The Old Underground Hall of Legends took some bad hits in 2017, with the losses, within less than a couple of weeks, of Jay Lynch (January 7, 1945 – March 5, 2017) and Mervyn “Skip” Williamson (August 19, 1944 – March 16, 2017). Skip, in fact, would have turned seventy-four today.
Again, we’re dealing with an artist with a long and nomadic career, so it’s best to think small. There’s plenty of excellent, in-depth biographical material on the subject already out there, so I’ll scare up a few scarce items that reflect Skip’s lifelong love of (and involvement with) music.
« Right now I’d like to do an original composition which deals with the basic existentialistic thought and parallels between the works of Kafka, Tillich, and Buber in relation to the ‘I-Thou’ concept, and which has just been covered by the Rolling Stones…» Underground comix provocateur Mervyn “Skip” Williamson (born 1944 in San Antonio, TX) takes a witty jab at noted self-mythologist Robert Allen “Bob Dylan” Zimmerman. From the March, 1967 issue of Escapade (incorporating Gentleman!), likely a Charlton Publications product (“Second class postage paid at Derby, Conn.”), a factoid that may someday help you win a bet.« Snuk Comix no. 1 (Skip Williamson, 1970). Extremely rare comic book created for the band Wilderness Road, by Underground Comix artist Skip Williamson. The story is that the printer objected to drug references, and would not deliver the printed comics; Skip managed to grab a few copies before the run was destroyed. As of 2003, only two copies were known to exist; while there have been a few more found since that time, the number of existing copies is staggeringly small… » Typical boorish behaviour on the part of the printer. Most people are unaware of the power that printers held and frequently abused before the salutary advent of digital print. Guys, *first* you nail the printing job (you call that registration?), *then* you indulge in moral grandstanding.1979 original art for a piece Williamson produced for Playboy magazine. « Now what », you may ask « Do Billy Joel and Three Mile Island have to do with one another? » Here’s one account: « Anne had a couple of his 8-tracks, and made plans to see him live at the Hershey Arena during his 1979 tour … plans that were thwarted by a little incident at a nuclear reactor near my home, Three Mile Island. See, when the accident happened, in March of ’79, people had to be evacuated. And those people had to go somewhere. And there just weren’t a whole lot of large buildings suitable for holding thousands of radioactive refugees in the area at that time, so The Hershey Arena had to be put to use, even if it meant canceling a few Hershey Bears games and a Billy Joel concert »
I was too young and in the wrong small town for Underground Comix to reach me back in the 1970s, but when Skip put together the « Playboy Funnies » section (featuring the likes of Bobby London, Jay Lynch, Chris Browne, Art Spiegelman…) for Mr. Hefner’s magazine, I in due course discovered his work since I read Playboy for the cartoons. I immediately took to Williamson’s stylish, bouncy, clean and friendly visuals, paired with his unflagging subversiveness. Not that I got much of said subversiveness at the time… but that’s how it works.
Happy birthday, Skip!
-RG
*Class War (Bijou Funnies no. 3, 1969 The Print Mint)
« It was a fanatic’s world, and I was one of the fanatics » – Gene Deitch
Say, for a bit of a twist, let’s pay tribute to a living* legend. I’m referring to none other than Gene Deitch (born ninety-four years and change ago: August 8, 1924 in Chicago, Illinois).
A recent self-portrait of the master.
This fascinating man has led a life of such distinction, achievement and all-around coolness that I’m tripping all over myself trying to boil it down to a few highlights. Art director of legendary jazz mag The Record Changer, animator-director-scenarist for UPA, Terrytoons, MGM… Academy Award winner for his direction of his animated adaptation of Jules Feiffer‘s Munro (watch it right here), creator of Sidney the Elephant, John Doormat, Clint Clobber, Gaston Le Crayon… and co-creator of Simon, Seth and Kim Deitch. Some fine artistic genes, to be sure!
The stylish young Master Deitch.
If you don’t terribly object, I’ll sidestep the pitfall of ambition and restrict this post to a single facet of Mr. Deitch’s orbit, namely his jazzy cartoons of the 1940s and 50s. Incidentally, these succulent needles have been collected, in their usual, exemplary fashion, by the Fantagraphics team. If you dig these, and the odds are good, you’ll need to acquire, dentro de poco, their The Cat on a Hot Thin Groove (2013).
