Monday, February 24, 2020
A Crowded Life in Comics –
Capitalist Ducks.
by Rick Marschall.
The first time I visited Carl Barks it was at his
California home; Temecula I think.
He and his wife Garé lived in a modest home and were
gracious hosts. Retired, he was, technically, but he had been painting his Duck
scenes, or cover re-creations, and a bit in the center of a maelstrom. Fan
passions led to price rises – Carl painted one a month, I think – and “what the
traffic would bear” increased the fees, and resulted a waiting list years long.
To him it was rather bewildering.
Dedicated (or even casual) fans know that Carl Barks,
invariably anonymous, was the “good duck artist.” It was his stories from our
childhoods that were better than any other; his characters (including those he
invented for Disney) had more life; his drawing was special.
When sharks got involved as Carl’s “protectors,” managing
sales, or pirating prints on Masonite of his canvases, Disney’s corporate folks
interceded. They had to, one thinks. Carl appeared to take it all – the ups and
downs – in stride, but I could never tell. That first afternoon I didn’t talk
much about those things, but about similar matters – we talked politics, and
specifically I had always wanted to ask him about Uncle Scrooge’s
identification with riches. Homage or criticism?
I thought of those conversations this week, seeing a
socialist and a billionaire side-by-side on a debate stage. My vivid opinion is
that carl would not have been for… either, frankly. Then his heart was with the
other party; California’s governor was beginning a quiet revolution.
Confirmation, or not, Carl drew this sketch of his Uncle
Scrooge for me that day. (Later, when I met Mickey Mouse’s master, Floyd
Gottfredson, for a sketch, arthritis prevented more than a signature. On the
same page, though: a nice pairing).
On that same day we stood together for a photo. Carl’s
leisure suit is dated, but of a time and place. There is no defense of my
outfit or hair or shades, but history is history.
That is Carl’s wonderful wife Garé with us. She had one
arm, but that did not prevent her from painting – a passion she pursued with
attractive landscapes to local success. I reproduce one here.
Also: since this is History, I reproduce here a note from
Carl, 1975, about old Western Publishing art that occasionally turned up. 215ドル
in 1944 for full art and story, sigh. Well, Carl was phlegmatic. “Go slowly,
sands of time”…
… which was the title of a story laid out by Carl. After I
met him, and after I was editor at Marvel, I wrote scripts of Disney characters
for European comic-book publishers, chiefly Gutenberghus in Denmark. My
instructions were to “write like Carl!” Full circle. (It eventually was
published in the US.) This story outline was almost viewed as average fare for
the Danes… but its existence created a sensation among American fans.
While I was at Marvel, Ed Summer of Supersnipe Gallery was
involved in producing a giant volume of Carl’s stories, to be colored anew. I
cannot remember what strings I was able to pull, or with whom, or whether a mere
recommendation of a colorist did the trick, but I nominated Peter Ledger, the
Australian artist then camped in our offices and working on John Buscema’s
WEIRDWORLD trilogy. I ultimately regretted my largess, though, because the
stories’ panels were garish, I thought, and maddeningly airbrushed.
At the end of the day – Carl’s days – it was a blessing
that he was able to get recognition, and some remuneration, and the adulation
of thousands of fans. He was not only a good duck artist, but a good man and a
good friend.
– 30 –
69
Sunday, February 16, 2020
A Crowded Life in Comics –
Frank Bellew – Research, 1859
Memories Speak Volumes, and
Vice Versa.
By Rick Marschall.
I think it is plausible that sensors, or synapses, or
microscopic engineers in the brain do work that we will never understand. How
and why we dream, often in complicated scenarios, I will never understand.
There are a lot of things I do not understand, but I think science will never
solve this one.
The brain is a muscle, I have heard, and that became
apparent to me about a decade ago when I wrote three books, two of them with
elaborate research and footnotes; three very long magazine articles; my weekly
blog; and much else I eventually computed at about 400,000 words for the year,
all while being caregiver for my wife. The “brain is a muscle” theory was
brought home when I was fairly insensate for a couple months afterward. (You
can save your electrons if you are tempted to write in with questions like “How
could you tell?” because I was the first to address that…!)
But like dreams, there is another question whose answer
seems obvious, yet still ultimately elusive. It is confirmed uncountable times
in our lives – how do smells trigger memories, even visual images, in
our minds? I know that olfactory nerves from our sneezers connect to the brain,
sure; that’s how we know something caught fire in the kitchen. But how is it
that… well, here is one example:
As a young cartoon fan, I first discovered Puck
Magazine, individual issues, when I was in second grade. My father visited Book
Store Row in Manhattan on many weekends, and I invariably accompanied him. That
neighborhood, now more a memory than anything else, was several blocks south of
Union Square Park, its epicenter roughly 14th Street and Fourth
Avenue. There were even maps of the approximately 125 used-bookstores clustered
in the area.
