Potrzebie
Friday, March 06, 2009
Topps #1: Dick Tracy wallpaper
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Dick Tracy wallpaper? Yes, this was marketed in 1950 by the Niagara Wallpaper Company. It was intended for a children's room, which explains why none of the strip's famed villains are evident.
During the time I was doing product development at Topps Chewing Gum in the late 1960s, I was also working on the Nostalgia Press book collection of EC Comics, prompting visits to the Mad offices for several meetings with publisher Bill Gaines. The more conspicuous item among the oddities in his office was a fake window. It contained a life-size head of King Kong (sculpted by Sergio Aragones) looking through the window frame at Gaines.
Back at Topps in Brooklyn, I thought about the Kong window and wondered how something similar could be done as a Topps product. For its humorous posters, Topps used a newsprint paper stock that folded several times down to their standard small trading card package size. The visual concept I pitched was King Kong Wallpaper, a product which would use such newsprint posters to make giant-size b/w jigsaw puzzle pieces that could be collected and assembled to fill one entire wall of a kid's room. A single image of Kong could then loom in an immense fashion to give nightmares. Kids would love it; it would be the mothers who had the nightmares of Elmer's Glue all over the wall.
At Topps, puzzle pieces were considered the "B" side on a trading card, on the theory that no one wants to purchase individual jigsaw puzzle pieces. So my idea was shot down with the somewhat illogical question, "What's on the other side?" In retrospect, the solution would have been to simply package the folded newsprint puzzle posters with some colorful trading card item.
Maybe something similar happened at the Niagara Wallpaper Company. Someone thought how cool it would be to see a roomful of weird and outrageous Dick Tracy villains. Then some executive stepped in to get rid of the villains, making the final wallpaper bland and banal.
.Dick Tracy wallpaper? Yes, this was marketed in 1950 by the Niagara Wallpaper Company. It was intended for a children's room, which explains why none of the strip's famed villains are evident.
During the time I was doing product development at Topps Chewing Gum in the late 1960s, I was also working on the Nostalgia Press book collection of EC Comics, prompting visits to the Mad offices for several meetings with publisher Bill Gaines. The more conspicuous item among the oddities in his office was a fake window. It contained a life-size head of King Kong (sculpted by Sergio Aragones) looking through the window frame at Gaines.
Back at Topps in Brooklyn, I thought about the Kong window and wondered how something similar could be done as a Topps product. For its humorous posters, Topps used a newsprint paper stock that folded several times down to their standard small trading card package size. The visual concept I pitched was King Kong Wallpaper, a product which would use such newsprint posters to make giant-size b/w jigsaw puzzle pieces that could be collected and assembled to fill one entire wall of a kid's room. A single image of Kong could then loom in an immense fashion to give nightmares. Kids would love it; it would be the mothers who had the nightmares of Elmer's Glue all over the wall.
At Topps, puzzle pieces were considered the "B" side on a trading card, on the theory that no one wants to purchase individual jigsaw puzzle pieces. So my idea was shot down with the somewhat illogical question, "What's on the other side?" In retrospect, the solution would have been to simply package the folded newsprint puzzle posters with some colorful trading card item.
Maybe something similar happened at the Niagara Wallpaper Company. Someone thought how cool it would be to see a roomful of weird and outrageous Dick Tracy villains. Then some executive stepped in to get rid of the villains, making the final wallpaper bland and banal.
Labels: aragones, bill gaines, brooklyn, chester gould, dick tracy, king kong, mad, topps
¶ 6:27 AM 0 comments
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Huh huh! Dig, Dig, Dig, Dig, Dig!
Chester Gould's The Mole of the early 1940s returns in April when IDW publishes Volume Seven of The Complete Dick Tracy (1941-42). A decade later, the character was the inspiration for Bill Elder and Harvey Kurtzman's Melvin Mole in Mad #2 (December 1952-January 1953). The story "Mole!" was one of the memorable creations of the early Mad, kick-starting the comic book and catapulting it into unexplored valleys obscured by clouds. For an illustrated review of Mad #2, see Eddie Hunter's Chicken Fat.
After one had read "Mole!" and Wally Wood's "Blobs!" (Mad #1), readers had to pick up #3 and #4 just to see what was erupting from the manhole covers at 225 Lafayette Street. What rough beast, its hour come round at last, was slouching towards Madison Avenue to be born? Dig, dig!
. Control click heading above to hear 1948 Spike Jones radio program with guest Peter Lorre.
Chester Gould's The Mole of the early 1940s returns in April when IDW publishes Volume Seven of The Complete Dick Tracy (1941-42). A decade later, the character was the inspiration for Bill Elder and Harvey Kurtzman's Melvin Mole in Mad #2 (December 1952-January 1953). The story "Mole!" was one of the memorable creations of the early Mad, kick-starting the comic book and catapulting it into unexplored valleys obscured by clouds. For an illustrated review of Mad #2, see Eddie Hunter's Chicken Fat.
After one had read "Mole!" and Wally Wood's "Blobs!" (Mad #1), readers had to pick up #3 and #4 just to see what was erupting from the manhole covers at 225 Lafayette Street. What rough beast, its hour come round at last, was slouching towards Madison Avenue to be born? Dig, dig!
