Death of Newspapers #17: Barney Google in 1927
We pick up where we left off at the end of 1926. Note the arrival in St. Petersburg in the February 13 strip. DeBeck began working in St. Petersburg in the late 1920s and eventually moved there, living on Coffee Pot Bayou.

Labels: barney google, billy debeck, death of newspapers

  ¶ 8:04 PM 10 comments

  The EC gang

Labels: ec, joe orlando, wood

  ¶ 9:53 AM 2 comments

  Norman Rockwell Mystery Solved


This is old news, but I thought I'd do an arrangement to make for easy visual comparison. From 1934 to 1942, Don Trachte was the assistant on cartoonist Carl Anderson's comic strip Henry. In 1942, Anderson's arthritis made drawing difficult, so he turned the dailies of Henry over to John Liney and had Trachte draw the Sunday strips.

Norman Rockwell's Breaking Home Ties ran on The Saturday Evening Post September 25, 1954. The second most popular image in the magazine's history, it was exhibited in museums in Washington, Cairo and Moscow. Robert Waldrop, the teenager who posed for the painting, grew up to invent the system for showing in-flight movies on American Airlines.

Don Trachte purchased Breaking Home Ties in 1960 from Rockwell for $900. He made his own copy of the painting, possibly to keep his wife from taking possession of it during a divorce dispute. Then he secretly hid the original behind a wall panel in his Sandgate, Vermont house. In 1987, the popularity of the painting prompted an adaptation into a TV movie, Breaking Home Ties, with Jason Robards and Eva Marie Saint.

In 2002, Trachte's fake went on display in the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. There it was seen by numerous museum-goers who believed it to be authentic. Trachte died April 5, 2005 without telling anyone about the secret niche. In 2006, Trachte's sons, Don and Dave, were looking through a box of family snapshots and saw two photos of the painting that had subtle discrepancies. For a confirmation of their suspicions, they took a tearsheet of the magazine cover to the Rockwell Museum and made a comparison with the painting. Dave began searching throughout his father's house and found a gap in the wood-paneled wall. On March 17, 2006, the brothers gave it a push, and the false wall slid open to reveal Rockwell's original and other canvases. On November 29, 2006, the Rockwell painting was sold at a Sotheby's auction for $15.4 million. Trachte's Henry is still syndicated by King Features to 75 newspapers and also is distributed on King Features' DailyINK email service.

Labels: norman rockwell, trachte

  ¶ 5:53 PM 5 comments

  John Updike, cartoonist
John Updike was an aspiring cartoonist in his teens, dashing off letters to famous cartoonists requesting original art. He was 15 when he wrote to Harold Gray. As a Harvard freshman, he began doing cartoons for the Harvard Lampoon, which he eventually edited. Jeet Heer has written various essays on Updike and his interest in cartooning.

Labels: david levine, harold gray, updike

  ¶ 6:55 PM 0 comments

 


On November 16, DC Comics is publishing two different reprints of the Denny O'Neil/Neal Adams Superman vs. Muhammad Ali (1978), one labeled "facsimile" and the other "deluxe". (These are already listed as Amazon pre-orders.) The 80-page hardcover facsimile edition reprints the comic at its original trim size of approximately 10 inches wide by 13.25 inches high. The 96-page hardcover deluxe edition promises unpublished developmental artwork and other bonus features. Neal Adams talked about the year-long creation of Superman vs. Muhammad Ali in this 2006 interview.

When I worked at DC Comics during the 1990s I used to walk down a hall where the framed cover of that comic book was displayed. I would stop and study the faces in the crowd scene. Some people, such as Flo Steinberg (#5), Archie Goodwin (#15), Vince Colletta (#113), Ralph Reese (#137) and Larry Hama (#138), I had met before I began at DC. Others, such as colorist Bob LeRose (#77), Julie Schwartz (#81), production head Bob Rozakis (#121) and Trevor Von Eeden (#139), I met while working at DC. One day I turned over my stapler and was surprised to see a typewritten name taped to the underside. The stapler had once belonged to DC editor Murray Boltinoff (#119).

The code with numbers was a fascinating device, and it gave me the idea of doing something similar when I edited the DC/Skybox Cosmic Teams trading cards (1993). To identify the individual characters in the various teams, I designed the card backs to show outline drawings with a match-up of identifying names and numbers. Further, these cards employed a triptych effect in which three cards could be butted together to frame one image. Of all the triptych cards, the best was the Justice Society of America. With remarkable atmospheric perspective, Joe Kubert drew the Justice Society winning World War II with what appears to be the entire Allied invasion of Normandy in the background.

The Potrzebie restoration of the Galaxy Science Fiction wraparound cover with the outline names/numbers map brought some favorable reactions, so I thought I would try this again. This time the problem is not only the huge size necessary to see all the names, numbers and faces but how to see faces/names/numbers simultaneously. It's awkward. One solution would be to open multiple windows. Another would be to print out the sheet with the names and numbers. At any rate, keep clicking. A series of three clicks will eventually expand these images so they are very large and legible.

