Tell Them Rube, Lou, Tom, Neal, Mel and Bil Sent You

In the pas t few weeks I was able to clean some scattered comic strip ads, enough to fill another post. Most of these are familiar to my regular visitors, but that doesn't make them less commentable.

Jack Bett's Peter Pain is such a familiar face to collectors of Sunday newspaper sections of the forties and fifties that we seem to forget how many of these the forgotten artist did. Ben-Gay was one of two pf Bett's regular accounts, the other was Neddy Nestle for Nestlé chcolate milk. He did one every two weeks for each for over 15 years... and very little else. An impressive output, but when Betts and his ad characters disappeared, so did his name from the comi history books.

Another longrunning ad seres was the one for Camels sigarettes. They had many formats but often used famous and semi-famous names to sell their sticks. Mostly semi-famous, so this ad with Dick Powell is in fact a rarity.

Sunday newspaper ads started in the thirties. At that point they were usually done by illustrators rather than comic people.

The lettering was similarely not in the comic book or newspaper strip style and often (like the drawing style) quite stilted.

In the forties and fifties two things started happening. Some of the illustrators started working more in a comic book style. And comic book artist started to work in the 'illustrators' style. This is an example, which looks as if it could have been done by an early practitioner at the Johnstone and Cishung agance, Stan Drake. But I am not sure.

Another frequent contributor at Johnstone and Cushing was Creig Flessel, who had come from comic books but slicked up pretty well. He kept more of his Milton Caniff influence (very popular with comic book artists because of the time saving shortcuts it offered) than some of the others.

For a short period Milt Caniff and his friend and studio-mate Noel Sickles worked together in advertising under the pseudibymn Paul Arthur. This ad is very much in their vein, but not by them, I think.

A later sample (I am doing these alphabetically, rather than by date) by what seems to be Tom Scheuer. Scheuer joined Johnstone and Cushing and learned a lot from regular artist Carl Wexler. Neal Adams joined a couple of years later and took the Wexler style to a whole new level. Scheuer then began to take from Adams in such a way that it is sometimes impossible to tell them apart.

Mel Casson was a New York cartooonist, who created the delightful stip It's Me, Dolly with Alfred Andriola. He had a very modern style, but seems to have dumbed it down in later years. He was a client of Tony Mendez, who had a lot of his stuff in her files (kept at the Billy Ireland Museum in Columbus, Ohio). It shows a very hip and fresh cartoonist - more than this ad does.

A later ad, which looks as if it could be the later work of Carl Wexler.

This time I am pretty sure the ad is by Stan Drake. He has said his work was appreciated so much that he was one of a few artists allowed to sign his work, but I have never seen one and neither is this.

Not from Johnstone and Cushing, but interesting nonetheless. Al Hirschfeld was a prolific artist of immense importance to American culture and I am surprised that no one has ever presented a complete list of his work. I have shown many previously unknown samples on my blog and here he is again in an ad for a movie theater magazine.

Another longrunning series tht will have to be included if there ever is a book done. Started by Rube Goldberg and continued by a series of Johnstone and Cushing artists deep into the forties.

The illustrators' style in full force.

Two examples of the long running Philip Morris series of ads done by Lou Fine. The first one, a regular one (of which I have shown many if you follow the link) and the second one one of a few of the last ones, when Philip Morris became the sponsor of the I Love Lucy show and Fine switched to Lucille Ball and Ricky.

Another Lou Fine ad from a series that ran only for a couple of years, but keeps impressing. The ghostlike character was invented at the end of the previous decade and may have been an influence on many such characters in other ads as well as comic books.

This looks like Lou Fine's work and I have stated so in the past, but lately I have been wondering if it isn't the work of one of the more popular illustrators, Gunnar Peterson, who adapted his painted style to linework.

A very uniqua ad, which seems to have been done especially for the local area of this paper (The Milwaukee Journal). Only today I saw that the credit for this ad says it is by Freberg and Albertinco (?). Could this be Stan Freberg? The puppets, the ad connection and the humor seem to fit. Is there a Freberg fan out there who can enlighten me?

Another `lou Fine series, Sam Spade for Wildroot hair tonic, did not only appear in the newspapers, but it was recut to be used in the comics as well.O= Another ad strips that got this treatment was Captain Tootsie.

A newer one, but I had never seen it before, an ad with thepopular cartoon series by Bil Keane.

One of the artists who continued the Pepsi Cops strips was later Howdy Doody Sunday strip artost Chad Grothkopf.

Another Fine Lucy

Wednesday Advertising Day.