A store called “Memory Shop,” whose owner was the
perpetually knowledgeable but slightly dazed Marc Nadel (I think the spellings
are correct), was a sort of heaven-on-earth to this young fan. Its specialty
was what we would call today “popular culture” – movies, comics, cartoon books,
Broadway memorabilia. It was at the top of rickety stairs in a nondescript
building – now probably a parking garage – opening to a large room messily
overflowing with cases and boxes and piles of… everything from sheet music to
bound volumes. Marc had a gargantuan movie poster of Rudolph Valentino in Son
of the Sheik, too large for any wall. So it was tacked to the ceiling,
covering almost all of it, kind of a pop-culture worshiper’s Sistine Chapel.
One bookcase had several volumes of Puck Magazine
from the 1880s. Magic to me. Gigantic they seemed to a fifth grader. I was
already hooked on vintage comics and cartoons from books my dad had, like
Coulton Waugh’s The Comics. And I was already devoted to F. Opper, still
my favorite cartoonist. Years before Happy Hooligan, he drew political
and gag cartoons for Puck. The 1889 volume was my first purchase at The
Memory Shop.
Marc held the rest until income from my paper route
enabled me to buy the next and next volumes at the heady price of 25ドル each. I
have never maintained much of a savings account since then, proving the adage
that “the child is father to the man.”
Those summer nights, when I acquired that bound volume,
are as fresh to me as yesterday. I had already purchased loose issues of Puck,
Judge, and Life along Book Store Row, but there was something
impressive about an oversized volume, hundreds of pages of vintage cartoons,
many colored in lithographed glory, terrific artwork by unknown names who
eventually became closer friends of mine than schoolmates.
But those olfactory nerves! The paper in that volume was
quality, not pulp. They were not fragile nor yellowing nor slowly degrading.
Yet they gave off an aroma – a fragrance I would call it – that was
distinctive. And today, about 60 years later, when I pull that 1889 volume off
the shelf, and I smell that certain aroma anew… it is not new. Not only do I
recognize it, but I have a mental image of myself at 10, sitting on the sofa in
the enclosed porch my father had built that year. A portable TV was on, but I
ignore it as I discover and rediscover those pages of Puck and my new
friends Opper and Keppler and C J Taylor and Ehrhart and Dalrymple and Syd B Griffin.
Since then I have appreciated bound volumes more than
individual issues of newspapers and magazines, and I am like the old fellow in
an old cartoon. I believe it was drawn in 1859 or 1860 by Frank Bellew, one of
the real pioneers of his craft. He was probably the most prolific cartoonist of
his day. “Probably” is not in play – his signature, often enclosed in a little
triangle, shows up in countless journals, from the famed Harper’s Weekly
to obscure almanacs.
This is one, likely by him but oddly unsigned. I
discovered this about the time when I scored that volume of Puck. Except
for the bald head and wizened features, that devotee was me. Joined at the hip
to an old bound volume; reading it at every moment; executing a bibliomaniac’s
calisthenics to read it. Discovering things on every page. And savoring the sort
of perfume that only collectors of Yesterday’s Paper can perceive and love.
– 30 –
68
Tuesday, February 11, 2020
Orson Bean 1928-2020
Remembering Actor Orson Bean and the Hole
in the Middle of Us All
by Yesterday's Papers contributor Rick Marschall
𓂘
Saturday, February 8, 2020
A Crowded Life in Comics –
What If? Who Knows?
By Rick Marschall.
In editorial positions I have held during my crowded life
in comics, I have tried to offer work to friends, not out of favoritism or
nepotism. I have known so many cartoonists that I have been in a position to do
so; and have been able to match cartoonists and open positions.
One also becomes aware of cartoonists’ styles and
capabilities, their deadline reliability, openings on strips (when I was a
syndicate editor) or books (when editor at Marvel). I also was able to offer
assignments to cartoonists I knew in Europe; and European assignments I could
arrange for American cartoonists.
I have been comics editor at United Feature Syndicate; New
York News-Chicago Tribune Syndicate; and Field Enterprises (Publishers
Newspaper Syndicate). Also at Marvel, as I said; and when I wrote for Disney
Comics in Europe, I was able to tell American friends like Dwight Decker and
Don Rosa about work there. I heard rumors that they checked out those
opportunities.
I recommended Max Allan Collins for the Dick Tracy
gig as Chet Gould was retiring. Otherwise my best luck – that is, enabling luck
for the cartoonists – was at Field, where I was able to connect Fred daSilva, Frank
Bolle, and Fran Matera to several strips; and at Marvel, where I brought
syndicated cartoonists in as writers, artists, and inkers; and invited European
cartoonists to contribute to Epic Illustrated, which I founded.
And that brings me to cartoonists to whom I tried like heck
to assign work. Odd names they might seem, but worth the effort! Jack Kent, who
had done the quiet classic King Aroo – “Who Knows?” Jack Finney, the
great speculative fiction writer – “Who Knows?” Eric Gurney, the legendary
animal cartoonist – “Who Knows?” Ray Gotto, thesports cartoonist – “Who Knows?” Jean Shepherd – the great humorist,
author of A Christmas Story – “Who Knows?”
A couple creators I tried to entice in more than one of my
jobs. Alex Toth was one – hoping he world say Yes first, and then we would find
work. Another cartoonist I admired to the same extent was, by coincidence, once
Toth’s boss: Warren Tufts.