« I had just recently, for the first time, heard the magnificent pipe organ recordings of Fats Waller and imagined a portly black church janitor setting down his mop and bucket and rolling out some mighty blues in the midnight of an empty church on an elaborate organ most likely sanctified for an entirely different kind of music. This drawing was reproduced many times over the years without anyone ever asking permission, and I was tickled to find it once on an actual Fats Waller album cover!** »« The cover shows that having a loud, jazz-playing Cat as an apartment house neighbor is not all that rosy. »« My cover show the devoted bass player protecting his beloved instrument from the pouring rain by covering it with his own coat and hat. If a musician’s livelihood depended on his instrument – often expensive or hard to come by – he did everything possible to keep it from harm. »From The Record Changer (August, 1948). « The search for a recording by the legendary pioneer New Orleans trumpeter Buddy Bolden has never subsided. In this issue, The Cat has actually managed to record him from the Great Beyond, but egad, he’s playing a harp instead of a horn! »« The cover design suggests the unlikely coexistence of a quiet elderly couple and a jazz record maniac within the thin walls of a single boarding house. »« The cover showed that even with the most careful cataloging it was still mainly guess work to find the record you were looking for. »« Earlier that year I moved from Hollywood to Detroit, to take up an offer from a commercial film studio there that would give me a chance to become a director. My cover for July was inspired by the hazards of moving the most precious commodity of all. OK, I had two kids, but I let my wife arrange their things for the moving, and the moving men could do what they wanted with our furniture. But I didn’t let them touch my record collection! I schlepped every box full of discs myself, and carefully placed them in the safest positions. I was proud that my entire collection arrived in Detroit unscathed. »From The Record Changer (August, 1949). « This may be the very best Cat-toon of all. It says everything I ever wanted to say about this character. What is a mere soul in comparison to a 100% complete jazz record collection? Spencer Crilly, wherever you are, I thank you for suggesting this gag! » Perhaps the proverbial catch in the Faustian deal is that, without his soul, a cat can’t appreciate jazz any longer. You can never win.From The Record Changer (January, 1950). « The Cat, seen as a dodderer in the Buddy Bolden Home for Old Cats, basically predicts the CD and DVD records to come 50 years hence! »
« I tell ya, Spirit… this neighborhood is like a lit firecracker… »
I’m surprised that it took us this long to get to Will Eisner and his signature creation, The Spirit. Is it perhaps too obvious a topic? Nah. Though the ink and the pixels may flow, and even if everyone and his chiropractor has already waxed rhapsodic about old Will, the subject retains its depths of evergreen freshness.
For most generations of cartoonists, Eisner is an irresistible influence. My own initial encounter came in the early 1970s, when I glimpsed ads for Warren’s Spirit reprints in the rear section of Famous Monsters of Filmland. And then I was introduced to his groundbreaking style and storytelling approach… only it wasn’t, in this case, quite his.
In 1975, I had stumbled upon a Dutch collection of WWII-era Spirit newspaper strips (The Daily Spirit, Real Free Press, 1975-76… a publication designed by none other than Joost Swarte), and I was captivated… by the ghost work of no less than Plastic Man creator Jack Cole!
« You can do that in a comic strip? » was my general feeling as a ten-year-old aspiring cartoonist. From The Spirit daily strip, January 3, 1942 (scripted by Manly Wade Wellman, illustrated by Jack Cole).
I won’t go over the action-packed history of the character… what I’ll focus on here instead is inextricably linked to Eisner’s terrific business acumen: having held onto his character’s ownership, he could shop him around the publishing world, a process still unfolding to this day, well beyond his own passing.
The Spirit, that well-travelled rascal, has witnessed his exploits bearing many a publisher’s imprint, from Quality to Fiction House, through I.W. (naughty, naughty!), Harvey, Kitchen Sink, Warren, and DC… so far. And the coolest thing is that Eisner was along for most of the ride, creating glorious new cover visuals for the venerable archives.
Today, we’ll focus on Quality’s output (1942-50), which alone was contemporary to the strip’s tenure. About half of it was Eisner, but I’m no purist: the man hired some of the finest ghosts in the medium’s history, when it came to both story and art. To name but a few favourites: Manly Wade Wellman, Jerry Grandenetti, Jules Feiffer, Wally Wood…
