Don't Open Till XMas...!

 

Under the Tree...

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Surprises!

by Rick Marschall

I have been sharing Christmas cards and drawings from my collection, and I wanted to share a rare "corporate" card, and then miscellaneous cards from a variety of artists... no theme except Christmas itself. All the cards were produced for the three Fs -- family, friends, and fans. That is, not for stationers marketing in stores. Enjoy!

Back during the high-flying (literally) days of EC Comics, this was the "corporate" card Bill Gaines sent out. Among the elves are John Severin, Maries Severin, Al Williamson, Jack Davis, Al Feldstein, Harvey Kurtzman, Will Elder, Joe Orlando, Wally Wood, and Bernie Krigstein.

As with many of the cards here, if a Christmas came and went without certain cartooning friends' cards, it would feel like a bleak midwinter. Wonderful Edwina Dumm, the creator of creator of Tippie the dog and Jaspurr the cat (her strip was the long-running Cap Stubbs and Tippie), sent cards every year. Some were privately printed; some were hand-drawn. As my children met her, and she cherished them, she often wrote greetings to them too.

This card was sent by Sidney Smith, before The GumpsThis 

In the last year of his life, the greatest mixing in a touch of his perennial themes. He was optimistic about the world's future...

Hal Foster, sans Prince Valiant

Fred Lasswell, in his early Barney Google and Snuffy Smith cards, emulated the style and shading that the strip's creator Billy DeBeck used in his cards.

Even after retirement from his great Toonerville Folks panel and strip, Fontaine Fox sent out cards -- literally, postcards. His drawn greeting was printed, but every card would have some pen-and-ink addition, and, always, hand-coloring.   

The great (and great friend) Al Kilgore usually sent custom-drawn images. In 1964 he reprinted a daily strip of his great BullwinkleThe great (and great friend) Al Kilgore usually sends custom-drawn images. In 1964 he reprinted a daily strip 

How to read a Nancy Christmas card...?

The great Cliff Sterrett drew Polly and ALL her pals, ca. 1927

Walt Scott's card was a custom silk-screen printed, a true and charming craft-driven creation. The characters are his classic Little People from his Sunday comic strip. 

The Great Debate –

Nassua, NY Newsday, 1971: At the station, (radio DJ Al) Doud goes into a studio to tape a segment of his show. His guest is Richard Schickel, movie critic for Life magazine, who wrote a book on Walt Disney a couple of years ago. His other guest is a cartoonist named Al Kilgore (Bullwinkle) who hates the book Schickel wrote on Walt Disney a couple of years ago. Kilgore has a copy of the book with about 800 markers in it noting the parts he wants to argue about. “It’s well-written,” says Kilgore as the taping gets under way, “but it’s the most vicious character assassination I’ve ever seen.”

“That’s hyperbole,” says Schickel. “Look, why are you making this semi-hysterical attack?”

Kilgore calls Schickel “Mr. Snide.” Schickel says, “This is preposterous.” The debate is not on the highest level. Schickel gets quite upset. Finally he stands up. “I’m not gonna take this,” he says. “Take your show and stuff it.” He walks out of the studio.

Doud turns to the microphone. “I’d like to say a word about Shop-Rite Supermarkets,” he says...

– Freak, By Lewis Grossberger

📽

A Crowded Life in Comics – Al Kilgore, Dik Browne, Bill Gallo, Dick Ayers, &c.

❄–Cartoonist Christmas Memories–❄

by Rick Marschall

The gracious John Adcock has been passing along Cartoonists’ Christmas Cards since Thanksgiving in Yesterday’s Papers, I hope fun for all. At last count, in my collection I have about 1250 or so of these, dating as far back as 1910 – not stationery-rack commercial cards, but greetings drawn for individual fans or fellow cartoonists. Pretty special.

Christmas is special too, part of the cartoonists’ motivations (looking your best to fellow artists!) but also… because Christmas IS special. Many memories of my crowded life in comics revolved around the holiday.

Besides the special cards, and my own memories of Christmas parties at homes of cartoonists in the “artists colony” in Connecticut when I lived there in the informal, fraternal golden age of the 1970s and ‘80s. The National Cartoonists Society used to bunch up special events during the Christmas season.

