« In 1900, she bought from a Medicine Lodge hardware store the implement that became both her weapon and her symbol — a hatchet — and at the age of fifty-four sallied forth on a smashing campaign that carried her across the country, shouting: ‘Smash! Smash! For Jesus’ sake, Smash!’ »
These days I’ve been reading Ardent Spirits: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition (1973) by John Kobler. I didn’t know much about the temperance movement in general, but what surprised me most is how intimately it was tied to suffragette activism. It’s in Ardent Spirits that I came across the fascinating character of Carry Nation*, ‘a bulldog, running along at the feet of Jesus, barking at what He doesn’t like’. She seems a very fitting figure for a post on this March 8th, International Women’s Day.
Whether she was a total barmpot or a blazing visionary is up for some debate; I must give credit to Kobler, who cobbled together a fairly well-balanced portrait of her while many historians tended to quickly dismiss this hatchet-wielding devotee as a crazed lunatic. While basic facts remain the same (disagreement about Nation’s height notwithstanding), interpretation of events and motivations varies wildly. This can be quickly demonstrated by comparing two modern articles of some depth: Carry Nation is described as ‘a flamboyant, theatrical and completely outrageous woman at nearly 6 feet tall [..] smashing barrels on stage and singing her temperance songs to enthusiastic audiences who howled for more‘ (Carrie Nation: American Woman by Richard Behrens) but also as ‘a fearless populist progressive just over 5 feet tall** […] fighting tirelessly for good governance, women’s rights, civil rights, and cleaning the corruption out of the body politic‘ (Hatchet Nation by Mark Lawrence Schrad).
One of six postcards published in 1905 depicting Nation’s ‘hatchetations’: On the Warpath; Raiding a Public House; Addressing Cigarette Fiends; Smashing a Pub; In a Restaurant; In a Pub.
Nation went through an arsenal of weapons (aside from rocks and incidental objects, a sledgehammer) before settling on her beloved hatchet and coining the term ‘hatchetations’ to describe her saloon smashings. It comes as no surprise that she grabbed cartoonists’ imagination, even taking into account that real juicy conflict remains unillustrated (and this was a ruthless war between temperance advocates and their opponents). Just picture this colourful scene — a woman, garbed in the usual constrictive dress of early 19th century, marching into a bar and smashing up bottles, mirrors, chairs, slot machines with her trusty little axe. This striking image is likely why Nation’s name is first to spring up when the topic of prohibition arises in modern conversation.
Happy Women’s Day (and Women’s History Month) to all readers!
~ ds
* This original name came about when Carry Moore, named Carry by a semiliterate father, married David Nation. She preferred to spell her name as ‘Carrie’, until she married David, yielding the grandiose full name Carry A. Nation (A. stood for Amelia), ‘carry a nation for temperance’.
** This question of height intrigues me, for most articles describe Nation as tall and powerful. Mark Lawrence Schrad, who just portrayed her as being just over 5 feet tall, has also written another article in which he calls her ‘imposing in stature, prone to violence and—claiming God spoke to her, urging her to attack saloons—slightly unhinged‘.
« We all know interspecies romance is weird. » — Tim Burton
It’s Bill Ward‘s birthday! No, not Black Sabbath’s Bill Ward — that’s on the 5th of May — save the date, as the suits say. It’s also Will Eisner’s anniversaire, but as he holds a category of his own, let’s let ol’ Bill have his turn, shall we?
Now, while most of the attention devoted to Ward (1919-1998) centres on his enormous output for Marvel founder (and Stan and Larry‘s uncle) Moe ‘Martin’ Goodman, I’m more intrigued by the brief period of his career when he truly seemed invested in his work, namely his passage at Quality Comics, where his craft rivalled that of such illustrious stablemates as Eisner, Jack Cole, Reed Crandall and Lou Fine.
While he worked on such features as Blackhawk and Doll Man, Ward clearly preferred — was it ever in doubt? — depicting beautiful women dressed to the nines, a passion most readily indulged in romance comics, a genre then in its infancy, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby having just set it on its way with 1947’s Young Romance.