Speaking of Jack Cole… before he got his own title, The Spirit was featured for a couple of years in Quality’s Police Comics anthology. He occasionally ran into his fellow headliner, Plastic Man. This is Police Comics no. 23 (October, 1943). Cover by Jack Cole. Read this issue here.This is The Spirit no. 12 (Summer 1948), cover by Eisner, and featuring a bunch of Manly Wade Wellman / Lou Fine Spirit tales, which is to say “Eye, Feets, and Lock” (August 12th, 1945), “The Case of the Missing Undertaker” (September 30, 1945), “Skelvin’s School for Actors” (November 18, 1945), “The Whitlock Diamond Caper” (June 24, 1945) and “Nitro” (October 21, 1945).This is The Spirit no. 13 (Autumn, 1948), cover by Eisner, and gathering a clutch of Wellman / Fine outings, i.e. “Mr. Martin’s Pistols” (September 23, 1945), “Red Scandon” (June 3, 1945), “The Strange Case of the Two $5.00 Bills” (December 9, 1945), “Mr. Exter” (May 27, 1945) and “Vaudeville Vinnie” (November 4, 1945).Another high-wire master class in design and tension from Mr. Eisner. This is Quality Comics’ The Spirit no. 14 (Winter, 1948), featuring reprints of Spirit adventures (“The Alibi Factory“, “The Kuttup Shop“, “Prominent Executives Vanish“, “The Masked Magician“, “Belle La Trivet“) from 1945, written by Chapel Hill‘s foremost scribe, Manly Wade Wellman, and illustrated by Lou Fine and the Quality shop.This is The Spirit no. 15 (Spring, 1949), cover by Eisner, and gathering a bouquet of Wellman / Fine offerings, namely “Rosilind Ripsley” (June 10, 1945), “Madame Lerna’s Crystal Ball” (September 16, 1945), and “The Case of the Will O’Wisp Murders” (November 5, 1944).This is The Spirit no. 16 (Autumn, 1948), boasting an Eisner cover and rounding up a rogues’ gallery of Spirit exploits scripted by Bill Woolfolk: “The Case of the Uncanny Cat” (October 8, 1944) and “Jackie Boy” (September 9, 1944) and Manly Wade Wellman: “The Case of the Headless Burglar” (September 24, 1944), all pencilled by Lou Fine.I’ll bet Dolan could kick himself if he wasn’t so tidily trussed up. Fooled by a pretty… er, face again. This is The Spirit no. 20 (April 1950), featuring “The Vortex” (September 8, 1946); “The Siberian Dagger” (January 27, 1946); “Magnifying Glasses” (May 26, 1946), plus a couple of Flatfoot Burns stories by Al Stahl. Cover by Will Eisner, and a gold star and a hearty round of applause for the colourist.
As for the insides… I’m tickled to inform you that all of Quality’s issues of The Spirit are available gratis on comicbookplus.com. Enjoy!
– RG
p.s. For more (much more!) of Will Eisner’s famous creation, just click on the umbrella category, THAT’S THE SPIRIT!
« But observers say it is unlikely to slow down the consumption of fugu* »
DC’s Wasteland** (1987-89) was, to my mind, the publisher’s finest-ever horror anthology… for a handful of issues. While the experiment lasted but a couple of years, and it was mercifully, if a little late, put out to pasture.
To compensate for the usually uneven, often random nature of anthologies, the book was to be scripted by just two writers (John Ostrander and the fascinating Del Close) and illustrated by a carefully-picked skeleton crew of artists, namely George Freeman, David Lloyd, William Messner-Loebs and Don Simpson. Perhaps the vetting process wasn’t sufficiently thorough, though, because Freeman dropped out after a mere seven issues and one more cover, and Lloyd followed suit before the year was through. With proper bullpen substitutions, things might have run smoothly, but of all the ringers brought in, only Ty Templeton rose to the challenge, his sneakily clean-cut style providing ideal contrast and tension to issue 11’s nasty tale of Dissecting Mister Fleming, sadly the series’ final flash of brilliance… with seven dead horse issues left to flog.
But those early issues were, for the most part, quite glorious. Simpson and Lloyd landed the lion’s share of the very best tales, Simpson because he was most versatile, and Lloyd since he excelled at instilling the bleakest, most unsettling ambiances.
Today, we present Wasteland’s opening salvo, Foo Goo (Wasteland no.1, Dec. 1987, DC), by Ostrander, Close and Lloyd. Bon appétit!
The title, despite denoting a fictive species of fungus, is clearly a reference to the virulently-toxic liver of the globefish, pufferfish, or fugu… which is also, of course, a costly delicacy. It merely needs to be expertly prepared.
I first came upon this intriguing factoid in 1975, when a famous Kabuki performer, Bandō Mitsugorō VIII, presumed he could beat the odds. « In January 1975, Bandō visited a Kyoto restaurant with friends and ordered four portions of fugu kimo, the liver of the fugu fish, a dish whose sale was prohibited by local ordinances at the time. Claiming that he could survive the fish’s poison, he ate the livers and died after returning to his hotel room, after seven hours of paralysis and convulsions. »
-RG
*”Japanese Actor Poisoned“, The Leader-Post (Regina, SK), Jan. 20, 1975
**Not to be confused with the national capital of the United States of America
« And by the way, did I see you without a Pookie Snackenberg button? »
Concluding our exclusive conversation with Mr. Mike Royer, picking up the thread from where we left off in Part Two. And don’t forget to begin with Part One.
This illustration served double duty, first as a sampler released with the second batch of Cruisin’ albums in 1972, then on a box set collecting Cruisin’ 1955-56-57.
Historical research in those days wasn’t as tidy and simple… and so here, either Peggy’s lying or… Elvis Presley’s third and final appearance on Sullivan’s show was on January 6, 1957. And The Blob wasn’t released until September 10, 1958. Well, Peg?
Royer’s new illustration for the third and final box set, the one gathering Cruisin’ 1961-62-63, issued in 1992.
