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Saturday Leftover Day.

These are truely leftovers, but they tie in together nicely.

In the forties Dik Brwone was a bit of a stylistic chameleon, who could do a variety of funny styles. I recently came across an ad that seems like his, but it is in the style of another artist who did a lot of these things around that time, called Sargent. He alsways signed his stuff though.

Here is a color sample of his typical style and signature.

And here is Sargent again - untypically not signing (unless I am missing something). If you look at the figures underneath, you can see how he and Browne worked in the same stylistic area.

To compare, here is a Roger Wilco ad I know is by Browne, because he signed some of them. I have more if you follow the label, some in color.

I also found this sample of Sargent's later style.

This week I showed some of Dik Browne's advertising work. I realized I have a couple of odd pieces that could or could not be by im as well, which I am showing here.

First off here are two Billy Baker ads, which seem to be by Browne. They are done in a slightly more realitic style than his usual fare, but he was still working at Johnstone and Cushing at that time.

Another early ad, which could just as easily be by Gill Fox imitating Browne, but I don't think so.

Next we have another Royal Twins ad. No doubt here.

The Trouble Twins are intersting, because apparently this series is what got him the job on Hi & Lois. When I visited Mort Walker he repeated the anecdote of looking for an artist fot that strip - King Features Editor came with the artist doing The Tracey Twins in Boy's Life and Mort Walker came with the artist of The Trouble Twins. Both were of course the same, Dik Browne.

But did he continue this series when Hi and Lois started? One would say that a daily strip on it's own would be more than enough to fill your time. And it seems to have been quite succesful from the start. Still, I have some of the beautiful one panel gags he did for Camels from 1956, so he was probably still doing commercial work on the side, at leasst until the Hi & Lois Sunday page started.

But I can't help but feel that these Trouble Twins ads could also be by Bill Williams, another Johnstone and Cushing artist, who also took over another of Dik Browne and Gill Fox's ad series, the cough drop ads about a black cat (which I showed a couple of years ago and should be easy to find if you use the label for Bill Williams). Like Browne, Williams also did a gag strip for Boy's Life. He never got his own succesful newspaper strip, but he did become known for working on Dell comedy series such as Going On Thirteen and other teen fare.

To compare, here is an ad in the same style that really is too late to be by Browne. I think this definitively is by Williams.

Another series I think is by Bill Williams.

And here is one of those later ads. This one is for Listerine, but Browne did similar ones for Camels (which I have shown earlier). This one is even from 1959. That must ave been quite a lucrative account. The old guy in the car was the grandpa character from the Tracey Twins, which Browne also continued while doing Hi and Lois - with the help of Gill Fox (although I am not quite sure in which period). Hm.... seems like Browne.

Brown's Bit On The Side

Wednesday Ad Strip Day.

Continuing the Dik Browne Theme of this week, here is a little thing he did for the April 1965 issue of Boy's Life. It is unmistakeably Browne's own work, as are the pages of The Tracey Twins I am showing after that. In the sixties The Tracey twins was downgraded from a full page to a half page (which makes it so much easier to scan). It seems to me, that Browne kept doing this strip (as well as other work for Boy's Life) until well into the sixties even though some sources say it was taken over by Gill Fox. This may even be at a later point, or maybe there was a point in the late fifties Browne had a little help. I have also added another Lipton Tea ad in the Browne style, either by Browne himself, or by Browne and Fox together or by Fox imitating Browne.I have also added a half page from the same April 1965 issue of Boy's Life that seems to me the unmistakable solo work of Fox.

From Boy's Life April 1965:


Boy's Life Feb 1965:


Boy's Life March 1965:


Boy's Life April 1965:


Boy's Life Sept 1965:


Lipton Ad from May 21 1950:


From Boy's Life Sept 1965:

Hardly Boys

Wednesday Ad Day.

Last week I showed a couple of realisticly drawn advertising strips by artists I couldn't identify. Today I have four more from a series that seems to have been done by one artist, or at least in one style. I think I have seen the earliest Rusty and Dusty installments in some of those adverstisement heavy DC comic books that often also ran a similar Sam Spade ad page. These are from just after the war and my collection of newspaper sections doen't go back that much, so I have never come across any Sunday ads for Rusty and Dusty that have been adapted to a comic book format, but I guess that's how it went. They were produced for Sunday sections and used for comic books as well. Anyway, the artist for this series is unknown to me, although I feel it is not one of the regulars of these ads. I mean, it doesn't look like the work of Lou Fine or Greig Flessel or Lee Elias or Carl Wexler or any of the artist I know were doing realistic comic ads in that period. It doesn't remind me of any of the artists I know from that period. Most comic book artists didn't reach the level of these ads, either because they were beinners or because they didn't have the time to spend. but still, it could have been any of the competent artists that were around then.

Rusty and Dusty was an exciting detective strip and deserves more attention than it has been getting. The series ran until well into the fifties, so depending on the starting date, it probably ran for more than ten years. as did many of these series in those years. The samples I am showing are from 1954, '55 and '56.

As you can see from the second and forth sample, these ads were often paired with a one tier strip about The Trouble Twins. This is the series that got Dik Tracey the Hi and Lois assignment together with The Tracey Twins in Boy's Life.