This is Heart Throbs no. 1 (Aug. 1949, Quality). Ever the fetishist, Bill never could resist a well-fitted pair of opera gloves.This is Heart Throbs no. 2 (Oct. 1949, Quality). Quality’s flagship romance title, Heart Throbs lasted one hundred issues, 46 published by Quality, and an even hundred by DC (1956 to 1972) after they picked up what remained of the publisher’s assets, among them Blackhawk, Plastic Man, Doll Man, Uncle Sam, Phantom Lady, and some war (G.I. Combat) and romance titles.This is Hollywood Secrets no. 1 (Nov. 1949, Quality). An unusual colour scheme!This is Campus Loves no. 1 (Dec. 1949, Quality).This is Flaming Love no. 1 (Dec. 1949, Quality). The gloating guy is the prototypical Ward creep.This is Broadway Romances no. 1 (Jan. 1950, Quality). It’s so refreshing to see Ward devote the same level of attention to detail to background items as to the female figure and her accoutrements.This is Hollywood Secrets no. 2 (Jan. 1950, Quality).This is Love Letters no. 2 (Jan. 1950, Quality). Interesting how all these romance covers — the majority of Ward’s production in that genre — all came out within the span of a year or so.This is Secret Loves no. 2 (Jan. 1950, Quality). Ward liked his women to have tiny, needle-like digits — I mean, just compare the lovers’ respective paws!This is Torchy no. 5 (July 1950, Quality), Ward’s signature creature. With the years, as his women grew ever more buxom, his men became ever more grotesque — these are some of the archetypes, but noses got longer, legs got skinnier and shorter, bellies more bulging — until men and women in no way seemed to belong to the same species. While that device of exaggeration was a mainstay of « girlie » art, Ward took it further than just about anyone.
Over the years, things got more… pneumatic. And then some more.
One from an issue of Zip (1967, Marvel); that particular cartoon had probably been around the block a few times by then… it sure doesn’t scream ‘1967!’
Incidentally, the elaborate background textures found in Ward cartoons were achieved by a technique called rubbing, or frottage, « … a reproduction of the texture of a surface created by placing a piece of paper or similar material over the subject and then rubbing the paper with something to deposit marks, most commonly charcoal or pencil. » Not to be confused with the *other* kind of frottage, although, come to think of it, that’s also quite relevant to Ward cartoons.
One of Ward’s ‘Phone Girls’, she saw print in Snappy no. 24 (1958, Marvel)… and likely numerous times thereafter.
« The first hundred years are the hardest. » — Wilson Mizner
Having just learned this morning that today marks a century since the birth of André Franquin (1924-1997), I again pushed my planned post to the back burner. So, instead of writing about a celebrated Belgian genius, I’ll write about *another* celebrated Belgian genius.
Spirou’s ‘Albums’ were a handy way to dispose of unsold copies of the weekly magazine by collecting a trimester’s worth of issues in an attractive hardcover format. This one’s from March 1948, just to give you an idea of Franquin’s early style.A panel from Le dictateur et le champignon (1953). The ripe banana-coloured critter with the long tail, if you don’t already know, is Le marsupilami, Franquin’s homage to Elzie Segar‘s Eugene the Jeep (introduced in 1935 and known as ‘Pilou-Pilou’ in French Europe).This panel took my breath away as a kid when I first saw it, and it still does. It’s from Spirou et Fantasio no. 8, La mauvaise tête (1954). How many contemporary artists could pull off such a scene — let alone the entire sequence, wherein Fantasio ends up winning the race cycling backwards — at all convincingly? I’ve been reading, for the first time, Franquin’s collected Modeste et Pompon (1955-59). After Franquin was tricked into surrendering his creation to Tintin magazine publisher Les Éditions du Lombard, M&P became just another long-running mediocre domestic strip in many successive pairs of (necessarily) lesser hands… but seeing Franquin bring it to life is a most refreshing pleasure.A dynamic Modeste et Pompon sample from near the end of Franquin’s run. During Franquin’s relatively brief passage at Tintin magazine, he set a new standard of graphic freedom, opening a breach for his successors that Georges “Hergé” Rémi himself did *not* welcome. Tintin’s papa, in fact, deemed Franquin’s supple and organic line ‘vulgar’. Album Spirou no. 70 (March 1959, Dupuis), gathering issues 1081 to 1091 and depicting a scene from Le Prisonnier du Bouddha.Album Spirou no. 96 (April 1965, Dupuis), collecting issues 1395 to 1407. Gaston Lagaffe*, like Le Marsupilami before him, was a minor character introduced by Franquin to relieve the tedium of setting down the adventures of Spirou et Fantasio. The popularity of both these would-be background creations wound up dwarfing that of the intended protagonists. Franquin’s original painted artwork for the cover of Album Spirou no. 100 — well, duh — (March 1966, Dupuis), containing issues 1447 to 1459.