WOT: Are you happy with the overall work?
Michael Royer: I would say… two-thirds of the covers, I’m really pleased with. I can look at them and pickle the living daylights out of them. The Cruising’ Years… I look at it, and some of the proportions bother me. The scrapbook is too small, compared to the photo on the desk, and other little things that, if I were gonna do that again, I would adjust those sizes. But then again, that’s the impression I get, I guess, that’s important.
WOT: True.
MR: The one where Peggy sees Eddie behind her in a car at the drive-in is my least favorite of all of them.
WOT: Do tell.
MR: Because Paul had given me an impossible thumbnail. To make it work, so that they were all on the same planet… Ah, it’s really easy to lay out something and have two cars and the drive-in theatre lot, and not worry about if they’re on the same plane, if they’re seen from the same point of view… and so to do that and make it work… I still look at that and I get disappointed.
MR: I really like the one where he’s outside and it’s snowing.
WOT: And he’s with a black lady? That’s 1966.
MR: The black lady is looking at him… kind of suspiciously, and it may have something to do… because he’s in her neighborhood. I’m trying to remember if his early career at the law firm was dealing with…
WOT: Social issues?
MR: And I can’t remember, every tv screen’s got the same thing on it. Is it the Batman logo?
WOT: Confirmed. You were right on the money.
MR: Here we are, all the Cruisin’ cds. They have changes on them. Okay, let’s see. ’55 was the first one.
WOT: Actually, from what I’ve read, ’55 was actually done later, part of the second batch produced [in January, 1972].
MR: Yes, it was added in, and I don’t care for that one. I really like ’56, only because in retrospect, I look at it and it speaks to me. ’57, okay. ’58, only because of the subject matter and Paul’s layout… ’59 is the one where I went to South East Los Angeles, to the car lot that had the dashboard. It had to be that, after so many years, if anybody had one, they just had to go “heyyy!“, you know.
MR: 1960 is… not as bad as I remember! At least I made his layout work…
WOT: That’s good news.
MR: And ’61, is, yeah, they’re about the break up. And Cruisin’ ’62 is.. ha. They *are* breaking up. No, I guess it was a three year breakup, okay?
WOT: (laughs) Okay!
MR: ’63, they’re in the coffee shop, and that’s the Studebaker… now waitaminit, what’s the one on… that’s not a Studebaker on ’61, that’s an Olds, so the Studebaker’s on ’63.
MR: ’64, there’s the announcement: “to wed Kevin Buchanan III…” And ’65 is ten years later, and it’s the same girl that was working at the library, but she’s gotten a little prettier.
WOT: No kidding? Subtle bit of continuity.
MR: And there’s Luthor on the board in the background… his concert, “New York Blacked Out” headlines, Up the Down Staircase… okay, ’66: oh yeah, “What this community needs is economic improvement and self-help!” Ah, yeah, all the TVs except one had Batman, and one of ’em has Luthor on it, singing.
MR: And ’67, that’s the one with Ron Jacobs coming out of the… through the beads in the back. And golly, it’s Genevieve again. Mmm!
WOT: The librarian from ’55!
MR: That’s her.
MR: And ’68 was the first one *after* The Cruisin’ Years. Ah, there it is; I should have them in the order they were released. So we redid 1968, “Vietnam Widows for Peace“, and I kinda liked the way that turned out. It was fun researching all of the fashions and things!
WOT: Good, because research wasn’t always a simple task.
MR: Ah, ’69, on their honeymoon, Niagara Falls Retreat; Newspaper headline: “Beatles to Split” “Eddie, I might want a career of my own“… I just sold the comp to that, I think in Charlotte.
WOT: Oh, wow. So I am being timely here.
MR: 1970: “Mike’s gonna give me another lesson”. I put myself in there, uh… idealized.
WOT: (laughs) So that’s what it is, then?
MR: And then there’s the Porky Chedwick, and somewhere in here… the Cruisin’ boxes. Whoa! There are… three of them.
WOT: What are they?
MR: The first box set has ’55, ’56 and ’57, and has the Cruisin’ Years cover, with the Peg and Eddie photographs, and the scrapbook, and the concert tickets and so on. The next one is ’58, ’59 and ’60, and that one is, Eddie is next to his Chevrolet with the tire kit on the bumper, and he goes “Come on, Peg! The Blob starts at 7:15!” “Eddie… we can’t go! Elvis is on Ed Sullivan tonight!”
WOT: Poor girl’s chained to her TV!
MR: And the last box set was ’61, ’62 and ’63, and Eddie’s got the beard that he’s wearing in the college one, and Luthor’s leaning against a tree, and she says: “Oooh, Eddie… your whiskers tickle me!” and he says: “Peg… do you think Luthor sounds like Pete Seeger?”
WOT: These two were always moving in separate directions.
