Part 7: 1935 HENRY Comic Strips by Carl Anderson

Some more Henry comic strips by Carl Anderson from its first couple of months of existence. These are from March 1 to 14, 1935. 

Previous parts: 

Part 1 

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6 

NOTE: It's often that black children are drawn as playmates of Henry's in these strips. They are not drawn in a politically correct manner, natch, but it should be noted that Henry may be the first integrated syndicated comic on the newspaper page. The kids are very much part of the same neighborhood with the whites. My thanks to James Conder for pointing out the Hogan's Alley article Henry: Not Black Like Me by William H. Foster which dives into this.

 

Video: Al Hartley Interview

Some old video that may be new to you!

Atlas Comics and Archie artist Al Hartley (1921 - 2003) is interviewed in this "Focus on Faith" Christian TV show episode. Host Cynthia Anderson provides the background on Al, who served as a bomber pilot in WWII, and then became a busy commercial artist in New York City. He did a lot of comic book work from the late 1940s until the mid-60s. He's best known for his run on the Patsy and Hedy comic book. In 1967, with the Patsy and Hedy book canceled, and his marriage in trouble, Al was out of work and despondent. He became a born-again Christian, and, out of the blue, got a phone call to come and work at Archie comics. He saw this as a sign from God.

He infused his comics work with his new-found faith, so much so that Archie comics had to ask him to please tone it down. He launched Spire Christian comics, licensing the Archie gang in stories with religious lessons. He also drew comic book versions of bible stories. In 1980, he received the prestigious Inkpot Award.



I should add something to the comments that Cynthia Anderson makes in the video. She mentions that Al was working on a risque comic magazine titled "Pussycat" published by Martin Goodman at the time that he (Al) found God. Goodman was, as you know, the head of Marvel and also had his hand in some more adult books. Pussycat, a sexy girl in the big city, was originally created by Wally Wood, and continued on by writer Larry Lieber and artists like Bill Ward, Jim Mooney and Al Hartley. Al went to Martin Goodman, says Cynthia, and told him that as a Christian, he could not work on a lewd book like this. That's what caused him to be out of work.

It's a decent story, but it doesn't make sense. Whether the cause was the demise of Patsy and Hedy or Al's refusal to work on Pussycat, Hartley had worked in pretty much all genres since the late '40s and it was just a matter of time he would have gotten more work.

-- Edited from a blog entry of November 6, 2019.

The Garden As of Early November

 

Putting the garden to bed for the year. The vines are all runner beans and all wilted the other night since it got down to 26 degrees Fahrenheit. The leaves on the trees are all brown and burnt sienna colors. What with the time change, it’s dusk by 4:30pm. Time to get a fire going in the woodstove. #gardening

 

 

A few pics from a Sunday excursion:


Cool but sunny day on the Maine coast. Lots of golds and browns in these waning leafpeeping days.

 

From the Dick Buchanan Files: Entertaining Company 1940 - 1966

It's Friday night, the beginning of a weekend. After the time change on Sunday, it's going to gets ark up here by 4:30pm or so. It'll feel like winter time. We'll be inside more and people will be bundling up and having pot-lucks. Friends will warm themselves in front of the fire. What could go wrong? Well, these masters of gag cartooning have the answer!

Dick Buchanan has shared a small portion of his immense cartoon clip file with us. As ever, I am thankful and so enjoy it when he shares his treasures with us. Thanks once more, and take it away, Dick! 

---

ENTERTAINING COMPANY
  (1940 – 1966)
 

From time to time a couple will invite their friends over for the evening.  Sometimes they’re neighborhood friends, maybe college friends, work friends or best friends. Some “friends” drop by unannounced.  It’s a topic  exploited every which way by gag cartoonists since gag cartooning began. It stands to reason the Cartoon Clip File is chock full of gag cartoons dealing with this subject, so we choose a few to tell the complete story of “entertaining company” as illustrated by the leading cartoonists of the mid-20th century . . .


1.  IRWIN CAPLAN.  The Saturday Evening Post  January 15, 1949.

 

2.  WALTER GOLDSTEIN.  The Saturday Evening Post  February 24, 1951.

 

3.  GEORGE WOLFE.  Here!  November, 1951.

 

4.  TOM HENDERSON.  The Saturday Evening Post  May 8, 1948.

 

5.  FRANK O’NEAL.  The Saturday Evening Post  December 11, 1954.

 

6.  STAN HUNT.  The Saturday Evening Post  June 14, 1947.

 

7.  BEN ROTH.  Collier’s  August 7, 1953.

 

8.  DICK CAVALLI.  The Saturday Evening Post  November 22, 1951.

 

9.  IRWIN CAPLAN.  Collier’s  March 31, 1951.

 

10.  JEFF KEATE.  Collier’s  March 29, 1952.

 

11.  JOHN ALBANO.  The Saturday Evening Post  April  18, 1959.

 

12.  AL ROSS.  1000 Jokes Magazine  March – May, 1966.

 

13.  BOB BARNES.  The Saturday Evening Post  January 26, 1957.

 

14.  WALTER GOLDSTEIN.  The Saturday Evening Post.  March 27, 1954.

 

15.  DON TOBIN.  Collier’s  September 14, 1946.

 

16.  JERRY MARCUS.  The Saturday Evening Post  January 10, 1953.

 

17.  WILLIAM STEIG.  Collier’s  December 4, 1940.

 

18.  CHARLES SKILES.  American Magazine  April, 1952.

 

19.  SYDNEY HOFF.  Collier’s  October 13, 1951.

 

20.  BILL RUBLE.  The Saturday Evening Post  September 26, 1953.

 

-- Edited from an April 21, 2021 blog entry.

Sketchbook: Some Fake Businesspeople

I get a lot of spam from these fake people who work for fake financial companies and fake software companies so, well, what can I do? I have drawn up imagined versions of a few of them here, and some of their email businessese verbiage that are in their emails. Here are Heather Johns, Frank Jones, Trisha Williams and Nikki Cornelius, all drawn as I think they might look. 

The above I drew while waiting for my car last week. Here are another four (Ryan Mitchell, Desiree Thurman, William Campbell, Chelsea Principal) just for fun. I drew all of these, except for William Campbell, out of imagination. William Campbell played a Klingon captain in the original "Trouble With Tribbles Star Trek episode so I just found an old head shot of his and drew it.

This was the next to last page in the sketchbook. On the last page I wrote a short speech I gave at an NCS event -- so that makes one more sketchbook all filled up.