Here are some new samples of ad series I have shown before. First there is a new I Love Lucy Ad by Lou Fine for Philip Morris. I have two color ones from my own scan and a couple of these black and white ones from different sources. I think they are gorgeous and unjustly forgotten. If I was a Lucille Ball fan I would want them all.

The other two are two more samples of an ad series that seems to have been started by Gil Fox in a Dik Browne style or possibly by Fox and Browne together. After the first one or two, Fox strated doing them on his own and signing them. After a year he left and Bill Williams took over in a similar style.

Everything for the head.

Wednesday Advertising Strip Day

Today three more advrtisement strips, ranging from the well executed to interesting for television fanatics.

The first ad is from November 9 1951 and is yet another sample of a realistic ad in what would later in the fifties became known as the 'asdvertising style'. I don't think there were a lot of artists working in this style this early in the fifties, among them later Rip Kirby artist John Prentice and soon to be Twin Earths artist (and later assistent to almost everyone working in this style) Alden McWilliams. But they certainly weren't the only ones.



This wildroot ad is interesting because it features to styles and two strips. Neither involving Fearless Fosdick, who was often used as the WEildroot spokesman. Apparently this company liked using cartoons for their ads. The second, realistic strip is one in a long lst of advertising strip detectives... a subject someone should do an article about for Hogan's Alley.


The last ad is another Lucille Ball ad for Philip Morris. I showed you another one earlier (use the tag to find it) and noted there that the Philip Morris people were very early with the accompyaning newspaper ads. This sample is from September 9, when the television series had only just started. Ricky looks more like a Cuban character here than in the other sample, but if you didn't know you wouldn't guess.

You'll be glad tomorrow

Wednesday Advertising Day


Up till now I have concentrated on the cartoon comic strip ads, apart from the Eveready ads by Greig Flessel I have been showcasing.Realistically drawn ads were in the majority in the forties and even in the fifties, they made up almost 50% of the ads. The style used for these ads, was the general 'advertising realism' style, that has it's basis in the more realistic work of Alex Raymond. One of the most influential artists in creating this style was Lou Fine. Fine worked for Will Eisner and Quality comics in the early forties and was admired by everyone for his free flowing energy and lyricism. He took the best of Raymond's Flash Gordon and added comic strip storytelling. After influencing everyone (including Will Eisner and Jack Kirby), he slowly reigned in his style, until it had become almost dull and boring in it's realistic depiction of everyday life and people. This style was uniquely suited for advertising soon he became one of the early stars of comic strip ads. Flessel said in one of his interviews that he didn't see Lou Fine a lot at Johnstone and Cushing, because he joined forces with another artist in the late forties. Because I don't know which ads were done by Johnstone and Cuching in a faux Fine style and which were done by Lou Fine himself, it is hard for me to see which ad is done by which artist. At Johnstone and Cushing artists such as Stan Drake and Leonard Starr worked out their own version of that style and seemed to have been very successful at it. Carl Wexler joined in as well, although it seem to me that he came more from the Milton Caniff side of the spectrum. Others used a bit of both.

Just as with the cartoon ads, these things were done in series. I am starting with another Eveready ad, Greig Flessel's long running series of true adventures with batteries. The Nebisco ad that follows it is done in a similar style (but by another artist) and format. This did not turn into a longrunning series.




Another popular way to use comic strips in advertising, is to have celebrity endorsments in cartoon form. I guess, that way thecelebrities could always say: "It wasn't me, it was only a drawing!" These were particulary popular with the sigarette ads. Here are a couple of third tier celebrities doing their comic strip thing...






But Camels were not the only company doing this. Here is a great Lucille Ball ad for Philip Morris. After that another Philip Morris ad, with possibly the worst slogan ever deviced: "tomorrow you'll be glad you smoked Philip Morris today." Yeah, right.




Finally, another very popular series... Mr. Coffee Nerves. In the late thirties and early forties, some the most famous of these were drawn by Milt Caniff and Noel Sickles. But towards the ens of the forties, other artist had taken over. And as we can see from this ad, it wasn't just parents they were adressing anymore.



Imagin, giving your kids a chemical to calm them down so they won't turn into criminals... aren't you glad we don't do that anymore?

I don't usually refer to other blogs (others are better at it than me and more complete), but I have to make a not of the fact that The Fortress of Fortitude has a couple of Basil Wolverton's Culture Corner strips. I love these but would never buy whole issues of Captain Marvel to get them. Apparently there are about fifty... seems like enough for a nice book to me.