Potrzebie
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Roy Crane's forgotten Frank Battle
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In 1929, Roy Crane introduced Captain Easy into his Wash Tubbs daily strip. By the following year, he was ready to do a Sunday page. But it wasn't Captain Easy. Instead, it was Frank Battle, an adventure in a Treasure Island vein. The Sunday Captain Easy didn't come along until 1933. Frank Battle was created as a sample and submitted to NEA in 1930 with an attached note indicating that a second page might exist. Has anyone ever seen it?
For more on Frank Battle, see the new Fantagraphics Captain Easy collection. It features a selection of Crane's original color guides, a biographical/critical introduction by comics scholar Jeet Heer illustrated with rare Crane art, a preface by series editor Rick Norwood, and a foreword by Charles M. Schulz (from the 1974 Luna Press Wash Tubbs collection).
In 1929, Roy Crane introduced Captain Easy into his Wash Tubbs daily strip. By the following year, he was ready to do a Sunday page. But it wasn't Captain Easy. Instead, it was Frank Battle, an adventure in a Treasure Island vein. The Sunday Captain Easy didn't come along until 1933. Frank Battle was created as a sample and submitted to NEA in 1930 with an attached note indicating that a second page might exist. Has anyone ever seen it?
Labels: captain easy, jeet heer, nea, roy crane, treasure island
¶ 2:17 PM 4 comments
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Death of Newspapers #12: Audio interview with Roy Crane
Verne Greene (Bringing Up Father) did this 1961 interview with Roy Crane on New York's WRVR. To read R.C. Harvey's "A Flourish of Trumpets: Roy Crane and the Adventure Strip" go here. Below is the sideways strip of December 7, 1943. To read previous Potrzebie posts about Roy Crane (including the other sideways strip) go here.
September 18, 1946
September 19, 1946
Verne Greene (Bringing Up Father) did this 1961 interview with Roy Crane on New York's WRVR. To read R.C. Harvey's "A Flourish of Trumpets: Roy Crane and the Adventure Strip" go here. Below is the sideways strip of December 7, 1943. To read previous Potrzebie posts about Roy Crane (including the other sideways strip) go here.
December 7, 1943
February 6, 1938
September 1-7, 1950
Labels: buz sawyer, captain easy, death of newspapers, roy crane, verne greene, wash tubbs
¶ 1:54 AM 2 comments
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Death of Newspapers
Control-click heading to hear Paul Whiteman playing a "Joe Palooka Medley" on the Kraft Music Hall (December 28, 1933).
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Maureen Dowd: "Slouching Towards Oblivion": "Maybe it’s because I’m staying at the Sunset Tower on Sunset Boulevard, but I keep thinking of newspapers as Norma Desmond. Papers are still big. It’s the screens that got small."
This is an excerpt from an article by Virginia Combs that ran December 31, 2007, in The Kentucky Post. It provides a portrait of rural households minus radios during the 1930s when kids opened newspapers to the comics pages for entertainment. To read the entire article, go here.
It was with much regret and sadness that I learned The Cincinnati Post would be closing December 31. For more years than I like to admit, The Post has been part of my life six days each week.
I grew up on a small farm during the Depression in the foothills of Kentucky. We were poor and each penny (literally) was spent only for necessities - that is except for one item. At Dad's insistence our one luxury was a subscription to The Cincinnati Post.
We received The Post one day after it was printed (we didn't have a radio until 1939) and this was our connection to the outside world. Six days each week someone in the family would walk the half mile or maybe ride a horse to our one-room rural post office.
My dad would end each day - if in the summer in his rocking chair on the front porch or if in the winter with his long legs stretched out toward the fireplace - with The Post spread open and reading it intently. The Post kept him informed of state, national and world affairs and whomever he met he could discuss any of this with up-to-date knowledge.
I first took interest in The Post around seven or eight years of age when I heard my older brother mention that a new comic strip was coming to the "funny page" - Li'l Abner by Al Capp. I had to see what this was about so I made sure I read Li'l Abner the first time it was printed in the paper. Of course, this led to reading the other comic strips. So through the years I enjoyed reading Major Hoople, Out Our Way, Abbie and Slats, Captain Easy and Wash Tubbs, Alley Oop, Boots and Her Buddies, Tarzan of the Jungle, Nancy and many others I cannot recall now.
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Maureen Dowd: "Slouching Towards Oblivion": "Maybe it’s because I’m staying at the Sunset Tower on Sunset Boulevard, but I keep thinking of newspapers as Norma Desmond. Papers are still big. It’s the screens that got small."
April 8, 1906
October 23, 1921
September 26, 1926.
June 11, 1933
Roy Crane's first Captain Easy Sunday page
The Post Was Part Of Her Life
It was with much regret and sadness that I learned The Cincinnati Post would be closing December 31. For more years than I like to admit, The Post has been part of my life six days each week.
I grew up on a small farm during the Depression in the foothills of Kentucky. We were poor and each penny (literally) was spent only for necessities - that is except for one item. At Dad's insistence our one luxury was a subscription to The Cincinnati Post.
We received The Post one day after it was printed (we didn't have a radio until 1939) and this was our connection to the outside world. Six days each week someone in the family would walk the half mile or maybe ride a horse to our one-room rural post office.
My dad would end each day - if in the summer in his rocking chair on the front porch or if in the winter with his long legs stretched out toward the fireplace - with The Post spread open and reading it intently. The Post kept him informed of state, national and world affairs and whomever he met he could discuss any of this with up-to-date knowledge.
I first took interest in The Post around seven or eight years of age when I heard my older brother mention that a new comic strip was coming to the "funny page" - Li'l Abner by Al Capp. I had to see what this was about so I made sure I read Li'l Abner the first time it was printed in the paper. Of course, this led to reading the other comic strips. So through the years I enjoyed reading Major Hoople, Out Our Way, Abbie and Slats, Captain Easy and Wash Tubbs, Alley Oop, Boots and Her Buddies, Tarzan of the Jungle, Nancy and many others I cannot recall now.
January 5, 1936
September 6, 1936
1937
November 3, 1940
May 17, 1942
October 10, 1943
1947
December 21, 1947
June 4, 1950
June 9, 1956
December 18, 1964
November 27, 2006
Chris Ware
Labels: abbie an' slats, al capp, alley oop, captain easy, chris ware, coulton waugh, death of newspapers, maureen dowd, roy crane, smokey stover, tarzan, the new yorker, wash tubbs
¶ 8:54 AM 11 comments
