Polly, Always in Profile

I recently wrote about the time it took for American newspaper comic strips to feature anatomically realistic depictions of characters.  Interestingly, the early instances were of female, not male, characters.

My research was admittedly incomplete, so I missed an early example: "Polly and Her Pals" -- Wikipedia entry here.

Polly was the work of Cliff Sterrett (1883-1964), considered by some as "cartoonist's cartoonist" --- the best of the best in that trade.  His Wikipedia entry mentions Li'l Abner cartoonist Al Capp stating: "Now, Sterrett—that's the guy who was the greatest."  His style became increasingly Modernist, as I posted here.

This Lembiek post mentions something neither I nor the Wikipedia writers knew:

"Because of arthritis, Sterrett was forced to hand over most of the art duties during the 1930s.  The daily 'Polly' strip was handled by his assistant Paul Fung from 1935 until the end of its run in 1942.  Sterrett continued to supervise and occasionally draw the Sunday page until his retirement in 1958.  The final episode of 'Polly and Her Pals' was published on 15 June 1958.  Other ghost artists that worked for Sterrett were Vernon Greene, John Kowalchik, Fred Schwarze and Bob Dunn."

Ghost or assistant comic strip artists were more common than most folks realize.  An important example is the famous fantasy illustrator Frank Frazetta who spent several years ghosting for Al Capp.  The best ghosts mimicked the strip creator's style almost exactly, so all the artwork in the Gallery below can be treated as Sterrett's.

As for the title of the present post, I cannot absolutely vouch that Sterrett always drew Polly's head in profile.  That said, none of the Polly panels I noticed on Google showed her any other way.  Below are some Polly snippets illustrating that point.  Click on them to enlarge.

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April 7, 1935
First, an example of a Sunday panel minus coloring that shows Sterrett's mature style.  Note that Polly does not appear in the action that features Paw, her father (though she can be seen in the title block).  As Wikipedia notes, he soon became the star of the strip.

January 18, 1914
This extract from a Sunday panel appeared when the strip was about one year old.  Polly is shown in profile, though the most of the dancing ladies have full or partially full faces.  I have no idea why Sterrett didn't do that with Polly.

October 11, 1914
An out-take from later that year with five views of Polly, all with her head in profile.

Daily strip - 1920
Same story here.

Daily strip - June 13, 1934
Twenty years after Polly's debut.  Her body posing before a mirror is not in profile, but her head is, for practical purposes.

December 17, 1939
Sterrett made sure Polly had fashionable clothing and hairdos.  But her blonde 1934 hair is now brown.  And she's in profile, even in the header above the panel extract.

September 23, 1956
A late example, Polly in profile at the left.  Note Paw and his Modernist cat, "Kitty."

Early Realistic Comic Strip Drawing

This post deals with the slow introduction of realistically-depicted characters in American comic strips.

Details are in the image captions below.  Please note that I didn't undertake a hardcore scholarly study of the subject, though I did rely on a few books in my reference library to refine my memory.  Therefore, take the examples below as indicative, though not necessarily "firsts" in terms of appearance.

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Happy Hooligan by Frederick Burr Opper - 6 November 1902
This important strip dates from 1900 and the character depictions are in line with the norms of the time.  More information is here.

Little Nemo in Slumberland by Winsor McCay - 24 June 1906
On the other hand, Little Nemo from 1905 was exceptional in terms of depiction, as can be seen in this example.  Nevertheless, it was years later before naturalistic cartoon characters became common.

Betty by Charles A. Voight - c. 1920
Voight created Betty in 1919, making the strip an early example of representational cartooning.  In the panel above, Betty is drawn in near-illustration style, whereas Lester DePester is cartoony.

Betty - 21 June 1942
Towards the end of Betty's run the drawing style became more free, more sophisticated.

Bringing up Father by George McManus - 25 September 1938 (or possibly 1932)
Begun in 1913, Bringing up Father is another example where a woman (Jigg's daughter Nora) is realistic while the other characters are drawn in cartoon style.  Interesting that in those days it was women -- not men -- who were shown more naturalistically.  Though this is from the 1930s, McManus' style differed little from the 1920s.