Labels: cosmic teams, dc comics, galaxy, ident maps, kubert, larry hama, neal adams, ralph reese, skybox

  ¶ 3:08 PM 1 comments

  The Good Duck Artist unmasked .

By the time Carl Barks reached the age of 60, his identity was still unknown to the readers of Walt Disney Comics & Stories, even though his work had been published in that title since 1943. He was simply known as the Good Duck Artist to his readers.

However, in 1959, John and Bill Spicer wrote to Western Publishing and received an answer from editorial associate Zetta DeVoe who gave them Barks' name and address. They were unaware that movie memorabilia collector Malcolm Willits was also tracking Barks' identity that same year. Barks first heard from one of his readers in April 1960 when he received a letter from John Spicer. (See below.) In the summer of 1960, the Spicer brothers traveled to visit Barks at his home in San Jacinto, 75 miles east of LA.

A year later, Barks gave a printed salute, inserting the names "Spicer" and "Willits" into a panel in Walt Disney Comics & Stories #249 (June 1961). Meanwhile, because of their discovery and contact with the cartoonist, the name Carl Barks was becoming known throughout the land beyond Disneyland. And a few years later, Bill Spicer began publishing Graphic Story Magazine.

On April 11, 1960, John Spicer wrote the following to Carl Barks:

Believe it or not, I have been planning this letter for about four or five years. I have been kept from doing so for the simple reason that I knew not your name or address. I tried several times, however, but all were in vain. I recently moved from Los Angeles to a small burg on the Monterey Bay (Aptos). During this move I hit upon a somewhat unscrupulous scheme (to put it frankly, a big fat lie) for getting this information, and it worked!


Now you're probably wondering why I'm writing this letter. The reason is: I admire you, or better put, your work. Like most kids, I bought and read comic books when I was young (I'm 16 now). I started collecting comics about 1950 and I collected everything. Throughout the years, however, my collection has dwindled down to a point where it could be referred to as a collection of your works. I have every Uncle Scrooge ever printed, and all the Walt Disney's Comics from 1950. I also have W.D.C. in the years of '44, '45, '46, '47, '48, and '49, but they are not complete. All this plus several D. Ducks in the older years make up my collection.


If I may say so, you are the best comic book artist I've ever seen! Your work stands out among the rest. Your work employs art, imagination, and humor which brings the comic book to an intellectual level. I notice that a number of your stories are based on real history. Are you a historian, or something? I have checked up on many names, dates, and places in your stories (for example: Francisco de Ulloa and the Seven Cities of Cibola in 1539) and have found that they are usually true!


Have you ever lived in the Burbank-Glendale area? In many of your stories Burbank is mentioned. Come to think of it, though, in one of your later stories the 'Riverside County Relief' is pictured, and I think San Jacinto is in Riverside County?


Here are some questions: Have you been drawing W.D.C. since they began in 1940? When did Donald Duck Comics begin, and what years did you draw? Do you have complete collections of the previous mentioned? Do you have any you wish to sell, or know where I could get old issues? Have you done any art which has been published other than W.D.C., D. Duck, and Uncle Scrooge?


Well, this is about all I have to say. By the way, I have a brother who lived in Glendale and is somewhat of an artist himself. Like I, he enjoys your work. Also, he has an almost complete collection of old rare E.C. Horror, Science Fiction, etc. comic books, if that's any interest to you. It is possible that you might get a letter from him, I don't know. I would appreciate it if you wrote me, if only to answer my questions. Thank you...


Yours truly


John Spicer


Wary of a prank, Barks replied a few weeks later:

After eyeing your letter with dark suspicion for several weeks, I have decided to answer it on the assumption that it could be a genuine fan letter.


You see, I have a friend in Oceanside who just loves to play practical jokes, and writing phony letters to his chosen victims is one of his jokes. It so happens that your letter and his letters to his chosen victims seem to have been written on the same typewriter, there being a number of remarkable mechanical similarities. Also, the location of Aptos, only two putts of a jaguar from Carmel Valley, where Dennis the Menace's gang have their workshop, lends fuel to the suspicion. My friend writes gags for the daily and Sunday Dennis newspaper feature. His name is Bob Harmon, and if the name of John Spicer happened to fit one of the Dennis artists at Carmel Valley, I wouldn't be a bit surprised.


But, as I stated above, I'm going to write this letter on the assumption that John Spicer is a genuine, on-the-level young man with a better than average discerning eye for differences in art and writing styles. Ninety-nine readers out of a hundred think Walt Disney writes and draws all those movies and comic books between stints with his hammer and saw building Disneyland. It is a pleasure for us ghost writers and artists to meet an occasional sophisticated person who knows that he doesn't quite.


I might be justified in wondering how you know my stuff from the other guys' work, but I have met people before who know that difference, and not all of them professional comic bookers. I always try to write a story that I wouldn't mind buying myself. Maybe that is what distinguishes it from the writings of those who try only to get a story past the editors.


You ask some questions. I shall try to answer them:


The historical dates used in many stories are dug out of the Encyclopedia Britannica. I like to use long ago locals and gimmicks. They have a built-in reader interest, inasmuch as most young people study about them at some time of their school work.


