HEY! KIDS! COMICS! : Jack Cole Week at Those Fabuleous Fifties : July 7th, 2008

STWALLSKULL'S HEY! KIDS! COMICS!

Last week was Jack Cole week at the Those Fabuleous Fifties blog. Jack Cole is best known today as the creator of Plastic Man, and he did a lot of wild crime and humor comics as well. Click the image below to read some good examples.

HEY! KIDS! COMICS! : Otto Messmer’s Felix the Cat

STWALLSKULL'S HEY! KIDS! COMICS!

Another unbelievably great selection of new old comics on the web. As has been the case recently, it is hard to pick one to feature… Jack Cole, Frank Frazetta funny animals, comics by Tad, a whole Milt Gross book (!!!) and much more great stuff can be found below. I’ve chosen to feature Otto Messmer’s Felix the Cat. Messmer is another one of the greats of childrens’ comics. He has a beautifully simple style, and I love the way his stories unwind. Although widely acclaimed, Messmer still seems pretty underrated to me, and is really in need of more reprinting (Fantagraphics did do a great reprint of some of his newspaper strips a while ago called Nine Lives to Live: A Classic Felix Celebration). I think his Felix comics could sell like crazy if some good publisher packaged them well and marketed them to children. Click on the image below to read a Felix comic at Comicrazys.

Crumbling Paper: Joe Jinks

Here’s an example I scanned of Joe Jinks with the header strip It Seems That- from 1929 or 1930 by Vic Forsythe.

Click the image to view the full strip.

See I’m Falling in Love With Someone by Vic Forsythe at Stripper’s Guide.

See The Little Woman and Way Out West by Vic Forsythe at Stripper’s Guide.

Click here to read about Vic Forsythe at lambiek.net.

Click here to read more about Joe Jinks at Don Markstein’s Toonopedia.

See some Joe Jinks originals at comicstripfan.com.

HEY! KIDS! COMICS! : John Stanley’s Other Comics : June 26th, 2008

STWALLSKULL'S HEY! KIDS! COMICS!

Scans Daily has recently had a number of posts of comics written by the great John Stanley. I’ve been reading a whole lot of Stanley’s brilliant Little Lulu comics recently with my daughter, and they are some of the best kids’ comics ever written. So great is Little Lulu that is has overshadowed Stanley’s other comics work in most comics aficionados minds.

It is interesting to see some more of his other work… his work was rarely credited at the companies he worked for, and I hadn’t really realized what a variety of work he did.

If you want more, note the wonderful (and very affordable) series of Little Lulu books that was recently published by Dark Horse Comics, and also note that Drawn and Quarterly recently announced that they will be publishing much of Stanley’s other comics work. Click the image below to go to the latest Stanley post on Scans Daily.


Crumbling Paper: Sallie Slick and Her Surprising Aunt Amelia (strip#1)

Here’s an example I scanned of Sallie Slick and Her Surprising Aunt Amelia from 1902 by Jean Mohr. According to Lambiek, Jean Mohr was one of the earliest female cartoonists. A little more context for Jean Mohr can be found in this article by Trina Robbins, author of numerous books on women in comics.

Click the image to view the full strip.

HEY! KIDS! COMICS! : More Swinnerton! : June 19th, 2008

STWALLSKULL'S HEY! KIDS! COMICS!

Another great day for browsing comics online, as is usually the case when Stephen Worth at the incredible ASIFA Hollywood Animation Archive blog makes a post. Today he has given us more Jimmy Swinnerton to appreciate! Some exceptionally beautiful examples of his work, too. Click the image below to view the comics.

Also note that I have posted a whole lot of other examples of Swinnerton’s work on this site previously… you can view those here.

Crumbling Paper: Keeping Up With the Joneses – Handsome Zephyr Pull-overs

Here’s a funny and gorgeously designed 1934 example I scanned of Keeping Up With The Joneses with the header strip Holly of Hollywood by Arthur R. “Pop” Momand.

Click the image to view the full strip.

Holy cow! Searching for more examples, I ran across a whole free book of dailies from 1920 on Google Book Search! It is the first volume aka series of the Cupples and Leon Keeping Up With the Joneses books.

Click here to read a number of early examples of Keeping Up With the Joneses at Barnacle Press.

Here is a large scan of an original Keeping Up With the Joneses strip from kochcomicart.com.

Click here to read about Arthur R. “Pop” Momand at lambiek.net.

Click here to read more about Keeping Up With The Joneses at Don Markstein’s Toonopedia.

Click here to read Arthur “Pop” Momand’s obituary at the New York Times. The strip actually ended in 1938, not 1945 as claimed in the article according to the authoritative Allan Holtz at The Stripper’s Guide.

HEY! KIDS! COMICS!: Jimmy Swinnerton at the Dawn of Comics: June 18th, 2008

STWALLSKULL'S HEY! KIDS! COMICS!

Today’s smörgÃ¥sbord of free online comics includes an excellent short article on Jimmy Swinnerton with a few nice strips by him at the insightful Illustration Art blog. Click the image below to go to the article.

Crumbling Paper: Uncle Jasper

Here’s an example I scanned of the bottom half of a strip by Hy Gage. I don’t know the title of the strip, so we’ll call it Uncle Jasper after the name on the bag in the first panel for the time being. Can anyone illuminate us on the name of this comic strip?

Click the image to view the full strip.

Please be advised that like many of the comic strips of the era, it contains offensive racial depictions. If this sort of thing offends you, you may not want to view it.

Click here to read about Hy Gage at lambiek.net.