Connie by Frank Godwin - 14 June 1931
Wikipedia's entry says that Connie originated in 1927 -- or perhaps 1929.  The not-shown upper part of this Sunday strip has Connie only in profile, but this segment has a variety of views of her.  Unlike the early Betty and Bringing up Father, other characters are drawn more realistically than cartoony.  Godwin was a skilled illustrator, so I'm surprised that the other characters feature anatomical flaws.

Connie - 1936
During the mid-1930s Connie became a science fiction strip for a while.  Note the improvement in Godwin's drawing.

Tarzan by Hal Foster - 1929
The Tarzan comic strip dated from 1929, and above is the ninth panel.  Foster's style evolved rapidly, but it's clear that from the first, depictions were illustrations and not cartoons.

Flash Gordon by Alex Raymond - from first page, 7 January 1934
From its launch in 1934 Flash Gordon was an illustration-style Sunday comic.
What I find mildly interesting is that the shift to realism (now long gone from American comic strips) happened around the year 1930.  Some folks might relate that to the late 1929 onset of the Great Depression.  But it might have been something else.  But the appearance of such strips as Alex Raymond's  "Flash Gordon", Noel Sickles' version of Scorchy Smith, and Milton Caniff's "Terry and The Pirates" -- all started in 1934 -- might better be linked to the comparative seriousness and need for escapism of those times.

Bernard Krigstein: Fine Artist and Comic Book Artist

It seems that Bernard Krigstein (1919-1990) was a Fine Arts guy at heart, yet for 15 or so years he illustrated comic books and actually appreciated what he was doing. Some background is here and here.

Before his time -- the late 1940s and the 1950s -- the quality of comic book art was generally mediocre. Perhaps some of that was due to the large number of separate images required for, say, a six-page story. Production speed was and is an important economic concern in that field. But during the 1930s there emerged examples of well done art in newspaper comic strips. Examples include "Tarzan" by Hal Foster and Burne Hogarth, "Terry and the Pirates" by Milton Caniff, and Alex Raymond's "Flash Gordon."

Krigstein and some others upped comic book artistic quality as well as experimented with the means of presentation of sequential events.

His training and inclinations along with clashes with comic book editors and publishers caused him to drift into general illustration and then to teaching art while doing painting on the side.

In comic book / sequential graphic novel world, his work is highly regarded and honored for its quality, innovation and versatility. Some examples are presented below.

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An illustration from around late 1942 or early 1943 featuring Bell P-39 Airacobras.

Page segment featuring tight, crisp drawing and use of solid black areas.

Lead page of a comics story where Krigstein makes used of bold inking.  (He generally did his own inking, usual for comic books.  I do not know for sure if he inked the images above, however.)  Update: Bill Peckmann informs me that Krigstein did do the inking.

Part of the final page of his epic "Master Race" story.  Here he makes use of a kind of stop-motion, slow motion effect that was used in some 1970s movies and seen fairly frequently in recent years in graphic novels.

This is sheer opinion on my part, but I think all those little pictures slow down the reality of what he is depicting.  A possible alternative would be, following the first image, to have a panel something like my doodle above showing the man slipping and starting to fall onto the subway tracks, and then cutting to the final panel above.  It would be quick, as in reality, and readers could easily fill in the details via imagination.

Krigstein also illustrated a book dealing with baseball.  Here it is necessary to break action down into significant steps.

The first and second pages of "The Flying Machine," set in Japan.  Here Krigstein makes use of simple penwork and designs suggestive of classical Japanese prints.  Note that the uncolored version is much more appealing than the colored appearance found in the comic book.  Innovative for its time, as usual.

Moving on from his comics career, here is a Krigstein pen and wash drawing.

Self-portrait.

Scorchy Smith's Adventure Comic Strip Style Legacy

For several decades, American comic strips have been shrunken (compared to 1940s sizes), humor-oriented creatures. But from roughly 1930 into the 1960s there were many plot-driven strips with day-to-day continuity extending for months. The motivation of newspapers for featuring such strips was that they captured the attention of readers who became more likely to buy that particular paper on a daily basis.

Some continuity strips dealt with romance, but most were adventure oriented. There were Africa strips such as Tarzan, the Phantom, and Jungle Jim. There were science-fiction strips such as Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. Among a number of other categories was the aviation-centered comic strip.