Yes, I've lived in the Burbank-Glendale area. North Hollywood and Los Angeles, to be exact. Worked 7 years at Disney Studios in the story department. Was one of the mid-fathers at the birth of Huey, Louie, and Dewey, but not Donald. He was before my time. I've lived in San Jacinto, in Riverside County, since 1942. The climate is better here than in smoggy L.A.


W.D.C. used only reprints of newspaper comic strips in its first few years. Their first original stories using Donald Duck in 10-pagers began in 1943 I believe. The first one may have been the story of three crows trying to eat Donald's garden (April 1943). I did the drawing on that, but not the scripting. All but a few of the 10-pagers since that date have been my product, script and art.


Donald Duck Comics began as a one-shot in 1942 called Donald Duck finds Pirate Gold. I did part of the art on that one, but none of the writing. The second one was Donald Duck and the Mummy's Ring, in 1943 - all mine. The Donald Ducks appeared irregularly as one-shots until around 1950 or '51 when the book went on a regular publication of every second month. I did most of the art and stories during those early years. Some of the titles: Frozen Gold, Volcano Valley, Terror of the River, Ghost of the Grotto, Christmas on Bear Mountain (in which I invented Uncle Scrooge), The Old Castle's Secret, Sheriff of Bullet Valley, The Golden Christmas Tree, Lost in the Andes, Voodoo Hoodoo, Luck of the north, Ancient Persia, Pixilated Parrot, The Magic Hourglass, Big Top Bedlam, Dangerous Disguise, No Such Varmint, Land of the Totem Poles, In Old California, Christmas in Shacktown, The Golden Helmet, The Gilded Man.


You say you have all the Uncle Scrooges ever printed - good! Glad to meet a customer. There are some bad spots in some of those stories that I wish could have been done over. The climax fight in the recent 'Paul Bunyan' theme could have been improved with a half-page spread of Scrooge's and the B. Boys' giant machine hacking each other to pieces, but I was afraid the editors would delete such a scene as being too violent. The 'Larkies' in the story of The Golden Fleece had to be so named because the editors objected to Harpy, a 'Harpie' being a slang version of street walker.


I have done very little in art or writing that hasn't been for the Disney Studios or Western Printing and Litho.


Concerning extra copies of old W.D.C.s etc. I have only one copy each of most of the older issues. None for sale or trade at this time, I'm sorry. I sometimes meet a kid who has a collection going back to Adam. Next one I see, I'll give him your address, in case he is willing to trade.


Well, it was nice getting a fan letter. The front office tells me they get many letters, but over the past 17 years they have shown me only three. Two of which were pan letters that left me cringing for weeks. I suppose it's just as well I don't get much mail. Writing and drawing these comics is a full-time job 7 days a week. I would have little time to answer.


If in the future you notice a dropping off in quality of my stories, don't be surprised. The mind is not a bottomless well of new ideas, and mine is about pumped dry. Recently I have re-vitaminized some of my old plot formulas around new gimmicks or vice versa in a desperate effort to keep ahead of the deadlines. This mechanical formation of the stories may eventually supplant my old method of writing by inspiration. I will always keep striving, though, to come up with bright new plots, even though the characters and props comprise the same old stable of professors, pot-bellied cannons, voracious crocodiles, ill-tempered birds, animals, and strong-jawed women. The recent story of Uncle Scrooge among the asteroids was one of my better flashes of inspiration. I feel kind of good about that one.


I hope the stories you have read in the duck and Scrooge books have helped to give you a broader understanding of life, as well as entertainment. But I've tried to keep off the shop-worn cops and robbers kick that depraves so much of TV and other mediums these days. If more of my readers grow up to sit in the Senate chamber than to sit in the gas chamber, I'll have been richly rewarded for trying to turn out a good product.


Best wishes to you, Sir Fan!


Sincerely,


Carl Barks

A few months after the Spicer visit, Barks was visited by Joseph Cowles. See "Memories of Meeting the Master".

Labels: carl barks, disney, spicer, willits

  ¶ 11:51 AM 4 comments

  Death of Newspapers #16: More Barney Google Sunday pages from 1926 .

Craig Yoe's 224-page Barney Google collection is scheduled for publication next month by IDW Publishing. In addition to the strips, it features a visual intro by Richard Thompson and "rare unpublished art, photos and ephemera in glorious color." Click here to see IDW's previous Yoe Books.

Michael Dooley's interview with Craig Yoe.

Thanks to the great scans of Roger Langridge, here's our latest Barney batch, picking up where we left off in February with the October 24, 1926 page. This group takes us to the end of 1926 and raises the question: Did Amos 'n' Andy get the phrase "Holy Mackerel!" from Billy DeBeck? Amos 'n' Andy didn't begin on radio until March 19, 1928, but Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll did broadcast their earlier Sam 'n' Henry beginning January 12, 1926. Abba dabba wu!

Labels: amos 'n' andy, barney google, billy debeck, craig yoe, death of newspapers, idw

  ¶ 1:17 PM 0 comments