In 1977, a depressed yet inspired Franquin, suffocating within the confines of his much-imitated (at his publisher’s clueless insistence) style, created — with kindred confederate Yvan Delporte — Idées noires (Black, or perhaps more fittingly Bleak notions) as an outlet. It first appeared in the short-lived* Spirou mag supplement Trombone illustré, then moved to the more welcoming pages of Fluide glacial. An English-language edition, entitled Die Laughing, was published by Fantagraphics in 2018. Check it out here.
Here are a couple of Idées noires punchlines, which should give you an idea of their tone.
Marcel Gotlib wittily hijacked/paraphrased Sacha Guitry‘s bon mot about Beethoven : « After reading a page of Idées noires by Franquin, we close our eyes, and the darkness that ensues is still Franquin’s. »In countless instances, Franquin even used his signature to expressive comic effect.
-RG
*These days, thinking about Gaston Lagaffe puts me in an ugly mood, I’m afraid. Franquin had expressly, and all along, requested that his creation be put to rest with him. But did his publisher – having built an empire upon Franquin’s creations — honour his wishes? No more than usual. Another arrogant slap — post-mortem this time — in the face of a genius exploited and mistreated his entire adult life. In this world, the interest of the characters… oops, pardon my French, ‘properties’ obviously trumps that of the flesh-and-blood creators. Every time. For there’s always some scab hack or other backstabber (and they *always* claim to be huuuge fans, as Miller said to Eisner, betraying him with a kiss) to aid and abet venal publishers. That’s how we got a pointless Sugar and Spike revival and all those Watchmen prequels. Hopefully, Monsieur Franquin’s daughter will prevail in her lawsuit against Dupuis to settle the matter in a just and fitting manner. [ Update: it didn’t end well. The suits won. ]
**« It is upon the publication of a Franquin article that the supplement is cancelled. In his piece, the fervently antimilitarist Franquin takes to task Thierry Martens, Spirou’s then editor-in-chief, for running articles about Nazi war plane models. » (translated quote from L’histoire de la bande dessinée pour les débutants by Frédéric Duprat, p. 131, Jan. 2011)
I’ve gathered most of the yule-themed Cul de Sac Sundays… one of these days, I might devote an entire post to Madeline Otterloop’s Christmas sweater dailies.
Merry Christmas, everyone!
RT: « The creepier side of Christmas. A German Expressionist Christmas has been done by someone, somewhere, I’m sure. » December 11, 2005.RT: « Taking down Christmas is always so hard. I like the timing here. » January 1st, 2006.RT: « Petey dreams of Christmas with music by Tchaikovsky. » December 24, 2006.RT: « Santa Claus commands a lot of fear and awe in children.I could never get a coherent sentence out when sitting on his lap when I was a kid, and I doubt I could today. Thank God I don’t believe in him anymore! » December 23, 2007.RT: « The first appearance of Dill’s mysterious, malignant, poignant, and possibly educational toy. I just wanted something that’d be easy and repetitive to draw, because I was behind. » December 30, 2007.RT: « What I like the most is the tree seller’s resemblance to a mortician. » December 21, 2008.December 28, 2008.RT: « Drawn from life. Nothing more need be said. » December 19, 2010.RT: « Petey’s faith in his commentaries’ scathing qualities is misplaced. » December 4, 2011.RT: « Doing this was a joy. The hard part was doing it in pantomime. » December 11, 2011.
