More A Sidenote Than A Postscript

Saturday Leftover Day.

After the Second World War, Will Eisner retunred to The Spirit and continued it for another seven years (with the help of growing crew of assistants). The format that was established before the war remained - ach Spirit Section had one 7 or 8 page Spirit story, one Lady Luck (by KLaus Nordling) and one Mr. Mystic (later to be replaced). The alure of the section was the fact that newspapers could ad a 'comic book' to their Sunday section. But one paper did not adopt that format. Instead the enlarged the Spirit story to tabloid size and inserted it into their own Fun Book (filled with gag strips and games), produced by Bill Keane (of later Family Circus fame). I have a couple of those oversized Spirit sections. Becaus eof the difference in size, there was a white strip underneath the pages, that was filled with a specially drawn banner, featuring The Spirit's new kid character PS. The banners were repeated and I don't know how many there were, but here are the four I could find.

I don't know if they are drawn by Eisner himself. They could be by Klaus Nordling as well, who did a lot of those cute kids.

I tried to cut one of them into a more readable format of two tiers. The otehrs are as they appeared on 1951-06-10.

A Ghost From The Past

Friday Comic Book Day.

I have a good selection of Spirit sections in Fine condition. I have been scanning them carefully and sending the scans to the guys at the Digital Comics Museum. I use alot of their scans and it's my way of paying them back. They handle them and turn them into downloadable .cbz files which you can find here (mine as well as many more by other scanners): https://digitalcomicmuseum.com/index.php?cid=663. The nice thing about these scans is the fact that we are doing the whole Spirit section, which means they contain Lady Luck and Mr. Mystic as well. In this early sample you get an iconic Spirit story, with a story in a story and a special art technique to represent ghosts, Lady Luck probaby not yet by Klaus Norling and Mr. Mystic by Bob Powell. All good.

Say It Ain't Cole

Friday Comic Book Day.

In the mid to late forties Plastic Man creator reinvested his commitment to his publisher Quality comics. Before that he had given more and more parts of the creation of his strips to other hand, possibly in an effort to produce as many stories as possible. But at a certain point, you can see him returning to Plastic Man, introducing new characters and helping out others to do the same.

Here are two stories I sent to Jack Cole expert Paul Tumey with the question if I was right to see Cole hand in these two stories. Paul replied that he saw why I would say that, but he feels it might just as well have been the work of Cole previous collaborators and style imitators, like Alex Kotzky. Main thing I see it that neither of these stories is by their regular creator. Her Highness, about an old lady running a group of gangsters, was usually done by Gill Fox. here the style is to wild and to lively to be by Fox. The characters expressions, the look of the ladies and the use of oddly shaped panels all remind me of Cole. The second story, Bob and Swab (named for a navy slang expression for a certain sexual combo delivered by some of the ladies they met on their travels) usually is by Klaus Nordling, although Cole is known to do a couple as well. Here we are left inbetween. The figures have Nordling's touches, but the layout and the action is more Cole style.

Either way they are fun stories.

An Unlikely Tale

Saturday Lftover Day.

As I understand it, the Fred Nordley of this unknown Munchausen strip is actually later Lady Luck artist and collaborator at Will Eisner's American Visuals Klaus Nordling.

Birds Eye Vew

Saturday Leftover Day.

Looking through St. John's other 100 page kiddie book, a Christmas special, for more of Walt Scott's work, I came across a nide story by on eof my other favorites, Klaus Nordling. At that point Nordling was working for Will Eisnel, either on the last years of the Spirit or the first years of PS and what would later be called American Visuals. Together with Eisner he had developed a funny/kids style that was slightly different than his previous energetic Jack Cole inpired work. This leans more towards that style. This 'Birds Eye Kids' style is similar to the one used by Joe Maneely and David Gantz (We3) in the late fifties. Like the Walt Scott material yesterday, it may very well have been collected from another (company's) book.

A Skip And A Jump

Friday Comic Book Day.

An early Bob and Swab story by Klaus Nordling.

The Navy's Answer To Fokke and Sukke

Saturday Leftover Day.

As far as writing your own stuff, solid storytelling and giving it all a sense of fun, Klaus Nordling could hold his own against his contemporaries Will Eisner and Jack Cole. Whenever I see one of hi stories I am amazed he didn't achief ore fame during his life. Of course, none of his heroes struck a cor with the audience as Eisner's many creations (culminating in the Pirit) and Cole manic hero Plastic Man. Instead, Nordling gave us the impressive, but ultimately failing Pen Miller, Bob and Swab, The Barker and Lady Luck. Three of those I have shown as much as I can, but I see I have underrepresented Bob and Swab. With a name that was taken from a sexual quicky favorite with sailors, they were as adult as this sort of strips could become. maybe that explains their lack op appeal? Although Nordling is known to have written his own stories, these two characters have not been originated by hm. Earlier stories wre drawn by someone named Ginger and even in this batch there is one that seems to have been done by someone else. Jack Cole expert Paul Tumey once even found one that seems to have been done by Jack Cole - which you can find if you fllow the link to his excellent blog.