©2009 EC Publications
Labels: blobs, chester gould, dick tracy, elder, kurtzman, mole, nostril hair
¶ 9:07 AM 2 comments
Monday, April 28, 2008
Chester Gould's The Girl Friends (1931)
Click heading to hear Helen Kane sing.
In the years before he created Dick Tracy, Chester Gould (1900-1985) drew several other strips, the movie parody Fillum Fables (1924), the interview feature Why It's a Windy City and the Siamese cats of Radio Cats (1924). Although he had been earning $100 a week at the Evening American, he dropped Fillum Fables ("I wanted to get away from that because it was not my original idea") and moved over to the Chicago Daily News (taking a salary drop to $50 a week) in order to develop his own properties. While drawing ad art and editorial cartoons at the Daily News he was offered the opportunity to do another strip, The Girl Friends (1931), as he explained:
Chester Gould! ©2008 Ed Piskor and Jay Lynch
Want to visit the Chester Gould Dick Tracy Museum in Woodstock, Illinois? Better hurry! It closes June 1 due to financial problems. Meanwhile, those deluxe IDW hardcover reprints of Dick Tracy which began in 2006 keep rolling out with the fifth volume due in August. The first volume features the Plainclothes Tracy strips which got Gould the job.
Gould eventually began to identify with his character. He and his wife once checked into a hotel as "Mr. and Mrs. Dick Tracy." And I recall seeing many decades ago a newspaper photo showing Gould in his bizarre backyard cemetery with rows of gravestones indicating where each of Dick Tracy villains were buried. Did he actually put drawings of the villains in little coffins and bury the drawings? I don't remember.
Gould could draw Dick Tracy blindfolded!
Click heading to hear Helen Kane sing.In the years before he created Dick Tracy, Chester Gould (1900-1985) drew several other strips, the movie parody Fillum Fables (1924), the interview feature Why It's a Windy City and the Siamese cats of Radio Cats (1924). Although he had been earning $100 a week at the Evening American, he dropped Fillum Fables ("I wanted to get away from that because it was not my original idea") and moved over to the Chicago Daily News (taking a salary drop to $50 a week) in order to develop his own properties. While drawing ad art and editorial cartoons at the Daily News he was offered the opportunity to do another strip, The Girl Friends (1931), as he explained:
Well, while I was drawing rugs and canned corn and stuff for the regular daily ads, I was told to come into the office of the editor of the News. I didn't know if I was going to get fired or what. He said, "I understand you have some experience with the American." I said, "Yes!" "Well, we need a girl strip in the Daily News," and he asked if I could draw a girl strip. I said, "I sure can!" So he said, "Well, let me see a couple, and we might start using them right here in the News." That was the way I got into The Girl Friends."
Chester Gould!, a visual memoir of a real-life experience that happened in 1968, was originally drawn for a planned book of autobiographical comic strips titled Ink & Anguish. Jay Lynch wrote the scripts and roughed layouts for half the book, and Ed Piskor drew the finished pages. Although Ink & Anguish was eventually abandoned, the strips have recently been running in Mineshaft. Piskor illustrates for American Splendor, Philadelphia City Paper and other publications. Just published is his new book Wizzywig about hacker Kevin Phenicle. Click here for a cornucopia of comics and illustrations by Ed Piskor.
Jay created the characters of Nard 'n Pat decades ago for his Bijou Funnies, drew many installments of the syndicated alternative weekly strip Phoebe and the Pigeon People, devised humor products for Topps Chewing Gum and contributed to Mad. His new children's book, Otto's Orange Day (illustrated by Frank Cammuso), was just published by Toon Books.
Jay created the characters of Nard 'n Pat decades ago for his Bijou Funnies, drew many installments of the syndicated alternative weekly strip Phoebe and the Pigeon People, devised humor products for Topps Chewing Gum and contributed to Mad. His new children's book, Otto's Orange Day (illustrated by Frank Cammuso), was just published by Toon Books.
Want to visit the Chester Gould Dick Tracy Museum in Woodstock, Illinois? Better hurry! It closes June 1 due to financial problems. Meanwhile, those deluxe IDW hardcover reprints of Dick Tracy which began in 2006 keep rolling out with the fifth volume due in August. The first volume features the Plainclothes Tracy strips which got Gould the job.Gould eventually began to identify with his character. He and his wife once checked into a hotel as "Mr. and Mrs. Dick Tracy." And I recall seeing many decades ago a newspaper photo showing Gould in his bizarre backyard cemetery with rows of gravestones indicating where each of Dick Tracy villains were buried. Did he actually put drawings of the villains in little coffins and bury the drawings? I don't remember.
Gould could draw Dick Tracy blindfolded! In the chaotic Cabbie (1987) the brilliant Barcelona artist Marti Riera unleashed a cast of depraved characters in a remarkable recreation of Chester Gould's art style.
Labels: chester gould, dick tracy, ed piskor, jay lynch, marti riera
¶ 8:45 AM 0 comments