… I bring you a of ‘clip show‘ of sorts: excerpts from past entries of this blog, but with a slight twist. For, unlike your textbook clip show, I’ll be drawing from episodes you’re probably unfamiliar with. After all, while this is my 500th piece, this is our blog’s eight hundred and fortieth: quite enough of a tangle to get hopelessly disoriented in.
I have culled from the earliest days of WOT?, when we had precious few readers — each one precious! Five picks from the lot seems a reasonable ratio: neatly one per hundred.
While many of our posts from those days have since, one way or another, found their audience (or vice versa), these dispatches have languished in obscurity — deservedly or not, who can say?
Here they are, in chronological order and everything:
This one was a gathering of English fantasy artist Patrick Woodroffe (1940-2014)’s covers for Warren Magazines. You may have seen his fabulous cover for Judas Priest’s 1976 LP Sad Wings of Destiny.
A ghoulish and gloriously fitting backup feature for Pat Mills’ unhinged Death Race 2020 (1995-96, Roger Corman’s Cosmic Comics). I collected them all so you don’t have to!
Incidentally, this is all you’ll be seeing of me this month — it’s not a case of burnout: I’m just furiously cobbling together this year’s Hallowe’en Countdown, and that takes time. Thanks for your patience and loyalty, and see you in October!
« I don’t understand retiring. I don’t know what I’d do. I don’t play golf. I have to sit at a drawing table or else it’s a wasted day. The nature of the work can change here, but I have to be doing something, especially with my hands. » — Seymour Chwast
Nobody really expects those we deem “immortals” to actually live forever… but I suspect some part of us does, or at least hopes so.
I haven’t yet reached that fateful age when reading the paper largely consists of scanning the obituary column to learn which of your friends (and possibly enemies) have died, but I fully grasp the concept… and shudder in sympathy.
And so on to my point: it’s easy to take genius (or mere talent, for that matter) for granted, and so I generally endeavour to salute valued creators while they’re still around, instead of paying belated lip service to their greatness once reminded of their existence by news of their passing.
For years, I’ve been meaning to devote a post to Seymour Chwast… and dragging my feet. He’s had such a long, inspiring — and daunting — career. But the other day, when Tony Bennett died, aged 96, I took it as a sign not to reserve my tribute for Mr. Chwast’s next birthday (that’s late next month). Here goes.
First, an amuse-gueule. This mute but highly rhythmical piece hails from issue 69 (October, 1977) of Push Pin Graphic, the fabled design studio’s showcase magazine. The issue’s theme is “House Nice”, parodying interior decorating fixture House Beautiful Magazine. Written and drawn by Mr. Chwast.
Design historian Steven Heller explains: « Push Pin’s principal cofounders, Seymour Chwast (b. 1931) and Milton Glaser (b. 1929), two native New Yorkers who met while attending Manhattan’s Cooper Union, brought distinct tastes and preferences — as well as chemistry — to their unique partnership. Chwast savored American comic strips and pop culture while Glaser studied etching in Italy and was passionate for Italian Renaissance painters. The former injected a cartoonist’s abandon into his artwork, the latter introduced a sublime elegance. Despite their formal differences, both shared the conviction that postwar design and illustration should not be limited to prevailing practices — either sentimental realism or reductive simplicity. They rejected rote methods and rigid styles while concocting incomparable ways of transforming old into new… »
The following encapsulates even more succinctly the duo’s boundless contribution: « Seymour Chwast and Milton Glaser are legendary graphic designers who founded Push Pin Studios, where they rebelled against the swiss style establishment – blending illustration with design. » [ source ]
Amen: from my standpoint as an art student back in the early 1980s, I’ll say one thing about Swiss design: that shit was oppressive.
To sidestep the perils of losing my way amidst such a gargantuan topic, I’ve opted to focus on a favourite entry in the Chwast œuvre.
« Another of Chwast’s graphic stories is Sam’s Bar (Doubleday, 1987). Written by Donald Barthelme, it is also a total narrative and pictorial story. It captures in woodcut illustrations one night in a bar somewhere in America, people talking to each other and talking to themselves as the reader goes from one end of the bar to the other. » The book’s intriguing structure would have made it an ideal comic *strip*, in the literal sense.
