Secret Life of James Thurber (1960) Unsold Pilot Starring Orson Bean & Adolphe Menjou

Jeff Parker on Leslie Turner's Captain Easy Newspaper Comic Strip

 

I haven't seen the new Captain Easy newspaper strip reprint book with never-before reprinted dailies by Leslie Turner, but it just came out and it sparked this remembrance from cartoonist Jeff Parker:

 

"This looks jaw-droppingly good!

 

"My wife and I were friends with Les and his wife, Bethel, during the final years of his life.

But first, a little Les Turner trivia— You might or might not know, but his daughter Anne’s face is world famous, we all have known her all our lives...

 

"In 1984, when we were buying our first home in Orlando. Our realtor was a little 70-something lady named Bethel Turner. On our first drive around, she asked what we each did for a living, after my Pat replied she was a writer/journalist, I piped in saying I was a City Planner but I really wanted to be a comic strip cartoonist. Bethel said, 'Then you need to meet my husband— he’s Les Turner, the creator of ‘Captain Easy.'' I was floored, a huge fan all my life. Bethel and Les were the nicest people, and invited us to their big, lakeside home on Delaney St. for dinner a short while later. After some drinks and chit chat, Les, then in his mid 80s, asked if I would like to see his studio upstairs over their garage. At the top of the staircase, there was a small photo and an 8” x 6” pencil drawing of the Gerber baby nicely framed. I gasped, 'I-is that the *original* Gerber baby drawing?!!' Came the reply, 'Yep, our then next door neighbor was the renown advertising illustrator, Dorothy Hope Smith. She had seen this photo we took of our baby daughter Anne in her high chair. Dorothy copied it in pencil, and submitted it with some other baby-faced drawings. Our daughter is the Gerber baby!'

 

"It was like looking at the Mona Lisa! 

 

"BTW, Les's large, windowed, lake view studio was exactly as you might imagine, big ink dappled drawing board, tons of books, ancient well-worn art supplies, weapons hanging on the walls, and model aircraft, vehicles, ships of all kinds perched on shelves brimming with souvenirs and awards… And then there were the STACKS of decades of original 'Captain Easy' art! It was like visiting the Count of Monte Cristo’s treasure cave! Les had been retired for a number of years when we’d met. But he was constantly script writing new Captain Easy adventures whenever a story popped into his head— don’t know if he ever pitched them to the syndicate or not.

 

"Bethel and Les were wonderful friends to us fledgling 26-year-olds.

 

"I’ve been a full-time cartoonist since 1992, ever inspired by this legend.

 

"I’m gonna seek out this book!"

 

 

 

The Garden As of Mid-May

Here are a few pics of the garden as of now. This is the second year that there's had to be fence up around the garden thanks to the deer. 

 We put in a half-dozen tomato plants last night. All of the boxes were refreshed with a mixture of alfalfa meal, bone meal, kelp meal and garden lime last month. 

The buried metal colanders have decomposing compost that will leave nutrients in the soil.  I placed a small mound of mulch where every tomato was planted to help resist the brown leaf disease that's common with tomatoes. It's in most soil and it's in ours. It turns the leaves brown and then they become brittle and fall off just as the tomatoes are beginning to ripen. Not good. 

More vegetables to be planted. Not sure what. Contenders: cucumbers, peppers, scarlet runner beans. 

The owl house is, so far as I can tell, still vacant. 

Comic Book Legend Jack Kirby Honored with NYC Street Renaming

Jack Kirby Way was unveiled on the corner of Essex and Delancey Streets on the Lower East Side, where he grew up. CBS News New York's Cindy Hsu reports.

 

Video: Leonard Starr - Cartoonists and Illustrators Party - December 11, 1965

From the Thomas B. Sawyer YouTube page:

"8mm footage of a party given by Leonard & Betty Starr at their Central Park West apartment. The guests include many celebrated artists, writers, National Cartoonist Society/Society of Illustrators members & other personalities (w/spouses) of that era, including Mell Lazarus, Bill & Gloria Overgard. Alfred Andriola, Otto Soglow, Warren & Nadine King, Holly & Tom Sawyer, Jerry Robinson, Len Steckler, Howard Post, Frank Bolle, Irwin Hasen, John Prentice, Tex Blaisdell, Bobbie Shaw, Don Philips. Frank & Barbara Jacobs, Lee Falk, & others. 

"Camera: Tom Sawyer (to request a set of head-shots identifying most of the attendees, email from the Contact page at www.thomasbsawyer.com)"

 

 

This is the only video at the Thomas B. Sawyer channel and the link to his site does not work, sadly. There is no sound. What a nice slice of those times despite not being exactly sure who's who all the time. 

I'm not sure, but suspect that the movie was shot by the illustrator Thomas B. Sawyer, whose 2022 book, The Art of the REAL Tom Sawyer, is highly recommended.

Pop-up Book Artist Colette Fu Inspired by her Travel in China & Chinese-American History

 

Colette Fu talks about her personal journey to become a pop-up book creator and engineer in this wonderful video from Craft in America:

From the Dick Buchanan Files: Dog and Cat Cartoons 1949 - 1966

Dogs and cats. Living together. Mass hysteria!

Courtesy of gag cartoon collector extraordinaire Dick Buchanan, here are twenty magazine cartoons about cats and dogs that he culled from his vast Greenwich Village-based clip file. 

 

Thank you and take it away, Dick!

--

DOGS AND CATS
(1949 – 1966)

Dogs and cats play a big part of the lives of many Americans.  Some folks like cats while others like dogs.  Some like both.  For what it’s worth, the Cartoon Clip File’s office pet is our goldfish, Benchley.

We laugh at our pets.  We’re never quite sure whether or not they laugh at us.

This time it’s our turn to laugh at them.  Here are some cartoons about our animal friends, the dog and cat . . .

DOGS


1.  HANK KETCHAM.  Collier’s, circa 1951.

2.  RAY HELLE.  The Saturday Evening Post  June 11, 1949.

3.  JACK TYRELL.  1000 Jokes Magazine  September – November, 1956.

4.  PHIL INTERANDI.  This Week Magazine  December 4, 1960.

5.  DICK SHAW.  Collier’s  May 20, 1950.

6.  BOB KRAUS.  1000 Jokes Magazine  Summer, 1951.

7.  JOHN GALLAGHER.  The Saturday Evening Post  March 30, 1957.

8.  VIRGIL PARTCH.  Collier’s  March 19, 1949.

9.  EDWIN LEPPER.  The Saturday Evening Post  November 2, 1963.

10.  VAHAN SHIRVANIAN.  The Saturday Evening Post  July 27, 1957.  

 CATS

1.  TED KEY.  Collier’s  December 16, 1950.

2.  GEORGE WOLFE.  American Magazine  August, 1950.

3.  BO BROWN. American Magazine  September, 1950.

4.  THE BERENSTAINS, JAN AND  STAN.  American Magazine  July, 1953.

5.  LARRY REYNOLDS.  Look Magazine  January 17, 1957.

6.  JOHN NORMENT.  The Saturday Evening Post  July 20, 1957.

7.  MORT WALKER.  The Saturday Evening Post  July 30, 1949.

8.  TOM HENDERSON.  The Saturday Evening Post  September 27, 1958.

9.  HERB GREEN.  The Saturday Evening Post  May 4, 1957.

10.  BILL HOEST.  The Saturday Evening Post  May 21, 1966.

  -- Edited from a blog entry that originally appeared on November 14, 2019.