One such aviation strip, "Scorchy Smith," brought together some artists who evolved or practiced a distinctive, representational, chiaroscuro style of drawing for comic strips. Yes, there were other comics in the key mid-1930s to mid-'40s era that also were artistically superior. But the aviation strips are worth examination in their own right.

Although he didn't initiate Scorchy Smith, it was Noel Sickles who transformed its visual style as I posted here.

A co-worker at Associated Press and good friend of Sickles was Milton Caniff, who at about the same time began the famous "Terry and the Pirates" comic strip. Influenced by Sickles (who quit drawing Scorchy in the fall of 1936 to become an illustrator), Caniff slowly evolved the strip's style from thinly lined images into lushly brushworked, strikingly composed scenes that made him one of the most honored conic strip artists of his day. His skill at plotting and characterization added to this.

After World War 2, Caniff left Terry and the Pirates, being replaced by George Wunder, who I wrote about here.

One of the many artists who drew Scorchy Smith was Frank Robbins, active 1939-1944. In the summer of '44 Robbins launched the "Johnny Hazard" strip that in appearance and content was not far removed from Terry and the Pirates.

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A Noel Sickles "Scorchy Smith" strip for 20 October, 1936 -- one of the last that Sickles drew,

"Terry and the Pirates" for 2 January, 1934, showing Caniff's original style.

Terry for 3 October, 1936: his style about the time Sickles dropped Scorchy Smith. They were headed in the same direction, but Sickles was more advanced.

18 January, 1938 -- Caniff is doing better depicting people than he did a year or so before.

Now, 1 August, 1941 we find dramatic chiaroscuro.

By 24 March, 1945 Caniff's classical style has emerged.

Here is a Scorchy strip for 15 February, 1941 drawn by Frank Robbins. He was a skilled artist, doing fine art as well as comics, and his work is comparable to Caniff's at his point.

A late Scorchy strip by Robbins (24 February, 1944). Now he seems to be lagging behind Caniff.

Lead panels from a Robbins Sunday "Johnny Hazard" from the mid-1950s. Here his work is richer, more like that a of Caniff and George Wunder who was drawing Terry by then.

Jim Holdaway: Modesty Blaise Illustrator

Jim Holdaway (1927–1970) died of a heart attack a few months shy of his 43rd birthday. Like some other talented artists who died young, he had already become famous. This for comic strip fans due to his work during the early years of "Modesty Blaise." Some background information is here and here.

The strip was launched in London's Evening Standard newspaper. Since London papers were national in scope, syndication opportunities in the United Kingdom were limited and that was a constraint on British strips -- potential income streams were limited compared to those in the continent-wide American newspaper scene.

Nevertheless, Modesty Blaise caught on, largely due to Holdaway's art, and it was syndicated in many parts of the Commonwealth as well as in the USA.

Holdaway combined skilled representational drawing with the ability to compose a variety of dramatic viewpoints even in one three-panel strip. His basic approach was to include strongly shaped areas of pure black with thin pen or brush lines. He also made use of cross-hatching and sometimes even downplayed the black if that suited the scene he was depicting.

Below are some sample strips grabbed from various Web sites intended to give you a sense of what he accomplished. Click on them to enlarge.

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Especially note the middle panel's detailing.  Yes, the sidewalk's perspective is exaggerated, but the Rolls-Royce is convincingly done.

This strip is sparing in black areas, but Holdaway added some cross-hatching to liven things. He was very good at indicating folds in clothings.

I include this to show he was good at doing ships of various kinds.

Making Modest Blaise convincing, Holdaway made sure to draw cars such as the Citroën DS-19 and Mercedes 300 accurately.

These panels show Holdaway's talent for dramatic use of scene illumination.

Zack Mosley's Character-Driven Smilin' Jack Comic

In the 1930s most American adventure-type comic strips lacked illustrator-quality artwork. One example I used here was the Buck Rogers strip drawn by Dick Calkins. There were a few comic strips that featured convincing depictions -- especially those by Alex Raymond (Flash Gordon) and Hal Foster (Tarzan, and Prince Valiant).

So quality artwork was not necessary for popular appeal, as there were a number of strips in those days that were as successful as Raymond's and Foster's. Those other adventure strips tended to feature adequate depictions given the constraints of the size of panels as they appeared in print and the need to crank out artwork at a pace necessary for daily and sometimes daily-plus-Sunday publication. That is, corners had to be cut even though a successful strip allowed the main artist to hire one or more assistants to help out.

