bizarre situations and generally poor storytelling techniques.^[55] In 2012, Michael Avon Oeming created a Powers-themed update/homage to "22 Panels," making it available for distribution.^[56] In July 2012, Cerebus TV producer Max Southall brought together materials and released a documentary^[57] that featured Dave Sim's homage to Wallace Wood and a focus on his 22 Panels, including a tribute that features a creation using the motif of one of them, depicting Daredevil and Wood himself, in Wallace Wood style – and the Wallace Wood Estate's official print of the panels."

The Garden As of Mid-June 2025

 

The garden as of mid-June. The raised beds have new compost, the tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, squash and zinnias have been planted. The fence is up. This was the first weekend where we didn’t get torrents of rain. There are some process photos here of laying down a newspaper and straw barrier for the tomatoes. The same will be done for the squash when it gets bigger. Since it’s almost doubling in size every day, that’s gonna be soon.