HEY! KIDS! COMICS! : Condo! Wolverton! The Vagabond! : August 22nd, 2008

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So much good stuff…

Our friends at Barnacle Press continue to post amazing stuff… today they posted a bunch of examples of Oscar und Adolf by Everett True cartoonist A.D. Condo, as well as a weird out-of-character (that is to say non-violent) appearance by Mr. True in Alley Oop from 1969! Click the image to go there. Recently they also posted scans of the gorgeous strip Madge the Magician’s Daughter which I forgot to highlight.

The Horrors of It All brings us Basil Wolverton’s classic Gateway to Horror.

And last and certainly least, Pappy’s Golden Age Comics Blogzine brings us The Vagabond

HEY! KIDS! COMICS! : Basil Wolverton’s Culture Corner : August 19th, 2008

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Today the Fortress of Fortitude brings us some Basil Wolverton Culture Corner strips… click the image to go there and get yourself some culture.

HEY! KIDS! COMICS! : Bryan Talbot’s The Naked Artist : August 14th, 20008

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This is not a comic, but cartoonist Bryan Talbot has put his entire book The Naked Artist: Comic Book Legends online for free. I haven’t read it, but it sounds great from the description, and I’ve enjoyed everything else I have read by Talbot. Click the above image to go see it. Here’s the description from the site:

The book you’ve all been waiting for! COMIC BOOK LEGENDS is an outrageous collection of the unreported exploits of comic creators, the stories only usually told late at night between the hallowed walls of convention pro bars! EISNER AWARD WINNER Bryan Talbot brings you the anecdotes, funny, shocking and downright weird, told about your favorite comic writers and artists, from Simon Bisley to Neil Gaiman, from Grant Morrison to Jeff Smith!

“Heroes! Villains! Action! Suspense! Humor! Alcohol!” — Dave Gibbons

“This book will do nothing to alter the general public’s perception that many of those working in and around the comics medium have not merely been touched by the gods but have been comprehensively groped by them.” — David Lloyd

“Write whatever the hell you like and I’ll swear I’ve said it!” — Will Eisner

HEY! KIDS! COMICS! : Otto Messmer’s Laura : August 12th, 2008

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Today Comicrazy’s brings us some beautiful huge scans of one of the great Otto Messmer’s header strips for the Felix the Cat comic strip… Laura. Click the image to go to the comics.

HEY! KIDS! COMICS! : Andy’s Atomic Adventures at Hairy Green Eyeball : August 8th, 2008

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Happy 8-8-8!

There is lots of good stuff to be seen at the Hairy Green Eyeball blog. Below is a panel from Andy’s Atomic Adventures, some twisted pro-atomic propaganda from Classics Illustrated #138A Adventures in Science (June 1957), reprinted there. Click on the image to go to the story.

HEY! KIDS! COMICS! : Al Feldstein’s Spawn of Venus : August 7th, 2008

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Today we have yet another version of the previously mentioned story Spawn of Venus, this one by Al Feldstein! Courtesy of Entrecomics. I like Feldstein’s stuff, but seeing him compared so directly to Wood does not do him justice. Apparently this version ran in the Feldstein edited Weird Science #6. I don’t know why they chose not to use the Wood version… Wood’s version apparently didn’t see print until its inclusion in Witzend #6 (1969). There are differences in the script as well. If anyone has more of the poop on this, please do elaborate in the comments. Click the image below to go to the comic.

HEY! KIDS! COMICS! : Flip the Frog Annual, More Funnies at the ASIFA, and Wood’s Spawn of Venus Inked : August 6th, 2008

STWALLSKULL'S HEY! KIDS! COMICS! So much great stuff… way too much to look at. I take a couple weeks off from this stuff, and the length of this thing just gets ugly. I don’t know what to feature today… Wolverton obscurities? Fox & Crow comics? More Herriman? Walt Kelly? Arch Dale? I’d feature the Chris Ware link the Comics Reporter pointed me to, but the resolution is terrible.

How about a Flip the Frog comic? Flip the Frog? He had comics? I guess he did… presented courtesy of Comicrazys, click the image below to see it.

But then there’s the ASIFA – Hollywood Animation Archive, doing amazing work as usual. Not only do they deliver the goods, but they do it with big, gorgeous scans. Some choice old newspaper funnies featuring Cliff Sterrett, Milt Gross, Clare Briggs and more are there today. Click the image below to go drool over them.

Those are sure great, but I gotta point to this as well… an inked version of the Wally Wood Spawn of Venus story I ran the pencils for previously, thinking they had not been inked… Courtesy of the Golden Age Comic Book Stories blog. Click on the image below to view it.

HEY! KIDS! COMICS! : Harry Grant Dart’s The Explorigator : July 18th, 2008

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Today’s featured comic: Again we have another hard day to make a choice on what to feature… there’s a great new Li’l Abner feature at the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive, a typically wonderful Walt Kelly childrens’ comic at Pappy’s, and some gorgeous Jim Tyer funny animal art at ThadBlog. However, Barnacle Press just put up the complete 14 episodes of Harry Grant Dart’s The Explorigator strips from 1908, and those win out (even in black and white… you should see ’em in color!). The Explorigator strips are fantastic… huge and beautiful fantasy-adventure strips, on a par with what McCay was doing with Little Nemo at the time. Pity there are only 14 of them! Click the image above to go see the strips.

HEY! KIDS! COMICS! : Harrison Cady Illustrations for Boys’ Life : July 17th, 2008

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Harrison Cady Boys' Life Illustrations

Today’s featured item: The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive posted some lovely scans of some of Harrison Cady’s insanely detailed Boys’ Life illustrations. Click on the image above to go view them.

HEY! KIDS! COMICS! : Whole Lotta Herriman : July 15th, 2008

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I make it no secret that George Herriman is my favorite artist of all time… Herriman’s Krazy Kat I think is the greatest artwork ever made in any medium.

This has been probably the best week ever for finding Herriman reprints online.

First of all Allan Holtz at the Stripper’s Guide brought us his latest Herriman Saturday, as he does every Saturday… these posts feature an ongoing complete reprinting of early, early political and other cartoons from the Los Angeles Examiner by Herriman.

Next our friends at Barnacle Press (easily the best place to read ancient comics online) posted numerous examples of two early, extremely rare Herriman strips, Major Ozone’s Fresh Air Crusade and The Two Jolly Jackies. Note in the earliest Ozone strip presented from 1904, we already have a very familiar looking Kat inhabiting the bottom of the strip (a preview of which is pictured above).

Barnacle Press also pointed us to The Ignatz Archive, an online smörgåsbord of a whole bunch of rare early Herriman strips!

To top things off, I Love Comix printed a great Krazy Kat Sunday and Mark Kausler ran another wonderful bunch of Krazy Kat dailies (which he has been doing for some time now).

I can’t wait to have the time to read all these treasures!