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 Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Angus McGill and Dominic Poelsma
Posted by maggie
It occurred to me to try to track down online images of (Clive creators) McGill and Poelsma -- and I had no luck. Since that annoyed me, I thought I'd post this photo, which appeared on the back cover of Augusta the Great, copyright 1977 Beaverbrook Newspapers. I'm guessing the one on the left is McGill.
9/10/2008 12:01:20 PM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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Clive and Augusta
Posted by maggie
The Clive strip (see earlier posting), while successful, soon evolved to pay more attention to his little sister, Augusta -- and eventually changed its name to acknowledge the fact. (The "horrible cat" shown here, by the way, was named Crippen [with reference to Hawley Harvey Crippen, put on trial in a media frenzy, accused of [and convicted of and hanged for] murdering his wife]. Don and I named one of our cats Crippen with reference to Clive's Crippen.)
9/10/2008 11:11:07 AM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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Clive by McGill and Poelsma
Posted by maggie
Another British strip of which I'm enormously fond is the British daily Clive, written by Angus McGill and drawn by Dominic Poelsma. Despite the fact that there were a few book collections, I can't find out much about either, though I think McGill was an essayist and Poelsma illustrated some humorous books. Judging from the copyright date (1977) and the cover copy of Augusta the Great ("first appeared in the London Evening Standard nine years ago"), the strip began in 1968. And here are the first strips:
9/10/2008 10:59:38 AM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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 Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Another British Strip -- Choochi and Twink
Posted by maggie
While my primary scanning computer sits clicking to itself while it scans and fixes its C drive (though I have little hope that it will actually cure itself that way), Brent helped me work my way through the Photoshop Elements software on another computer.
We'll see how it turns out on an ongoing basis. But in the meantime, here's Choochi and Twink, which started in 1966. It was written by Les Lilley (1924-1998) and drawn by Chic Jacob (1926-2000). [Lilley also scripted such strips as Jane, Tiffany Jones, and Scarth. Both men were active in the community of comics professionals.] I don't think these first strips from the series have ever been reprinted -- until now.
9/9/2008 5:57:19 PM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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Go, Rob Siegel (and Wrestler), Go!
Posted by maggie
OK, this isn't about comics, but I just had to gloat! In days long gone by, I occasionally caught glimpses of Rob Siegel at the Madison offices of the revered weekly The Onion. He was a wordsmith par excellence -- and a good buddy of Thompson Offspring Stephen. Long before Stephen left The Onion, Rob had made his exit to New York, where he polished his output even more. And the most recent evidence? How about the Golden Lion prize for The Wrestler at the Venice Film Festival? How about an all-night bidding war for rights to distribute the movie in America? You go, Rob! Here's a report on the film, which stars Mickey Rourke and is directed by Darren Aronofsky.
9/9/2008 11:11:12 AM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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Google Chrome -- and Comics by McCloud
Posted by maggie
Oh, that Scott McCloud! Canny folks who want to inform their friends about comics as an art form introduce them to Scott's assortment of incredible guides in that art form. We know that.
He's helped countless hordes of would-be creators through the minefield of comics creation and, in the process, has simultaneously led them into the computer age. His own tools have evolved from ink on paper to mouse and CPU.
Now, he's helping Google to introduce hesitant users to its new Internet browser: Chrome. Using text from Google's "Chrome team," he's created an introductory 38-page brochure in comic-book form. Check it out!
9/9/2008 5:08:43 AM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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 Monday, September 08, 2008
NPR's Monkey See
Posted by maggie
Linda Holmes is one of the most articulate of today's pop-culture critics, and she now has a blog at National Public Radio. I've added the link in the Perpetual Haven of Links on the left, so you needn't memorize her name or my recommendation. But, in the meantime, let me recommend the blog itself. While her commentaries tend toward the TV-centric ( e.g., her Sept. 5 post "So: What's So New about New Fall TV?"), her site is home to occasional guest blogs about comics. There's the Mo Willems "Radio Cartoonist" competition. And Glen Weldon actually focuses on current comics news ( e.g., his Sept. 4 post "Marvel's Simian Super-Heroes and Other Monkeyshines"). I'm not going to link to those specific stories, because there's lots more to enjoy. Just click the appropriate "More Links" button to see for yourself.
