BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: COMICS & COMIC STRIPS

 JOHN UPDIKE ON THE POWER AND CHARM OF COMIC STRIPS

“Part of the power and charm of the newspaper comic 
strip  is that it be constantly renewing itself before
 our eyes – that it arrive with our coffee and cereal,
 and be relished in less than a minute and not seen 
again for twenty-four hours, when its little adventure 
moves forward another notch, like a big cogwheel that 
the full diurnal sweep of our ticking lives has barely 
budged,”

John Updike. Foreword to My Well Balanced Life on a 
Wooden Leg: Memoirs by Al Capp (Santa Barbara, Ca: 
John Daniel & Company Publishers, 1991). 
**
MIC BOOKS MAKING THEIR FIRST APPEARANCE

“Comic books with original material and with a whole book focusing on a single strip did not appear until the 1930s. 
The first one, Funnies on Parade (1933) was distributed 
as an advertising giveaway by Proctor and Gamble. The 
next year, Max Charles Gaines, a salesman for the Eastern 
Color Printing Co. repackaged comic strips into a book 
called Famous Funnies, which her sold for 10 cents. The
 success of this commercial venture inspired competition, 
and in February of 1935 New Fun Comics was published, 
consisting solely of original material. The name was 
eventually changed to Adventure Comics, which today 
continues to publish both Superman and Batman. 

From Encyclopedia of 20th-Century American Humor 
by Alleen Pace Nilsen and Don L.F. Nilsen. 
(Oryx Press, 2000)
**

ON BILL MAULDIN BEING HONORED BY CHARLES SCHULTZ 
IN PEANUTS

On Strips: Schulz, Mauldin, & Veterans Day
By Sean Kleefeld | Friday, November 10, 2017\


"For many years, Charles Schulz would have a special Veterans Day comic in Peanuts. Many of them involved Snoopy heading over to Bill Mauldin's house to quaff a few root beers. Maudlin, of course, was a Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist himself, 
who became for his "Willie and Joe" cartoons in Stars and Stripes. Schulz managed an original joke pretty much every Veterans Day, despite them all pretty much centering 
around that same notion of Snoopy walking over to Mauldin's.

IMPOTRTANT SITE FOR COMICS FANS
http://www.kleefeldoncomics.com/2017/11/on-strips-schulz-mauldin-veterans-day.html
***

THE BEST SATIRIST IN THE WORLD

John Steinbeck once wrote about the cartoonist Al 
Capp that "I think Capp may very possibly be the 
best writer in the world today. I am sure that he 
is the best satirist since Laurence Stern."



RAY BRADBURY & BUCK ROGERS

“The most beautiful sound in my life, dearly recollected, 
fully remembered, was the sound of a folded newspaper 
kiteing through the summer air and landing on my front 
porch… The door burst wide. A boy, myself, leapt out,
 eyes blazing, mouth gasping for breath, hands seizing 
at the paper to grapple it wide so that the hungry soul 
of one of Waukegan, Illinois’ finest small intellects 
could feed upon.

"That small boy still uses my soul for a trampoline.”

 Ray Bradbury in his introduction to The Collected 
Works of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1977
	

“I have never got over the initial impact of Buck 
Rogers on my life, and I am grateful for his explosion 
in my midst sometime in the year 1929 when the newspaper
 thudded against the screen door of my home in Waukegan, IL”. 

Ray Bradbury (1980 San Diego Comic-Con)

Bradbury loved comics and loved Waukegan. As a boy,
 he obsessively cut out Buck Rogers, Tarzan, and 
Flash Gordon from local Waukegan newspapers, filling 
dozens of scrapbooks with their adventures.His Waukegan 
boyhood sparked a life-long love and career in comics. 

from his comment in E.C. Comics as part of his appearance at the very first Comic Con San Diego.



**
UNKNOWN FILMS
CITIZEN (BOB) KANE – Orson Welles’ classic movie about a cartoonist/illustrator who created Batman & Robin. 
Unfortunately he dies unhappy because he could never 
find the sled he had in his childhood,

**
Not-so-secret Origin story

In the emerging comic book industry of the late 1930s, 
Captain Marvel was the champion of Fawcett Publications. The thriving magazine firm was named for its founder, Wilford H. Fawcett, who entered the publishing field in the early 1920s with a humor publication aimed at soldiers and veterans like himself, entitled Capt. Billy's Whiz Bang. Fawcett ran the firm with his four sons.
  They tasked writer Bill Parker and artist C.C. Beck with sketching out the basics of a superhero named "Captain Thunder." But by the time he first appeared in 1939's Whiz Comics #2 -- yes, that's a year after Superman arrived -- the name had changed, even if his rank remained the same. He was now "Marvel," which would prove to be something of a magic word in the history of American comics that followed.
Magic words were essential to the character. According to his origin story, orphan boy reporter Billy Batson was lead by a stranger to a mysterious subway, where he rode a magical train to meet the wizard Shazam. When Billy spoke the wizard's name, he was transformed into Captain Marvel, and given the six powers of six patron heroes and gods (Solomon's wisdom, Hercules' strength, Atlas' stamina, Zeus' power, Achilles' courage and Mercury's speed.).


 Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Captain Marvel, But Were Afraid to Google | https://comicsalliance.com/dc-comics-captain-marvel-shazam/?utm_source=tsmclip&utm_medium=referral

**
]
THE CANCELLED CHECK
Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel, the creators of Superman, 
sold all the rights to their work, for $130. Superman 
became a billion dollar industry, and the men sued to be recognized for their original idea and asked for fair 
monetary compensation 
 Jeremy Dauber in his book – American Comics: A History – writes: “In something that felt like an overdetermined 
symbol, the original check for $130 made out to Siegel 
and Schuster for Superman, the site of the grandest 
battle between creator and corporation, netted 
$160,000 at auction in 2012.”

**

ALLEY OOP & POP MUSIC

“Mr. Frazier’s big break , though, came five years
 earlier with ‘Alley Oop,’ a novelty song that reached 
No. 1 on the pop chart (No. 3 on the R&B chart) for the Hollywood Argyles in 1960. Inspired by the V.T. Hamlin 
comic strip of the same name, the song has been recorded 
several times since, including versions by the Beach Boys
 and the satirical British art-rockers the Bonzo Dog 
Doo-Dah Band.
   “David Bowie also interpolated the line ‘Look at those cave men go” from “Alley Oop” in his 1973 single “Life on Mars.”

Bill Friskics-Warren. Obituary for Dallas Frazier in the New York Times (January 17, 2022)
**
ONE OF THE STRANGEST COINCIDENCES IN COMIC STRIP HISTORY

On March 12, 1951, “Dennis the Menace” appeared for 
the first time in the British weekly comic magazine 
The Beano. That same day, “Dennis the Menace” debuted 
in 16 American newspapers. Was it the same character 
arriving in different countries by way of an international distribution deal? Nope. The British Dennis, drawn by 
David Law, was dark-haired, scowling, and known to deliberately stir up trouble; American Dennis, from the hand of Hank Ketcham, was blonde, friendly, and more likely to foul things up through good intentions turned sour. It was reported that neither artist initially
 was aware of the other's work, and apparently, neither 
cared about any sort of copyright infringement, as both 
the British and American Dennis went on to long,
 successful runs in their respective countries.”

https://www.interestingfacts.com/strangest-coincidences-history/YfRM33nUVAAGtuQa