Warren had drawn the great cowboy strip Casey Ruggles,
1949-54; the parody strip Lone Spaceman; and the innovative full-page
“painted-look” Sunday Western Lance. Warren also worked in comic books
for Gold Key and in animation.
When I was at Field I tried to pull Warren back into
strips, particularly a 1930s detective strip that Max Allan Collins and I
brainstormed, but Warren was wary of the syndicate grind… and lack of control,
despite my assurances. Some years later, when Epic Magazine was being
planned, I offered another open invitation. Suggest a dream concept; design and
write as wished; own the rights. He was tempted, but resisted.
What If? Who Knows?
I thought of those questions and of Warren Tufts this week
when I heard of Kobe Bryant’s death in a helicopter crash in California.
Besides the fact that Warren’s unique talent and fierce integrity kept him as a
maverick in strips and comics, the hobby of aircraft design and test-piloting
increasingly occupied his time away from the drawing board.
Warren died while testing a plane of his own design, in
Placerville CA in 1982.
– 30 –
67
Sunday, February 2, 2020
A Crowded Life in Comics –
Your
humble correspondent, just as they were putting out the office cat and turning
out the lights. Dec 31, 2019.
Stop the Presses:
The Newseum Is Now Old News.
By Rick Marschall.
I went to Washington DC over the recent Christmas-New Year
holiday. I make the trip a couple times a year, if for no other reason than to
visit my money. Every taxpayer should do this.
All seriousness aside, I went to college in DC (American
University), and my son is a TV news producer with a network affiliate station.
In between, I have many old and new friends there, at institutions like the Library
of Congress and the National Portrait Gallery; one of my publishers, Regnery,
is there; and some friends in politics. For several years I was connected with
the National Foundation of Caricature and Cartoons, first as a board member,
then President, including of its Gallery on E Street near the White House.
The
exterior of the Newseum, looking down Pennsylvania Avenue toward the Capitol.
But recently one of my targets was to “close a circle.” On
Dec. 31, 2019, the Newseum closed its doors. It was an event itself, sad and
notable; but I had worked with them – Gannett, the Freedom Foundation, and some
optimistic souls – when it began. That was in 1997, I think, and my help was
solicited partly because of the Foundation connection, but mostly as a
consultant, as they planned exhibitions; and as a potential lender, as they
filled the cases and displays.
I did consult, and I did lend. I sat in on planning
sessions, always the advocate for cartoons and comic strips. Political
cartoons. Pictorial journalism. Editorial cartoons. Sunday funnies…
The Newseum opened across the Potomac in Crystal City,
Arlington, at first, and eventually moved to a huge new building on
Pennsylvania Ave in the District. There were always many exhibitions –
interactive, rotating, and permanent. There was a theater, as C-SPAN junkies
will know, and broadcast facilities used briefly by ABC, Al-Jazeera, and
others.
On the
Wall of Comics, one of the pages I loaned to the Newseum, and the
acknowledgment that surprised me. In fact, on a number of ID cards (not only in
the comics and cartoon sections) I noticed errors of facts, dates, and names. I
suppose they were incorrect for the entire 22 years…
There were many reasons why the Newseum failed. The news
business is a hard sell these days, thanks or no thanks to electronic
technologies (and, for all the putative adaptations, the Newseum was a monument
to print journalism) and, no doubt, the widespread perception of bias that has
broken America’s love affair with News. When exhibitions were good they were very
good; many were utterly mundane; and some were theme-park type obligatory
placeholders.
Another nail in its coffin might have been its overreach
as a virtual palace: seven levels; 250,000 square feet; 15 theaters; 15 galleries. Finally – really
finally – I realized when my son’s press pass spared us the entry fee, 25ドル
for adults.
A nice
perspective shot of a history wall display, hoping to provide perspective
indeed to visitors.
Back to the Newseum. We roamed the floors and galleries, and visited the
empty gift shop. There were the clever pull-out drawers of notable front pages
and headlines, the wall display celebrating the First Amendment, theaters with
grainy old television news reports. We landed on the moon again; Nixon resigned
again; the Berlin Wall (portions of which are at the Newseum) was breached one
last time. They became melancholy echoes as closing time was announced.
A
portion of the Berlin Wall on display in a special gallery. It brought back
memories. I was in Germany when the “wall fell,” but at the Frankfurt Book
Fair, not in Berlin, I had dinner with a dozen or so editors and publishers,
most in the 20s or 30s, and I was surprised that most of them were supremely
indifferent, or slightly hostile, to Communism’s demise. It remains a matter of
surprise to me.
Seriously, it was a good dream. Its demise is now being blamed on
America’s growing indifference to Freedom of the Press, but that is face-saving
press-agentry. It attempted to be too many things to too few people, an
extravagant over-reach in a city thick with museums and even the Senate and
House, where citizens may roam free, constrained only against feeding the
animals.
The
Newseum maintained a focus on contemporary political cartoonists on a rotating
basis. Their last is shown here: left-wing cartoonist Darrin Bell.
– 30 –
66
Labels:
A Crowded Life in Comics,
Newseum,
Rick Marschall
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