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Here’s a seasonal goodie from gag cartoonist Marvin Townsend (1915–1999) and his adorable “Ali” pantomime strip, which appeared, beginning in 1962 in, of all places, the Catholic comic book anthology Treasure Chest of Fun & Fact (Geo. A. Pflaum Publisher), distributed to parochial school students between 1946 and 1972.
Originally published in Treasure Chest vol. 21, no. 4 (Oct. 21, 1965). For more Townsend in a spooky vein, look no further than this post from our previous countdown.
Denominational and religious concerns aside, Treasure Chest of Fun and Fact, a publication generally avoided like any of the Ten Plagues of Egypt by your average comic book fan, was, 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, Paul Eismann… and these are some of the artists. The material was also engagingly written and often truly captivating. And they weren’t above paying a bit of lip service to that ol’ Pagan Holiday, Hallowe’en.
This was one in a highly-entertaining series of studies of classroom “types” by Frank Huffman. It appeared in Treasure Chest vol. 22, no. 12 (Feb. 9, 1967).
A piece by E. B. Wagner, this one saw print in Treasure Chest vol. 23, no. 4 (Oct. 19, 1967). Note the Leroy Lettering!
The back cover of Treasure Chest vol. 22, no. 4 (Oct. 20, 1966,Geo. A. Pflaum). Artist unknown, regrettably. Love that stylish auto-gyro witch!
Tentacle Tuesdays have been a fixture of this blog since the very beginning (which is to say September, 2017). I am not about to run out of material, but over the years I do tend to accumulate odd and ends that don’t neatly fit into a theme. Though I know of at least one faithful reader of this blog who doesn’t like it much when a TT entry is all over the place, hopefully there’s something in here for everyone. Just consider it the equivalent of spring cleaning in my archives!
Panel from Treasure Chest Vol. 19 no. 6 (Nov. 21, 1963). Written by Dave Hill and illustrated by Fran Matera. Everybody in this panel is adorable, but the octopus is especially fetching, I think.
A cartoon by Rowland Wilson, from Playboy‘s June, 1980 issue. Several tons of meat are going to need a lot of butter. It would be much more economical for the creature to eat the astronaut!
This tentacled-monster-pothole was dreamed up by Richard Thompson and appeared in his Poor Richard’s Almanac. It would make being stuck in traffic jams a lot more entertaining, don’t you think?
Customer Service Wolf is a hilarious comic strip by Australian illustrator Anne Barnetson, who has worked in a bookstore for long enough for have encountered all kinds of annoying customers. Anyone who has toiled in retail will know that most people are insane, but a bookstore is a backdrop for a very special kind of lunacy.
I’ve been following British sculptress Caroline McFarlane-Watts and her company Tall Tales Productions for a while. She makes incredibly detailed sculptures of all sorts of things, most notably of witches and their ménage (take a discreet peek at their activities on her website, but be careful, they’re cantankerous old bats). McFarlane-Watts also draws, sometimes comics. This pink (take my word for it) octopus is a witch’s best pal!
Thanks for sticking around while I got things off my chest!
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