Ellie says: « So I told the kid May 31, 1989, was the cutoff date, as of May 31, 1989 she’s off the payroll whether she’s finished goddamn college or has not she’s finished goddamn college. So she tells me she’s thinking of transferring to UCLA and that’s going to set her back two semesters. So she can get fencing. Where she is they don’t have fencing. I said I’ll rent you an Errol Flynn movie. »
Trish and Calvin.Hal and Germaine.Two lawyers, Mario and Saul. Someone ought to make a show about a lawyer named Saul.
The book’s handy endpapers, featuring “The Regulars at Sam’s Bar“.
I wouldn’t want to short-change Barthelme’s contribution… as a collaboration, this truly works a treat. Here’s an amusing passage I encountered on the subject of this routinely misunderstood author: « Donald Barthelme was, by his own design, a hard writer to categorize. Even at the height of his fame, in the late 70s and early 80s, there were readers who just didn’t get him, or suspected his work was a hoax or a joke they weren’t in on. At The New Yorker, where he was a regular contributor for decades, clerks in the library were expected to type up on index cards brief summaries of every article, fact or fiction, that appeared in the magazine. Barthelme’s cards sometimes contained just one word: “gibberish.” » [ source ]
One more for the road? I couldn’t leave out Chwast’s adorable cover illustration for issue 57 (Why People Keep Dogs) of Push Pin Graphic, from 1972.
Many happy returns and thanks for the inspiration, dear Mr. Chwast!
« History deals mainly with captains and kings, gods and prophets, exploiters and despoilers, not with useful men. » — Henry Louis Mencken
A few months ago, I was reading an old John Severin interview (in Graphic Story Magazine no. 13, Spring, 1971, Richard Kyle, editor) conducted by John Benson, and this passage stuck with me:
BENSON : Who are your favorite comics writers that you’ve worked with?
SEVERIN: I don’t even know who writes half the stories. Well, there are two guys, but they aren’t essentially comics writers. I like to work with Jerry DeFuccio and with Colin Dawkins. They write stories.
Which in turn led me to another Severin interview, this one conducted by Gary Groth in the early 2010s.
GROTH: In the back of the book, I’m looking at one issue of Son of Tomahawk actually, which I guess is a post-Tomahawk spin-off, but Frank Thorne does the lead feature and you did a really beautiful backup, I think one of your best strips during this period called Spoilers, that Jerry DeFuccio wrote.
SEVERIN: Really?
GROTH: You don’t sound like you have any recollection of this whatsoever.
SEVERIN: No, not at all. Oh, there’s an awful lot of stuff. Once I do a script and turn it in, it’s only with minor exceptions that I’ll remember the thing next week! I might remember it later on if somebody reminds me of something, but if somebody said, “What did you do last week?” I’d be damned if I know.
Severin’s reaction, to me, is a reminder of two things: first, that some artists (and fans!) are only interested in the visual aspects of comics. And second, that work conditions in the comics field (and most other commercially driven endeavours) are pretty inhumane if you have to just keep chugging on, with little time or impetus to look back and sniff the newsprint, let alone reflect.
Jerome ‘Jerry’ DeFuccio (1925 – 2001) was born on this day, ninety-eight years ago. While he’s most closely associated with his quarter-century stint as associate editor of Mad Magazine, readers of EC’s war/adventure titles know he could also pen, in excellent fashion, a thoroughly gripping yarn. Here’s one of the handful he later did for DC, for editor Joe Kubert. And while Son of Tomahawk wasn’t commercially successful, it was a highlight of its era, a truly adult comic book. See for yourself:
‘Spoilers!’ saw print in Tomahawk no. 135 (July-Aug. 1971, DC). Here’s a lovely illustration of some of the EC gang, in civil war drag . Like it says, DeFuccio’s third from the left. Ink and wash over graphite pencil on Bristol board. » Drawn in the 1950s, this piece saw print in 1983, in issue 9 of the excellent EC fanzine Squa Tront.
GROTH: Was DeFuccio working for Mad at that time?
SEVERIN: Yeah.
GROTH: It seems like you remained friends with DeFuccio for a very long time.
I had initially figured to make this post coincide with World Bicycle Day, but misremembered the date (it’s on the third of June). I briefly considered bumping my post in favour of a pollution-themed one, given the close-to-home current events, but it struck me that people are likelier to need a respite from catastrophe than a reminder of it.