MR: Always! And so I wrote ’68, ’69, ’70, The Cruisin’ Years, and Porky Chedwick. And if I could the long box artwork, and one of the last ones I did, which I believe was gonna be another Cruisin’ Years, and it’s probably the sexiest Peg I ever did…
WOT: Aw…
MR: It’s Peg and Eddie… oh my God… *two* of them. I might have done another big box, because they’re at the beach, she’s in a bikini, and it’s another tension-filled thing…
WOT: Her bikini?
MR: Oh, he’s saying: “Who’s this Buchanan the third?“, so that fits in the chronology somewhere. And the last one would precede their wedding, it’s where they’re on a bridge, in New York City, it’s a big closeup, they’re dressed to the nines, he’s in… could have been a tux, she’s in a sexy evening gown. And leaning on the rail, exposing her… attributes. The program was for a big Broadway hit of ’69, and he’s got his finger under his collar, kinda saying something to the effect of: “You know, Peg, there’s something I should have asked you… a long time ago“. It’s the proposal cover, you know.
Now I don’t know if that was ever produced. I also did another cover, which I know was not produced, and it was a Cruisin’ Christmas Album.
WOT: Whoa.
MR: And I actually drew my living room, in the house I had in Simi Valley [California] and Eddie, in his Santa Claus outfit is putting presents under the Christmas tree in the center of the room. And Peg is coming down the stairs in her sexy négligé, with her robe blowing open…
WOT: That’s his present.
MR: ’twas drafty in the house that night. And she’s got a plate, and she’s saying: “Oh, Santa… don’t forget your milk and cookies!” So it’s the only cover in the series without any tension.
WOT: Or the most tension, depending on how you look at it.
MR: I think we discussed doing ’71, but figured that there wasn’t enough happening that year to make an interesting cover, or the songs were too new in the late ’80s to get clearances or rights on them, you know.
WOT: Things have changed quite a bit… even the cd reissues are significantly different from the LPs. Reissuing certain pop-song heavy tv shows has proven quite a financial ordeal in some cases because of astronomical increases in the cost of music rights.
For that reason, the Cruisin’ LPs each have a few more songs than the cds, even if the opposite should be true, if only in terms of storage capacity.
MR: They lost rights, and stuff like that.
WOT: People didn’t know back then what was to come, obviously. The Cruisin’ series came out at just the perfect time, and I think it was quite visionary to decide to preserve, or recreate, what must have seemed at the time a very recent piece of the past.
MR: I wish that I had not given all of my vinyl discs to my first… son-in-law… and replaced them all with the CDs before I realized that there were the differences.
WOT: Not to mention the size of the artwork and quality of reproduction.
MR: Once the series was over, I sold Ron Jacobs all of the originals. And I kind of regret that in a way, because I could sell them for a lot more today than I did, in the early ’90s, to him.
WOT: Sigh. They’re heirlooms.
MR: I don’t know why I didn’t think to pull these things off the shelves and look at them before we talked.
WOT: Ah, it’s okay. In fact, it’s probably better: I got your spontaneous responses out of it.
MR: Actually.. overall, I’m more proud of them than I am disappointed. And the things that disappoint me, I can point out why and it doesn’t necessarily mean that it excuses the problems…
MR: Oh, and there was also a full-page ad… that was in Billboard. Peg and Eddie are sitting in the front seat of… probably a 1955 or 56, I think Ford convertible. I cannot remember.
WOT: On the contrary, you clearly remember plenty! (laughs)
MR: I’ve got it somewhere out in the garage, in one of the custom filing cabinets I had made that I call “Mike’s Life in a File Cabinet“.
The ad in question, from the July 11, 1970 issue of Billboard Magazine. Make a wish!
WOT: I think that I think this series is a great artistic success. When people see these volumes individually, they work as snapshots… but put them together, and you realize that there’s so much happening between the panels.
MR: Yeah, it does tell a story!
WOT: It’s beautiful storytelling, and I think, one of your crowning achievements.
MR: You know, it’s funny: the early covers were put into two books. The first one was a… I don’t know if it was a hardcover, it was a oversized, glossy trade paperback called The Album Cover Album [original edition 1977], and it says: “Paul Gruwell, art director, art by Mike Noyer“.
WOT: Oh, lovely. They got one name right.
MR: And the second book they were in, which I didn’t bother to buy, because all they listed was the Art Director. I wasn’t even listed.
WOT: This kind of thing, which I’ve noticed also, is what prompted me to get in touch with you. And I think we’ve done our bit here to help set the record straight. Thank you so much, Mr. Royer!
MR: You’re welcome, Richard. Have a great day!
WOT: You’ve certainly done your part in it!
Read the liner notes, or hear Cruisin’ 1967 in its entirety here!
Read the liner notes, or hear Cruisin’ 1968 in its entirety here!
Read the liner notes, or hear Cruisin’ 1969 in its entirety here!
