R.C. "Bob" Harvey has a fine website on which he covers the world of comic books and strips, and if I haven't recommended it here lately, I should have. He's just posted a remembrance of our friend Shel Dorf and if you knew Shel or are interested in him, it's a must-read. He talks about Shel's attempts to sell a syndicated newspaper strip (one of which was nicely drawn by Bob) and offers up some samples of those strips, plus other Shel-related visuals.
Getting to it may be a bit tricky but it's well worth the effort. Bob ordinarily charges a modest fee for access to his articles…also well worth it, by the way. But if you don't want to shell out the cash right now, you can still read the piece (and sample his other fine articles) as long as you do it in the next two weeks. Go to this page and start reading. When you reach the point where you have to be a subscriber to continue, enter the following and make sure you type it with the capital letters but without the quotation marks. For User Name, enter "Jingle" and for Password, enter "Jangle" and that will get you in…for the next two weeks or so.
By the Way Department: One of the visual treats Bob has put up is a poster for the 1977 San Diego Comic-Con — a drawing of Shel and committee chairman Richard Butner in a scene out of Don Quixote as drawn by the great Filipino cartoonist, Alfredo Alcala. There's kind of an interesting story behind this ad. No one asked Alfredo to do it. He just, on a whim, sat down one day and drew it, expecting (and receiving) no compensation. He sent it to Shel and it became the main advertising art for the convention that year…
At the time, the great animation director Chuck Jones was making a brief foray into the world of syndicated strips. He was writing and drawing a feature called Crawford. One day, an exec from his syndicate was visiting Chuck and an associate of his, a writer named Marian Dern. They were discussing business-type matters when the syndicate exec received a phone call from his office informing him of a problem with one of the syndicate's other strips, the western feature, Rick O'Shay. The problem — and it was a biggie, obviously — is that its creator-writer-artist Stan Lynde had just decided to quit.
The syndicate had the right and desire to keep the strip going so when Chuck asked, "Something wrong?", the exec said, "Yeah, I've got to find someone to write and draw Rick O'Shay."
Chuck pointed to his friend Marian and said, "How about having her write it?"
This was discussed for a few minutes and the guy from the syndicate said, "Well, that might work…but who could we get to draw it?"
Chuck looked around his office and spotted the poster Alfredo had drawn, pinned up on a bulletin board. He had no idea who Alfredo Alcala was or if the artist was available…but Chuck said, "How about that guy?" The syndicate fellow liked the drawing so Chuck phoned Shel Dorf and got Alfredo's phone number.
Now, if you look back a few days on this site, you'll see a photo I took of Alfredo with a man named Zeke Zekley. Zeke for a time had produced the hallowed PS Magazine for the U.S. Government…the army comic once done by Will Eisner. To get it drawn each month, he had sponsored Alfredo's immigration to the United States. Alfredo was perfect for the project but even with him on the team, Zeke found the magazine too much work to get done every thirty days. After a while, he sold the government contract to someone else…which left Alfredo in America but without work.
So Alfredo was sitting in his little apartment, about two miles from Chuck Jones's office, worrying about finding a job. He had to because based on the conditions of his immigration, he'd be deported if he couldn't show gainful employment. Then the phone rang and it was the fellow from the syndicate asking if he was interested in drawing the Rick O'Shay newspaper strip. Alfredo was, of course, extremely interested…and that's how the Rick O'Shay strip came to be produced for a year by the parlay of Dern and Alcala. (Eventually, Mel Keefer took it over, Alfredo secured enough work from DC Comics to stay in the U.S. and Ms. Dern married Mr. Jones.)
One of the many things I love about that big annual convention down in San Diego is how it puts people together…how careers and friendships and relationships, both long-term and short are made. Here's a great example of how even the convention's advertising did that. Amazing.