Since I must save up material for my Hallowe’en Countdown all year ’round in order to keep the frenetic pace it requires, I sometimes regret, in other parts of the annum, not featuring spooky stories as often as I’d like. I’ll make an exception this time, since this is more of a summer story with a light touch.
This particular issue of Ghost Stories has the — dubious, I’ll grant — distinction of being the last original comic book published by the once-mighty Dell Comics. How mighty? Well, in 1960, they were smugly ensconced at the top, as they had been for most of the industry’s history. Until the following year: « As publishers began raising prices from the 10¢ mark comics had been at for a quarter of a century, Dell misread the market and went to 15¢ when everyone else went to 12¢. »
That was the beginning of the end for Dell, triggering a long, humiliating slide, going from locomotive to caboose. By 1970, they were just reprinting what little of their once-glorious back catalogue they still retained rights to. I believe their final trio of titles, all reprints, were cover-dated October, 1973 — among them the final issue of Ghost Stories, a straight up reprint of 1966’s no. 16.
I’m not sure why this all-new issue even came to be. Perhaps this was inventory material some editor at Dell saw no point in squandering. If so, this sagacious frugality is appreciated.
This is Ghost Stories no. 35 (Jan. 1973, Dell); cover by Jack Sparling (1916-1997).
Now, I won’t argue that this is one of Jack Sparling‘s most stellar jobs… it was obviously dashed off in workmanlike fashion, even in comparison to the other tales in the issue. But I really like its themes, which tick a lot of boxes for me, cycling and folklore foremost among them.
I tried to find out whether this purported ‘story about the monastery in Oregon‘ (Mount Angel Abbey being the likeliest model) had any currency in popular culture, and came up empty. Well, essentially. While it’s undeniable that “Conspiracy theories frequently emerge following the deaths of prominent leaders and public figures“, I do think the uncredited and unknown author of this yarn came up with a clever little angle… who’s to say it won’t catch on some day? Unlikelier things have come to pass.
-RG
p.s. It occurs to me that this story handily passes the Bechdel Test, surely a rarity in a mainstream comics story of this vintage.
p.p.s. Another tale in this ‘vanished celebrity’ tradition would be Gerald Kersh‘s superb, Edgar-winning The Oxoxoco Bottle aka The Secret of the Bottle. Read it here!
« This is how you disappear… » — Scott Walker, Rawhide
No foolin’, honest: today is the birthday of cartoonist Frank M. Borth III (April 1, 1918 – August 9, 2009), who worked on such Golden Age features as Phantom Lady, Captain America, Skypilot, Spider Widow, colleagues Captain Daring, Captain Battle and Captain Fleet… he kept busy.
Borth’s first Phantom Lady page — premiering her classic outfit, at that — from Police Comics no. 17 (March 1943, Quality). Unusually for such an assembly-line industry, Borth did his own lettering, and it’s easy to see why: he was terrific at it. Read the whole issue here!
Then, at the close of the 1940s, he began a long association with Catholic publisher George A. Pflaum, chronicling (among others) the rollicking adventures of one Frumson Wooters, aka The Champ, a stereotype-bucking chubby kid who’s at times scatterbrained and clumsy, but also wise, determined, resourceful, and humble to boot. Written by Captain Frank Moss and radiantly illustrated (and later, also scripted) by Borth, the feature ran for two decades in Treasure Chest of Fun and Fact, a publication distributed to parochial school students between 1946 and 1972 and generally avoided like any of the Ten Plagues of Egypt by your average comic book fan, but — wouldn’t you know it? — chock full of excellent work by the likes of Bernard Baily, Fran Matera, Bob Powell, Reed Crandall, Joe Sinnott, Graham Ingels, Joe Orlando, Murphy Anderson, Jim Mooney, Marvin Townsend, Paul Eismann… I’ll stop now.
Being ad-free, Treasure Chest had the luxury of full cover spreads, and Borth would, with his, delight in the element of surprise. This is Treasure Chest of Fun and Fact Vol. 18 no. 17 (Apr. 18, 1963, George A. Pflaum). Issues 11 to 20 this volume of TCOF&F presented a 5-page chapter of his engaging tutorial Draw-Along with Frank Borth, which was collected in 1965.