9/8/2008 9:15:08 AM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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 Sunday, September 07, 2008
Setting Sail with Boner's Ark
Posted by maggie
As I embarked on the project of posting samplings of a variety of strips from days gone by, my primary scanning computer at home decided it belonged primarily to days gone by, as well.
I have a few faint hopes of being able to salvage the thing, but I also have a tendency to try to remain undeterred -- so I'm returning to a Photoshop Elements program with which I am unfamiliar and, so, am even more likely to mess things up. I liked the full Photoshop on the other computer, aged as both the software and hardware were. What I've used today won't let me scan to as fine a level as I was able to scan with my primary computer. Whine, whine, whine.
OK, that said, Boner's Ark by "Addison" began with what you see here. "Addison" is Mort Walker's first name, and he created the strip -- which ran until 2000 (at which point, you'll be glad to learn, it reached shore in safety).
9/7/2008 3:18:47 PM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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 Friday, September 05, 2008
More Strips from the Past: Archie
Posted by maggie
Bob Montana wrote and drew the Archie newspaper strip from 1947 until his death in 1975. Bob Cowan's posting of Sunday originals from the 1950s credits Jeffrey Cuddy Jr. as ghosting for Montana during that period, and the style on these strips from 1965 looks the same. (I will note that Don and I found the strip suddenly much changed in script and art following Montana's sudden death, so I'm not sure about the extent to which Cuddy handled the feature.) In any case, the strip was Montana's responsibility at this point, and we always found it (1) beautifully drawn and (2) funny. 
9/5/2008 9:49:19 AM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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 Thursday, September 04, 2008
Speaking of Strips, How about Animal Crackers?
Posted by maggie
Once I began to dive into the filing drawers of clipped comic strips for The Perishers, it occurred to me that it'd be fun to remind people of other strips. Rog Bollen created Catfish, Funny Business, and Animal Crackers; he began Animal Crackers in 1967. While there have been a couple of collections of the strip (which he worked on until 1994) in the past, I don't think these from 1969 were included. 
9/4/2008 9:32:31 AM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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 Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Here's a Perishers Sample
Posted by maggie
I managed to track down a few samples of the strip -- though, oddly, I have no idea where the rest of my strips are. As I recall, they were an odd size and didn't fit in the check file where we kept most of our clipped strips. But I digress. I was a little dismayed to find that individual strips here and there don't sufficiently convey the charm and interpersonal (and interspecies) relationships embodied in the series. These are from July 1969. 
9/3/2008 11:28:03 AM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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 Monday, September 01, 2008
Ever Heard of The Perishers?
Posted by maggie
I must briefly gloat over the purchase of a Heritage lot in yesterday's auction: an original of a daily Perishers strip. (I have the feeling that someone's cool collection of originals is being doled out at Heritage these days. Just saying.)
Anyway, this particular strip is fairly routine for the feature -- but "fairly routine" for the strip written by Maurice Dodd (1922-2005) and initially drawn by Dennis Collins (and mine was drawn by Collins) -- is still delicious fun. It ran in The Daily Mirror from 1958 to 2006 and basically featured a gang of kids wandering about what Wiki says "resembles an industrial Northern town."
I'm a bit stymied by the realization that there's no easy way to describe the strip. (Go ahead. Describe Peanuts in a couple of sentences that convey that long-lived strip about "a gang of kids.") Looks as if I'll have to try to locate a couple of choice examples.
In the meantime, I continue to gloat over my purchase.
9/1/2008 3:01:54 PM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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