Comic Artists Direct

Boy, I get off on tangents. Here I'm close to caught up on my comic reading and, for some reason, I pick up (on sale, of course) some classic comic strip reprints. Wow, I love these things! Here's why.

Have you ever read a golden age comic book and thought to yourself, "This is a classic? My little sister could write better than this! They must have been terrible writers in the '20s and '30s." Well, that is a common misconception. To find the best writers in illustrated fantasy, follow the money. Comic book writers were on the bottom of the pay scale! To really enjoy popular adventure from the '20s and '30s, look to the comic strips.

One of the first things I did when I arrived at college in the '70s was to go to the big, old library building at Northern Illinois University and go through their microfilm newspaper files. Why? I was extremely curious about comic strips. Over several days, I devoured years of comics from the 1920s on. Great stuff. DId you know Dagwood Bumstead started out as a student and Blondie was a flapper? That he had a "hunger strike" when Blondie's parents refused to let him see her? That their wedding and their first born were big time news events? This is just a few of the things I learned LIVING what comic strip readers lived reading old strips. It really is like being there.

You all know what a big Popeye fan I am. No, it's not because of the Fleischer cartoons or those horrible cartoons that came after. It's because of E.C. Segar! (For more history of Segar and Popeye, visit my part of CAD here.) I recently picked up three reprint books of the dailies spanning 1934 to 1938 from Fantagraphics. Not only are these funny, interesting adventure stories, but they give you an idea of what people were like in the '30s, just coming out of the Great Depression. Poor people abound in this strip - when was the last time you saw a poor person in a modern story that wasn't part of some morality play on poor people? People help each other out. People handle their own problems, rather than running to the police. And many problems could, apparently, be handled by beating the snot out of the bad guy.

Volume 10 of the Fantagraphics Popeye collection has to be my favorite, with the conclusion of the story thread that finds Popeye "dictipator" of a new country and introduces Eugene the Jeep, a creature that can foretell the future. It then slides into the discovery of the sea dog's old father, Poopdeck Pappy, who proceeds to punch out Olive every chance he gets (Yes, lighten up, it IS funny. They're toons, you know. Who could get away with that these days?). Near the end the Sea Hag is introduced.

This is Segar at the top of his game. Sure, the stories take weeks to tell - one of the downsides to reading collected strips is that they tend to say the same things over and over to update readers - but Segar leads readers all over the place and, believe me, you do NOT know where any story is heading. Since he's a member of the old school of cartooning, people even occassionally fall backward out of the panel in the slapstick style of the '20s. Fun stuff!

I also have been reading Little Orphan Annie strip collections, also from Fantagraphics. My three books stretch from 1933 to 1935. I've heard a lot about these strips over the years and was happy to find them. Writer/artist Harold Gray is the ultimate free market Republican - his bad guys are often lazy people trying to live off the efforts of others. That doesn't mean, however, that rich people are off limits for him - bad guys are bad because of what they do, not because of what they own. This is one of the many themes that landed Gray in trouble with President (New Deal) Roosevelt and his men. (What were the writers of that stage play thinking, anyway?)

Annie herself is a real breath of fresh air. She's kind, thoughtful and an all 'round great kid (When was the last time you read THAT in a kid character?). She looks on the bright side, but is NOT a pushover. In fact, she figures out scams faster than most adults around her. When wandering around with her dog, Sandy, she'll work hard for next to nothing but will not beg. Yes, sometimes she's cheated by those who hire her (bastards).

These strips have a lot of reading. If you're used to the old nine-panel-grid of Stan Lee and company you'll do fine - if you don't like to read, forget it. Gray also repeats himself quite a bit (hey, it's a daily STRIP, remember?) and it doesn't flow as evenly as Popeye, Terry and the Pirates or Prince Valiant, but the payoffs are worth the extra reading, I believe. You'll be moving along quietly for weeks and weeks and all of the sudden a bullet will whiz above Annie's head. Augh! I love a long, carefuly buildup of tension. You can imagine readers at school and work the next day, 70 years ago. "Did you see yesterday? Somebody shot at Little Orphan Annie!"

And that's the reason to pick these kinds of books up, or go to the microfilm at your local big library. You can study wars all you want, but the comic strips are REAL history. Page one of Little Orphan Annie Volume 3: Annie wishes everyone happy new year and does a monologue as she chops wood, stacks it, brings it inside, puts it into an old stove, pumps water with a pump in the kitchen (you have to prime those things, too), puts a tea kettle on the stove - all to WASH HER FACE in a basin. Dude, 70 years ago is a drop in the bucket compared to human history!

So, E.C. Segar and Harold Gray are too cartoony for you? Check out Terry and the Pirates by Milt Caniff and Prince Valiant by Harold Foster. The comic book artists you love grew up studying these artists (or at least, the comic book artists you love's artists THEY loved). Terry and the Pirates is a great, world-hopping Indiana Jones-style strip that never talks down to its kid sidekick character. Prince Valiant is everything you'd expect a war comic to be - today's strip pales in comparison to Foster. Don't believe these guys are counted among the great artists? Did you ever price their work at auctions?

Check 'em out! Let me know what you think! Do you have a favorite classic strip that was popular before you were born? Why do you like it? How and where did you find it? Drop me an email.

I can't let this column go buy without a "goodbye" to the British adventure serial strip "Modesty Blaise." Author Peter O'Donnell retired in April, 2001 after more than 10,000 strips during 38 years, starting in the London Evening Standard in 1963. The strip's heroine, Modesty Blaise, was an ex-con and unpaid agent of the British secret service. I never read the strip myself, but always admired the beautiful drawings (and inking) of Spanish illustrator Badia Romero. Apparently, editors all over the U.S. were kept busy retouching this art to the less liberal standards of American newspapers.

BACK TO COMIC ARTISTS DIRECT