An annual get-together was always always held downstairs at the legendary Mama Leone’s restaurant in New York’s Theater District. Special entertainment (and carols sung by the boys from the nearby St Pancras Church and School – an Anglican saint, for the curious) were hallmarks. King Features hosted the Segar Award around Christmastime. And several syndicates had their own bashes, too.

One such event, around 1974 – I wish I could remember which event, which exact year – Al Kilgore was the MC. The Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoonist, one of the funniest and most talented men I ever met, called some of us at random from the tables, and we sang Christmas carols under his direction.

Here is a photo of Al at the left, brandishing his intimidating microphone; and me at far right, my frequent position, savoring the moment. The other carolers, from left, are Bill Gallo; Mort Walker’s mother-in-law; Dik Browne; Dick Ayers (whose vest, I remember, was bright Christmas-red); and Joan (Mrs John Cullen) Murphy.

“Happy days,” as I remember Dik Browne exclaiming, not only at Christmas, but whenever a dinner or party or even a phone conversation was pleasing to him.

I will share here two Christmas cards by a couple of my late friends in this photo. Al Kilgore and his wife Delores sent the Bullwinkle card in 1964.

The Dik Browne card was created the year that Hagar the Horrible had its debut, 1973. Dik drew special cards every year for decades, usually featuring his family. In 1986 he wanted to collect them all (40!) in a special reprint book for friends. He called me one afternoon in frustration. I will pause here for a moment.

How could he lose one of his own Christmas cards, so specially created? Well, like many cartoonists, Dik was not the greatest at Organization; and this extended, to the delight of friends and the exasperation of his dear wife Joan, to his typical wardrobe. Casual at best. 

The story was common among Fairfield County friends that one day Dik prepared to leave and have lunch with other cartoonists. Joan looked at his mis-matched socks, shirt tail hanging out, clashing patterns of shirt and pants, and said, “I hope you get lost. I would love to describe you to the police!”

Anyway, he could not find a card for his keepsake book of retrospective Christmas cards. Knowing that I was an inveterate saver as well as charter member of the Dik Browne adoration society, he assumed I could fill the gap, and I did. When he sent the reprint book, he tucked in the little calling-card inscribed to me and my wife Nancy whom he adored too. 

Dik and Joan were at our wedding. Special, but those Christmases, through the years, were special too. “Happy days!”

❄21

Rocky and Bullwinkle

“We have two peasants whom we keep bound in the basement. Every once in awhile we drag them out and beat them. They come up with very funny material.” -- Jay Ward

Rocky and His Friends, (1959-1961) produced by Jay Ward and Bill Scott, hit the air in November of 1959 on ABC. Jay Ward created the first TV cartoon series, Crusader Rabbit. Scott was a former writer on Mr. Magoo, Gerald Mc-Boing-Boing and Bugs Bunny. The scripts were prepared in Hollywood but the animation plant was situated in Mexico City and employed 70 people. “It’s like the story of the talking dog,” said Scott, “The wonder is not what it says, but that it talks at all.”

Voices were handled by Edward Everett Horton, Hans Conried, William Conrad, Marvin Miller, Don Knotts, and Louis Nye, as well as two of the most talented “voice men” in animation, Daws Butler and Paul Frees. June Foray voiced both Rocky and his nemesis Natasha Fatale. Bill Scott was the foghorn voice of the most popular character Bullwinkle J. Moose.

The use of topical Cold War humor made Rocky and Bullwinkle a stand out among such innocuous fare as Huckleberry Hound, Quick Draw McGraw and Beany & Cecil. When the show (retitled The Bullwinkle Show) moved to NBC (1961-1964) and prime-time the networks sponsors clashed with Ward and Scott, telling the exasperated duo that “You can’t kid the Army, Navy, Marines, box tops, or any racial, cultural or religious group.” The problems started with the first prime-time show, in which the Bullwinkle puppet told the audience that if the knobs on their sets were removed the sets would stay tuned to that channel until next weeks episode. The network was inundated with complaints from parents whose offspring had followed instructions.

On July 23, 1962 Rocky and Bullwinkle tackled the newspaper comics in a daily illustrated by Al Kilgore. Kilgore, like Mr. Magoo’s cartoonist Pete Alvorado, worked in animation and on various comic books for Western Publishing Co. Kilgore designed the crest for The Sons of the Desert, a club set up to honor comedians Laurel and Hardy. The crest carried the club’s motto in Latin, “Two Minds Without a Single Thought.”