Read the liner notes, it’ll have to do for now; regrettably, Cruisin’ 1970 isn’t currently available on YouTube! What is this world coming to?
At this time, Cruisin’ With Porky Chedwick would appear to be the final entry in the series (1995). Listen to the whole platter right here.
« That young fella must be the college kid who’s going to work for my paper! Those two prairie wolves will pick him clean… it’ll be an excellent lesson to him, I reckon! » — Max Cogswell, editor-publisher of The Boothill Gazette
Today marks what would have been the ninety-fifth birthday of suave Texan Renaissance man Aaron P. “Pat” Boyette (July 27, 1923 – January 14, 2000). The Golden-voiced Mr. Boyette was in turn actor, radio announcer, cinematic auteur and of course a far-beyond-fine painter and cartoonist. Ah, and if anything could speak more eloquently of his worth as a human being, he was best man at Gus Arriola‘s wedding.
Didn’t I say he was suave?
Now, I could have focussed on any number of his remarkable projects: his 1966-67 run on The Peacemaker (« A man who loves peace so much that he is willing to fight for it! »), his tour-de-force fill-ins on DC’s Blackhawk (issues 242-43, from 1968), his lavishly-detailed work for Warren Magazines (1968-72), his brilliant, but admittedly controversial, run on The Phantom at Charlton (1970-73), his far-better-than-its-source adaptation of Hanna Barbera’s Korg 70,000 B.C., his intense The Tarantula for Atlas-Seaboard (with Michael Fleisher, 1975), his fun revival of Spencer Spook for ACE Comics in the 1980s, or any of his moody work for Charlton’s ghostly anthologies… but I won’t, at least not this time.
Instead, if you’ll bear with me, we’ll take a gander at a fine, fine backup series he co-created with Joe Gill for the pages of Charlton’s long-running Billy the Kid. Mr. Young of the Boothill Gazette (BTK 88, Dec. 1971, to BTK 110, Dec. 1974). Abel Young, bereft of sharp-shooting or pugilistic skills, is a true hero: a fool, an idealist, a stubborn cuss who acts nobly even when he’s scared spitless. His is a charming strip, full of graceful humour and humanity.
Here, then, is my selection: the series’ thirteenth episode, originally published in Billy the Kid no. 100 (March, 1973, Charlton).
Happy birthday, Mr. Boyette. The world needs more gentlemen of your ilk.
-RG
*so proclaimed the headline of a Boyette profile published in Creepy no. 33 (June 1970, Warren).
« The French have a phrase for it. The bastards have a phrase for everything and they are always right. To say goodbye is to die a little. »
― Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
Dopey private detective parodies are a dime-a-dozen, and they seldom raise more than a lazy, jaded chuckle. With that out of the way, just how does Jean-Marc « Loro » Laureau (1943 – 1998)’s Les enquêtes d’Abel Dopeulapeul pull ahead of the pack? Let’s see: while it’s hardly side-splitting, it nevertheless scores precious points on the hilarity front by maintaining a mostly deadpan tone. But… one quick peek at the strip and the jig is up: it’s a glorious, unabashedly visual feast. Loro was blessed with that rather uncommon gift, the ability to seamlessly mix the cartoonish and the realistic. Even Wally Wood couldn’t pull that off. Frank Cho is a perfect contemporary example of someone who’s utterly incapable of it.
Monsieur Laureau himself, in the late 1970s.
M.A. Guillaume, who penned the back cover copy for the second Abel collection, Sale temps pour mourir (1979, Dargaud), clearly gets the picture. I’ll translate:
« Dopeulapeul, a parodic and cretinized response to [Philip] Marlowe, views himself as that marvellous guy who stalks vice and corruption on fifty dollars a day plus expenses. Within the haze of his dream fed by adulterated bourbon, he doubtless imagines he’ll croak on some moonless night, alone like a dog behind the last trashcan of some filthy dead end. The reader will cackle maliciously, knowing no-one gives a toss about the death of a caricature. But he’ll be wrong. Dopeulapeul conducts himself like some village idiot in the throes of some clandestine passion for Lauren Bacall. His blasé detachment, dragging a language school aftertaste, is as seductive as an unkempt stinkbug. It matters little how offhandedly Loro may treat the tentative meanderings of this poor beggar. Within him slumbers a fascinated vision that survives all clichés: in the debauched night, a man moves along, and his shadow is weary of knowing too well the callousness of the blacktop and of men’s hearts. He is free and solitary and Death is at his heels.
Parody can’t put a dent to that, and Loro knows it full well. He may laugh, parody, demystify, “Sale temps pour mourir” is nonetheless an homage to an untouchable legend. »
Loro is all-but-forgotten nowadays, but his ability to channel vintage Will Eisner (particularly The Spirit) without aping him, while displaying plenty of his own pyrotechnics, by itself deserves a more prominent place in history.
