Monthly Archives: January 2006

Neil Gaiman writes to alert me to the passing of Maurice Dodd, who wrote The Perishers, a long-running and popular comic strip that appears in The Daily Mirror over in the United Kingdom. I have to admit I only had a passing familiarity with the feature but you could tell it was much loved, not only as a good read but as a treasured part of many childhoods. Here's a link to an obit and a link to the Perishers website where you (like me) can learn more about it.

…is not like the others. The newspaper strip Slylock Fox, distributed far and wide by King Features, offers puzzles and games and even the occasional trivia test. Doug Pratt, who reads this site, was nice enough to send me yesterday's Sunday page, which I am unable to locate on the Internet. The little pink box above is one of several puzzles in it…and I'm embarrassed to say it took me three guesses. Thanks to Bob Weber, Jr. who's responsible for this delightful creation.

A few items ago, I posted the cover to an actual Barry Goldwater comic book that came out from the same company, Dell, in 1964. There was, of course, a Lyndon B. Johnson issue…and gee, doesn't L.B.J. look unhappy to be on a comic book cover? It's like he's thinking, "Geez…first, the Gulf of Tonkin and now this!" I have no idea where my copies are but as I recall, both books were drawn by Jack Sparling. Sparling, who was enormously prolific in comic books and strips, actually started his career with a political comic. He illustrated a newspaper strip called Hap Hopper, all about a reporter, and the strip was allegedly created and written by Washington columnist Drew Pearson.

To answer a question I often get here, I'm told Mr. Sparling passed away a few years ago. He struck me as a pretty good illustrator who rarely did comics that let him be as good as he could be. From all reports, he was very fast and in comics back then, if you were fast, you often got into the rut of only getting assignments that paid poorly and had to be drawn at lightning speed. We can argue some other time to what extent that's the fault of the publisher (for paying so poorly) or of the artist (for accepting such assignments) but clearly, Sparling was banging it out pretty rapidly for most of his career. In the sixties, he did a lot of 32-page books for Dell that were reportedly pencilled and inked in about four days each, which is about how long some artists would take to sharpen their pencils. I suspect that on these "biography" comics he did for Dell — there were others, as well — they knew how difficult it was to do all those likenesses and research so they paid him a few bucks more a page. And instead of doing an issue in four days, he took five.

Until about an hour ago, I had not known who wrote these comics. That's when I received an e-mail from my pal Anthony Tollin…

I'm pretty sure that my late friend Walter B. Gibson wrote both this [the Goldwater comic] and a corresponding LBJ biographical comic book. Walter had a major, largely unchronicled comic book career, including tons of commercial and industrial giveaway comics. I do recall that Walter was quite amused that he had written biographical comic books for both candidates in the 1964 presidential election.

For those of you unfamiliar with the career of Mr. Gibson, he was a giant in the fields of pulp magazine writing and in magic. He wrote hundreds of Shadow novels under the pen name of Maxwell Grant. That's his photo above next to one of them. He also authored a couple of shelves full of non-Shadow books, including many on the principles and art of prestidigitation. I had not known he ever wrote comics but it makes sense: He was writing mystery novels for Dell at the time and he was known to be an expert on U.S. history and its major figures. He passed away in 1985. I only met him once, ever so briefly at a comic convention but he seemed so bright and clever that I envy folks like Tony who knew him well.

By the way: Tony also reminds me that Harry Langdon, who was mentioned in the previous item, was a cartoonist. So were a couple of other popular silent comedians, including Larry Semon. Some of the gagmen who fashioned their material were also cartoonists. Ernie Bushmiller, the renowned artist of Nancy, for example, wrote for Harold Lloyd and some others. Someone ought to research this topic further and see what kind of correlations can be found between visual physical comedy and gag cartooning. I get around ten e-mails a month from folks who want to write scholarly papers on Jack Kirby and the religious underpinnings in his work. Maybe I can divert one of those authors to this topic.

I'm watching Dick Clark hosting a bit of his annual Rockin' New Year's Eve Special on ABC…his first real public appearance since his stroke a little more than a year ago. As I start writing this, I'm a little puzzled as to how to react.

I could feel sad. I worked with Dick a few times — I wrote on a series he produced and later, he hosted a special I produced — and I liked him a lot. Actually, I liked him before that from years of watching American Bandstand and various game shows. He was all energy with a great sense of humor, and it's heartbreaking to see him with slurred speech, struggling (but succeeding) to get his dialogue out.

Or I could feel happy. The rumor mill, including word from a friend who saw him last March, suggested he might not make it to New Year's Eve, let alone be well enough to return to work. But there he is, not letting a little thing like partial paralysis stop him from doing what he's always done so well. There's something inspirational there. This has been a year where a lot of people had to claw their way back from disasters, big and small. Dick isn't doing the show tonight because he needs the money. He already has all the money. He's doing it to tell the world, "Hey, I'm not dead and I'm coming back."

And looking at it that way, I'm deciding I'll feel happy about it. Welcome back, Dick. May we all have that kind of strength in '06 and not let anything stop us.