I was going to feature a gallery of favourite Borth pages from all over the place, but instead decided it might be more interesting to highlight his ability to break down an action sequence, since that’s the palpitating heart of an adventure yarn. Therefore, here’s chapter 4 of “The Champ’s Treasure Hunt“, published in TCOF&F volume 15, No. 4 (Oct. 22, 1959).
You can read the entire saga, from the start, right here!Another splashy (quite literally) Borth cover, this time featuring The Champ! This is Treasure Chest of Fun and Fact Vol. 21 no. 10 (Jan. 13, 1966, George A. Pflaum). I allow myself a Frumson exception for Treasure Chest of Fun and Fact Vol. 22 no. 19 (May 18, 1967, George A. Pflaum), my favourite Borth cover — and one of my very favourites, period. It’s a scene from the penultimate chapter of The Mystery of Forbidden Island, written and drawn by Borth.
I intended to direct interested readers to an autobiographical essay Borth penned late in life, but it’s gone — well, retrievable if you try hard enough, but to avoid losing it altogether, I’m going to quote it in full:
FRANK BORTH, syndicated cartoonist was born in Cleveland, Ohio and graduated from Cleveland School of Art in 1940. Frank had earned his tuition by painting price signs in tempera paint for butcher shops, grocery stores, Green Grocers, etc. from 11th grade on until he left Cleveland to get employment as an illustrator in New York City. Where he worked as a free-lance illustrator and writer for comic book publications.
Frank was drafted into army and assigned to the Transportation Corp training Center at Indiantown Gap Military reservation to produce training aids where he rose to the rank of T/Sgt. In 1944 Frank painted a 52-foot mural for the Service Club that is still there today. Frank married Barbara Stroh of Harrisburg, Pa in 1944 and was discharged in 1946.
Frank came back to New York to find work and an apartment; he found neither, but his landlady offered him the summer use of some unheated rooms over garage of a large house she planned to rent to roomers out in Montauk. Frank and Barbara moved in May 1st for the summer as Montauk was by then once more a summer resort, and he found employment by painting murals in bars and sign work at the Yacht Club. Frank entertained members every Friday night at a dinner with chalk talk and other inspiring skits. Finally Frank decided to create a new comic-adventure strip about a two-masted schooner available for hire and an agent in the audience offered to try to sell it in New York.
Frank’s little family really lived on the money he had saved up in the three years in the army. He went back to Cleveland however due to the death of his father and worked for a small ad agency. The following spring the agent told him that he had sold the yachting script and Frank went back to Montauk to work on the strip “Ken Stuart” for three years; but couldn’t get it syndicated inland. Frank was not saved by the bell but by a Catholic publication called “Treasure Chest” who mailed him a script to illustrate in ten chapters of six pages each, a fiction story about the Priest of Shark Island. This led to steady interesting assignments for 25 years. The magazine was in comic book form, and was published every two weeks during the school year, twenty in all. Since they didn’t print in the summer, Frank would use that time to write scripts on his own. In those days they corresponded by letter and the editor and Frank soon became pen pals. Frank made sure that he delivered always on time and produced exactly what they were looking for.
The Borth family, they had produced two children a son and a daughter, they bought property in Montauk and built a house. Frank had joined the volunteer fire department and also volunteered to be one of the crew on our new ambulance as well. You can imagine that he did a lot of artwork for the fire department and other civic organizations. He taught Sunday school and was elected an Elder of the Montauk Community Church. Barbara, Frank calls her lovingly Bobbie, became a Girl Scout leader and also sang in the choir, they no longer were “summer people” but full time residents of Montauk. Bobbie became a schoolteacher and also attended Southampton College and earned a Masters degree.
Frank was asked to become a republican committeeman, which led to Frank being elected a Town trustee, and to the office of Councilman on the East Hampton Town Board in 1968. At the conclusion of the four-year term Frank choose to give up the part time position that had by then turned into a full time commitment. Shortly after retiring from politics, Warren Whipple, a long time friend (The artist who drew the syndicated cartoon feature “There Oughta Be a Law”) called to asked Frank if I would take the job of writing the plot and dialogue of each cartoon as the original creator of the strip wanted to retire. Frank said OK, as he had done almost as much writing as drawing with his own labors. The syndicate approved Frank taking over and for the next ten years, Whipple and Frank Borth were a team.
