"This day's experience, set in order, none of it left ragged or lying about, all of it gathered in like treasure and finished with, set aside." –Alice Munro, "What is Remembered"
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The Cul de Sac Christmas Cards have been available since 28 November 2011. You can buy them at the Cul de Sac Shop, your official source for anything Otterloop! Of course, it’s too late now for you to order these in time for Christmas 2011. But since they’ll never go out of style, you will probably want stock up for 2012 and beyond!
From Creepy #68 (January 1975), here’s “Anti-Christmas,” with story by Gerry Boudreau and art by Richard Corben:
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I don’t usually like to buy stuff for myself this close to Christmas, but when Lewis Wayne Gallery announced a series of auctions with starting bids of a penny each, I had to take a look, and among the various offerings of art and photographs, I found two items I thought I’d like to own, if the price was right. And much to my surprise, earlier today, I won them both, and now I’m here to share them with you.
First up is a newspaper strip by John Dirks, the son of Rudolph Dirks, creator of the famous strip, The Katzenjammer Kids, which according to Wikipedia “debuted December 12, 1897 in the American Humorist, the Sunday supplement of William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal.” The strip we now own isn’t a Katzenjammer Kids strip but rather is a Sunday instalment, dated 20 April 1969, of The Captain and the Kids, a strip that Rudolph Dirks created for the rival Pulizer newspapers after he had a falling out with the Hearst newspaper syndicate in 1914 over his desire to take some time off; the legal settlement allowed Dirks to continue to use the characters he created in the Katzenjammer Kids, but since it also allowed the Katzenjammer Kids to continue at Hearst without him, Dirks was forced to come up with a new name for his version of the strip. At first, he settled on the title Hans und Fritz, in deference to the ethnicity of the main characters, but when the United States entered World War I, the German moniker was quickly replaced with an English one, The Captain and the Kids. The final auction price for the artwork was US$27.00 plus shipping, and here it is:
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Currently, the cheapest “Captain and the Kids” strips available from Lewis Wayne Gallery outside of the recently concluded penny-start auctions can be had for the “Buy It Now!” price US$89.95 plus shipping; meanwhile, the most expensive are US$295.00 plus shipping. So, I definitely feel like we got a deal.
The second newspaper strip that we have just added to our collection is a terrific Archie daily by Bob Montana from 29 July 1969:
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I love Bob Montana’s artwork here; I love the contrast between Jughead’s old-fashioned suit and tie and slicked-down hair and the trendy ’60s clothing and hairstyles of the other characters (although Archie is stuck with his usual do); and I love the gag! The final auction price for the strip was a mere US$58.57 plus shipping. And I love that, too! Because out of the pair of strips I had decided to bid on, the “Archie” strip was the one I wanted the most to win, and if the price had soared too high — my final bid was significantly higher than what I actually ended up paying — I would’ve had to allow the “Captain and the Kids” strip to slip through my fingers. How fortunate for me, then, that the auction for the “Archie” strip ended first!
From Heavy Metal, vol. II, no. 8 (December, 1978), here’s “Colored Lights” by Ben Katchor, author of Cheap Novelties: The Pleasures of Urban Decay (1991), Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer: Stories (1996), The Jew of New York: A Historical Romance (1998), Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer: The Beauty Supply District (2000), and The Cardboard Valise (2011):
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Forewarned is forearmed, right?
From Creepy Things #1 (July 1975), here’s “The Well,” with script and art by Tom Sutton; the cover is by Sutton, too:
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From The House of Secrets #83 (Dec. 1969 – Jan. 1970), here’s “The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of,” with script by Marv Wolfman and gorgeous, groovy art by Alex Toth:
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From Vampirella #110 (December 1982), here’s “Edgar Allan Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death,” with script by Rich Margopoulos (who makes some ill-advised changes to Poe’s story and in several instances — the final line, for instance — paraphrases Poe’s prose where exact transcription would be a far stronger choice) and art by Auraleon:
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Dynamic Entertainment is currently in the process of reprinting Vampirella in a series of hardcover archives. Four volumes are already available, with a fifth due early next year.
From House of Mystery #316 (May 1983), here’s “String-Out,” a hallucinatory tale of psychological collapse by Robert Loren Fleming and Trevor Von Eeden, co-creators of the cult classic comics series, Thriller:
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A scan of a black-and-white reprint of “String-Out” that appeared in Australia is available on Trevor Von Eeden’s official website.
From Scary Tales #26 (January 1983), here’s “Man’s Best Fiend,” with script by Tom Tuna (a pseudonym of Joe Gill) and art by Tom Sutton:
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To view all of the stories and covers with art by Tom Sutton that I’ve posted so far, click here.
It’s a little known bit of historical comics trivia that Harvey Kurtzman’s first work for EC appeared in a commercial giveaway comic intended to educate readers on the symptoms and treatment of syphilis. Set in the old West, Lucky Fights It Through reveals a talented young artist — Kurtzman was about 25 at the time — who was already in full command of the bold, energetic, appealing style that would carry him through the rest of his career in comics — although the influence of Milton Caniff, so obvious here, would quickly fade — and it is entirely due to Kurtzman’s artistry and irreverence that, unlike most “educational comics,” Lucky has remained a compelling read for anyone who appreciates great performances in comics no matter what the venue or occasion; so compelling, in fact, that the story was not only reprinted, in its entirety, in colour in the EC fanzine Squa Tront #7 in 1977, but also appeared in glorious black and white in the 112-page “trade paperback” comics reprint collection Teen-Aged Dope Slaves and Reform School Girls in 1989, some forty years after its original publication in 1949. If you’re curious to read the comic for yourself, the blog Hairy Green Eyeball II has had the colour reprint available for your viewing/reading pleasure since 25 August 2008, and as of today, RCN has the black-and-white reprint, posted below. Enjoy!
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Ragged Claws Network 