« Réquiem pour un privé », an early entry in the series, first saw print in Pilote Hors série aventure (No 17 bis, October 1975, Dargaud)
« Gosh, if only Dad would inject me with some of that!* »
The undervalued Gaspano “Gus” Ignazio Ricca (1906-1956) managed, in the first half of his scant half-century of life, to get his foot in a lot of important doors: The New Yorker (1928), Liberty (1933), Time (1934), Collier’s (1935)… then he wound up in pulps and comics, for better or worse.
Having joined, at the dawn of the 40s, the fabled studio of Harry A. Chesler, the original comic book packager, he became, in 1944, art director of one of Chesler’s many lines, namely Dynamic Comics.
In general, Dynamic’s output wasn’t anything particularly distinguished or accomplished, but oh, those eye-catching covers!
Dynamic Comics no. 11 (September 1944, Chesler / Dynamic.) Read this issue here. The “little people in test tubes” motif never lost its cool, and it pops up all over: for instance, here, here, and also here.
Dynamic Comics no. 12 (November 1944, Chesler / Dynamic.) According to the Grand Comics Database, “The man playing chess bears a distinct resemblance to many contemporary descriptions of Harry “A” Chesler.” Read this issue here.
As if the back-breaking, eye-straining labour, low pay and oppressive deadlines weren’t enough to sap the spirit of a cartoonist. This is Punch Comics no. 9 (July 1944, Chesler / Dynamic.) Read this issue here.
This is Punch Comics no. 12 (January 1945, Chesler / Dynamic.) Read this issue here.
This is Punch Comics no. 13 (April 1945, Chesler / Dynamic.) Read this issue here. Pray note that Mr. Ricca seized the opportunity to symbolically write finis to his and a trio of his colleagues’ lives. « You should’na oughta defied The Skeleton, chum! »
-RG
* from the mouth of Yankee Doodle Jones’ sidekick “Dandy”, Dynamic Comics no. 6. Read it here!
« Speaking of winners, I’ve got Zwellyn Zablow of 11 West Second Street in Freeport, New York, who saw me at the Rockefeller Center dance. I want you to check in at Murray Hill 85-700. Anyway, MU-700 within the next ten minutes… »
Read the liner notes, or hear Cruisin’ 1962 in its entirety right here… while you can!
Read the liner notes, or hear Cruisin’ 1963 in its entirety here!
Read the liner notes, or feast your ears on Cruisin’ 1964 pronto… here!
Read the liner notes, then grind your teeth in frustration at Cruisin’ 1965‘s absence on YouTube. Happy update: here is it now for your listening pleasure!
Read the liner notes, and/or listen to Cruisin’ 1966 in its entirety here!
Now then, here’s part two of our exclusive conversation with Mr. Mike Royer, picking up the thread from where we left off in Part One.
Michael Royer: Richard, you asked « How were you selected? » Well, I’d been working with Paul, and apparently he liked what I did on the Mormon history slides, so he asked me if I would do the ‘final art’ and all the research and everything on the covers, and the last time I saw Paul, before the second batch, that started with The Cruisin’ Years, that had the tickets on the table, and the picture of… I don’t know if it was Eddie in uniform or not… but whatever, that was when Howard Silver of Increase Records decided to do more for the line. And continue the series.
WOT: Right.
MR: And from that point on, all of the writing, and all the ideas, were totally mine.
WOT: I figured it would happen at some point…
MR: I think the ideas might have been a collaboration between Jacobs and Gruwell, but one of the reasons Howard Silver asked me « Do we need to contact Paul Gruwell? », and I said « Nope, you have no reason in the world to contact Paul. »
WOT: Cut out the middleman!
MR: I’m the guy who Paul used to introduce at parties as « This is the man who *inked* my Cruisin’ covers. »
WOT: Oh, boy. Okay.
MR: “Up yours, pal!”
WOT: Oh, this is gold, thank you!
MR: So I said « We don’t need him! », you know, and so all the rest of the albums after that were mine. And there are two covers that were done for a packaging, done for big box stores, that would have had either two or six cds in a tall case…
WOT: I remember those. ‘Longboxes’, shoplifting deterrents of the early cd era.
MR: … and one of them, Eddie is saying « We’ll be late for something at the theater » and Peg is saying « … but, but, the Beatles are on Ed Sullivan tonight! » So they were done to fit in the chronology of the covers. When he said « I’d like to start over with 1968 », and I said, « Well, I don’t wanna do the Woodstock. »
MR: « I don’t want Peg to have a kid from her serviceman, who obviously… died in service. »
WOT: Right.
MR: So I, and you’ve probably seen it, the cover is in front of a theater showing 2001: A Space Odyssey. Eddie discovers Peg there, as one of the Vietnam Widows for Peace. So now we know what happened to the serviceman that she ultimately married.
MR: ’cause I think, uh, the shot of Eddie and the musician with the beard…
WOT: Luthor, yes.