Frank took over the entire production of writing and drawing the strip until February of ’83 when he turned 65 and terminated the production. The Treasure Chest Publisher also went out of business due to the rapid closing of a lot of parochial schools. Another publisher tried to sell it on the newsstand but failed. Frank turned out about 50 when another acquaintance talked him into getting back into production doing crazy assignments for Cracked Magazine which he had done for a period of time until they switched editors and all they were interested in was using famous people’s names.
Frank concluded his second career and retired to doing art and posters for local organizations like the Fire Department, Lighthouse, and the Town. Since he had created the Town seal of east Hampton as well as the Bicentennial seal, he also drew up the tricentquinquagenary seal as well. He still does things for the Library, church, and other local organizations until I lost the vision in his left eye which has deprived him of depth perception. Frank still writes but cannot draw as I used to. Oh, well. 84 is a reasonable time to retire, he chuckles. Frank’s retirement is spent in painting Montauk land and seascapes.
Circling the drain: this is TCOF&F vol. 27, No. 2 (Jan. 1972, George A. Pflaum), the final volume; at this point, the magazine had adopted a monthly schedule and relied heavily on reprints. But heck, an issue with a 37-page Frumson Wooters epic, The Champ Goes Down!, is pretty easy to take. It had been serialised over the six issues of 1967’s Treasure Chest Summer Edition.
« I’ve never been to Texas but I’ve heard Willie Nelson Sing. » — Mark Ballard
I’ve just heard of the recent, untimely passing of cartoonist Michael Dougan (1958-2023). Well, perhaps former cartoonist would be more accurate, but if so — he said his piece, made his mark, and moved on — and that’s cool. But can cartooning truly ever be left behind?
Dougan made his début in comics on the back cover of my very favourite issue of Weirdo, no. 17 (Summer 1986, Last Gasp), which also housed my pick for Robert Crumb‘s greatest short-form achievement, The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick, and a cover among his finest *and* most provocative. See both story and cover here!Dougan’s first collection appeared the following year, published by Seattle’s fabled The Real Comet Press. The back cover was festooned with eloquent-upon-eloquent quips from his peers. For instance, Gary Panter wrote: « Dougan’s work is clear and he is not afraid. He is a big storyteller and a good liar. In East Texas the wire fences, orange colored tufts of grass, pine trees, tire tracks, piles of wood, and water towers are the best parts. The stories are about human desperation, a funny kind of desperation, an air-conditioned kind of desperation. »
And here are a few excerpts from its pages:
Dougan’s second and final collection, from 1993, was published by Penguin, no less! It featured longer, more ambitious pieces.Kentucky Fried Funeral would have to be my first pick for Dougan’s masterpiece. Unfortunately, it’s around 20 pages long, so it was unfeasible to present it here. Still, here’s the opening splash.A detail, perhaps, but worth noting, I think: Dougan preferred handling his own lettering, finding, like many a visual artist, the look and texture of mechanical text too… well, mechanical. Lovely!
In 2017, some twenty years after his last cartoon (that I’m aware of… Double Booked?, in Fantagraphics’ Zero Zero no.17, June, 1997) Michael and his wife moved to Japan and opened a café-restaurant. Read Michael’s own account of the saga.
This must be the place.Of course, Dougan named his place after Bogie’s in Casablanca, but not without adding a couple of typos, for that modern touch.
Creative types often get restless, and Michael found himself a little niche answering people’s mostly, and sometimes incredibly, inane questions on Quora, with a potent mixture of withering sarcasm with a side of snide, all the while providing helpful information — whenever possible. Check out his feed, but let me caution you: it’s a bit of a frazzling rabbit hole (or warren, more accurately).
I’m hoping that, once news of Michael’s passing trickles over to his native land, that The Comics Journal will provide a detailed obituary of this notable artist. Farewell, Mr. Dougan.
Who's Out There? 