Roping Them In

Saturday Leftover Day.

Just one oddity today. Lately, at the request of soeveral collectors, I have been scanning more of Steve Roper and Kerry Drake, two perrennial detective strips that both were a round for quite some times. I never collected them, because some of Kerry Drake was collected in comic books in the forties and fifties (which you can go and see at the Digital Comics Museum) and although Steve Roper had a promising period when Bill Overgard took over in the early fifties, I never lied Ovegard's style in the sixties. Another problem with these strips is that I almost never have compelte stories I can share, which makes reading it a lot more difficult.

Anway, before cleaning and showing some of the ones I did scan, here is a Bill Overgard oddity from 1966. In the early sixties many different artists contributed to a sort of public information series about newspapers and journalism and how good they are for democracy. I have shown several over the years, by Virgil Partch, Mel Lazerus and others. This one is a bit later, but very similar. I am guessing it was an initiative of the National Cartoonists Society or something like that.

No Steve Is A Nomad

Friday Story Strip Day.

Some months ago, a member of the Facebook Steve Roper group asked me i I had any scans of Steve Roper. I had to admit that I come across them often, but apart from the earliest years (when Bill Overgard was still trying to look like his mentor, Milt Caniff) I am not really attracted to it. And because story strips are very hard to get into if you haven't got long runs, I never got around to scanning them for this blog. But of course, it is a strip of some importance (and certainly endurance) and it does deserve some attention. So I gatehred the scans I have made over the years and cleaned them up. Not really a complte story, but a good overview of Bill Overgards growth as an artist over the years. The first one is from hen the strip was still signed Bill Woggon, but actually drawn by Pete Hoffman, the official ghost for the strip sincs after WWII.

One Man's Journey

Saturday Story Strip Day.

I never scanned a lot of samples from the perennial detective strip Steve Roper. Although I love Bill Overgard's Milt Caniff influenced style (he worked as his assistant on Steve Canyon projects), it became too quick and easy for me from the mid fifties on. And because it is a serialized detective strip, reading the scattered samples I have was usually not much fun. But when I sold a bunch of 1971 Sundays this month, I sat down to scan them for some friends at the Kerry Drake Facebook group (where they like and share all detective strips - and more). That enabled me to pick up the few earlier samples I had scanned over the years and clean those as well. I am afraid to say I still liked Overgard best when he was trying to be someone else (Caniff). The only thing I quite like is his later strip Rudy, about a chimp agent in Hollywood. Original, fresh and funny. Unfortunately I don't remember where I saw it and I don't have the book (if indeed, there is one). May have been in Rick Marshall's wonderful Nemo magazine, the printed example for this blog).

Funny Pages

Friday Comic Book Day.

A couple of years ago, I wrote an article for Roy Thomas' Alter Ego about the Mad comic book imitations of the mid fifties. For it, I made a complete list of all titles doing parodies the early Mad way or imitating the format of the comic book Mad for a more general sort of humor books. To that I added a bit of history about the poublishers and artists and as much as I could find about the movies, tv-series and comics being spoofed. The article ran over sixtie spages and ws published in two installments. About a year later Fantaghraphics published a book of Mad comic book imitations by John Benson called The Sincerest Form of Parody. If anyone was suited to do such a book, it was John, but both Roy and I were hurt that neither party contacted us about it. If I would have done a book such as that, I would have included these two stories from an unlikely source. Norman Maurer and Joe Kubert entered the imitation field with their comic Whack, which was published by St. John. It is one of the better Mad imitations, not only because of the superior art, but also the targets and the stories themselves were very well thought out. This is generaluy known by the fans. Less known is the fact that Norman Maurer included a couple of parody stories to his Three Stooges comic book series. One of the few projects he did at St. John without Joe Kubert, the Three Stooges comic book featured hectic stories about the three comedians he later directed in som eof their later films. In #6 and #7 two comic book pardoies were included, which were either intended for later issues of the (cancelled) Whack or Murer had so much fun doing them that he couldn't stop.