MR: … in college, and he’s got a newspaper clipping taped to his lamp that says « Peg marries… » somebody.
WOT: « Kevin Buchanan III » … he appears to be a society boy.
MR: I don’t know if you have all of them…
WOT: As far as I know.
MR: And of course, I continued, on all of the covers, to introduce a little bit… of tension.
WOT: Do tell.
MR: ’cause there’s some in every cover, sometimes it’s subtle, sometimes it’s overt. But I believe I did through… what year is the Kent State thing?
WOT: Let’s see… 1970. Eddie’s talking with his boss about it.
MR: Peg says « That’s okay, because Mike wants to give me another tennis lesson. »
WOT: Well, another “lesson”, at any rate. Whether it’s tennis remains to be seen. She’s got the racket, but…
MR: So… I can say all those new covers were made… the one previous to that is where they’re at Niagara Falls, and he’s talking about things could happen at his firm, and she’s saying « But Eddie, *I* might want a career! » And I enjoyed doing that cover, because I just wanted to do her standing there at the little motel sink in her slip.
MR: … and of course, being male and having to draw female forms, I made sure that her skirt was blowing in the wind… and in her little tennis outfit in the next year.
MR: We did, uh, let’s see: there was The Cruisin’ Years, which re-established the whole series. And then, starting with ’68 through ’70.
MR: Okay, I did two ‘Cruisin’ With‘… the second one, I guess it was never published…
WOT: Ah, right.
MR: … or produced, or released. And it was just another… let’s see: Porky Chedwick has got her in a poodle skirt and they’re dancing, right?
WOT: Yeah, that’s it.
MR: Okay, the next one was outside on a city street, and in the brick building behind them you see the silhouette of a disc jockey, and the broadcast booth at a radio station, I think the sign is on the roof. And Peg is protesting something. She’s got a banner, and Eddie and she are arguing about something. Ah, I only have a copy of my rough on that, or my comp. And of course there’s more detail on her than on him. I enjoyed drawing her. That last ‘Cruisin’ With’ I thought was much better than the first one I did, for cover art.
WOT: (laughs) exactly.
WOT: Is Cruisin’ a frequently-evoked topic by your fans?
MR: Every once in a while, it’s funny… for years, once in a blue moon, somebody would say something about Cruisin’. But I was in Charlotte, just… less than two weeks ago.
WOT: Right.
MR: … and I swear, a dozen or more people talked to me about the Cruisin’ covers at my table. Maybe that’s because there’s a new series of Cruisin’ albums… with art that I don’t like.
WOT: Oh, I don’t like it either: it looks like, and likely is, clip art.
MR: I don’t know who’s producing it. I don’t think it’s Howard Silver.
WOT: It’s called “The Cruisin’ Story“, it’s out of England, and it’s just a series of run-of-the-mill compilations, without the defining radio program concept.
MR: Howard Silver ran Increase Records. I don’t know if he bought out Increase and that was [Ron] Jacobs’ company or not. He’s in Hawaii now, last I heard. Jacobs [Indeed he was, but Mr. Jacobs passed away in 2016].
« Neither of us had seen a ghost, but I knew what he meant. »
I had planned to feature quite another tale this week, but seeing as we are in the torrid grip of quite the heat wave, I opted in the end for something more topical I’d been saving on the back burner.
Edward Nelson Bridwell (1931–1987) is one of those scarcely noticed but greatly accomplished figures of American comics. At DC from the mid-1960s to the end of his life, he edited, wrote, packaged and compiled his heart out. Most impressive, in my view, were his erudition and discerning eye for a fine short story.
There’s always a blessed but mostly-powerless minority of comics creators that endeavours to improve the unwashed readership’s minds… nearly never at Marvel, most often at DC. In the mid-1970s, while working as Joe Orlando‘s editorial assistant, Bridwell adapted three excellent, but highly unconventional vintage spooky tales, as far afield as imaginable from the usual EC-by-homeopathy fare his boss favoured. These were William Fryer Harvey‘s August Heat (Secrets of Sinister House no. 12, July 1973), Ambrose Bierce‘s The Man and the Snake (Secrets of Sinister House 14, October 1973) and John Russell’s The Price of the Head (Weird Mystery Tales no. 14, Oct.-Nov. 1974); all three were splendidly brought to visual glory by WOT favourite Alfredo Alcala (1925-2000). All three are moody slow burners, with much introspection and little action.
On this scorching day (currently a sticky 35°C /95°F in Montréal, Canada) you’ll forgive me for not waiting until August to share this dark beauty with you.
August Heat was the issue’s cover feature. Illustration by Luis Domínguez.
As evidence of Mr. Bridwell’s skill as an adapter, feel free to read the full (yet quite brief) text of August Heat. Or listen to one its several fine radio adaptations, the choice is yours:
Who's Out There? 