But the main reasons for an adventure strip's success were plotting and characters. Readers had to be pulled along by the action, anticipating each day what might happen next. And the characters had to be interesting enough that readers didn't lose interest in them.

An example of this was the long-lived (1933-1973) comic strip Smilin' Jack by Zack Mosley (1906-1993).  A detailed appreciation worth reading is here.

Smilin' Jack was an adventure strip featuring airplanes, one of several in the 1930s and later. Mosley included drawings of planes as much as he could, placing a tiny one in the background if he couldn't find an excuse to make it more prominent. His drawings of people were marginal. They were simply done, useful for rapid production and appearance in comparatively small space on newspaper pages. But their anatomy -- especially for shapely women -- was distorted. In later decades he tended to make heads and faces too large compared to the rest of bodies. Perhaps that was due to shrinking publication size and a need to somehow compensate.

The strip had a limited set of consistently-appearing characters. This was true of most adventure comics. But the Smilin' Jack cast might have been a little smaller than average around the end of the '30s. Most prominent were Jack himself, a heavy Polynesian named Fat Stuff (or Fatstuff) and Downwind Jaxon, another pilot who often stole the show from Jack.

As the second link above describes it, Mosley wanted to add a character who was really handsome and more successful attracting women than Jack himself (some of the plots dealt more with love life than flying). But he couldn't draw a really handsome face to his satisfaction. So that character, Downwind, was always shown is a pose where his face was averted (usually) or hidden by an object or a speech balloon (sometimes).

(Aside for non-aviation buffs: the term "downwind" has highly negative implications for pilots. One should, if at all possible, never take off or land downwind -- with the wind blowing the same direction as the airplane. That's because airspeed (the speed at which the craft is encountering the air) is lower than its apparent ground speed. For example, a given plane's stalling speed is 100 miles per hour. If it is on final approach for a downwind landing traveling at 110 MPH ground speed but has a 20 MPH tailwind, its airspeed (the flow of air over the front of the wing) is only 90 MPH. That's below its stalling speed, so the airplane will crash rather than accomplish a normal landing.)

Below are some Smilin' Jack panels taken from the Internet. Click to enlarge.

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This features Downwind. The other character is Jack himself.

Fat Stuff: his shirt buttons are continually popping off, so Mosley eventually added a chicken that likes to eat them.

The "Dixi" in the final scene refers to a previous girlfriend of Jack's.

Some panels from 1939. In the lower two a photographer snaps a picture of Downwind's face and what happened next.

The April 20, 1940 Sunday strip featuring Fat Stuff and Downwind.-- and an airplane.

Alden McWilliams' Tom Corbett, Space Cadet Comic Books

Alden McWilliams (1916-1993) was one of those comparatively rare comics artists of his generation who could draw people convincingly. I wrote about his work on the Twin Earths comic strip here. Some biographical information can be found here and here.

One of McWilliams' projects was creating content for Tom Corbett, Space Cadet comic books. For detailed information about those comic books, click here.

McWilliams did cover art for eleven of those comic books, but interior art for only the first three. Those were issued February, May and August of 1952, which suggests that he did his work from the late summer of 1951 into the winter of 1952 (considering production lead-times). His Twin Earths daily comic strip debuted 16 June 1952, so he probably began working on it no later than early April of that year. Therefore, if there was any overlap for those projects aside from creating covers, it was minimal, so McWilliams could maintain the high quality of his work.  A strong possibility is that he chose to drop doing Space Cadet interior content when he got the Twin Earths gig: otherwise, he might have contunued Space Cadet.

Tom Corbett, Space Cadet started as a television show that began airing in 1950 and later bounced around several TV networks. This meant that the comic books had to portray the characters as personified by the show's actors. That is, McWilliams was doing portrait art as part of comic book art.

Below are some scans I made of the second and third issues of the comic book. They include the cover, one interior colored page and one page without color (the latter was always on the inside cover). Click on the images to enlarge.

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Inside cover of the August 1952 issue. It shows the leading cast members of the TV show who McWilliams had to depict convincingly in the comic books to satisfy fans.

Cover of the May 1952 issue.

Color page from May 1952.

Black & white page from May 1952.

Cover of August 1952 issue.

August 1952 color page.

Black & white page, August 1952.