"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"
From issue one of Arn Saba’s Neil the Horse Comics and Stories (February 1983), here’s Mam’selle Poupée and Neil the Horse,” which is followed by “Arn Saba’s Mam’selle Poupée” from issue two (April 1983):
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Who do you think is the better dancer, Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire? Uhm… what’s that you say? Gene Kelly? Wrong again!
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Fantagraphics has just published a new collection of comics by Spain Rodriguez entitled Cruisin’ with the Hound: The Life and Times of Fred Toote. You can download a PDF preview via the Fantagraphics catalogue.
From Mother’s Oats Comics #3 (1977), here’s “Doing It in the Park (8 easy-to-follow-steps)” by A. Blink, a.k.a., Kliban:
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From our curious collection of comic art, old and new, here are a pair of scans of the original art for two comic strips by Mell Lazarus, “Miss Peach” and “Momma”; both strips are dated 8-24-2001, and both have been personalized by the artist with a greeting and signature in red marking pen:
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If you are a fan of Mell Lazarus’s work, but have never seen his originals in person, you might be interested to know that the strips from 2001 are drawn on lightweight sheets of paper trimmed to a mere 11 inches wide by 4.25 inches high while the strips from 1958 and 1961 are on much heavier sheets that are a whopping 18.5 by 6.06 inches!
If you take a close look at the scans of original “Miss Peach” art from 1958 that I posted previously, you’ll see that Mell used pre-printed templates for his strips right from the beginning of his career as a syndicated cartoonist — and that he was frugal enough not to throw out old template sheets if they could be edited with a bit of tape and a few small paste-ups to reflect ongoing changes in the layout of the title, author credit, and so on.
Likewise, if you click to enlarge the scans posted above, you’ll find that both strips — which Mell drew some forty-four years after “Miss Peach” debuted in 1957 — are drawn on pre-printed templates that include the name of the strip and the author’s name, the syndicate name and Web address, the author’s copyright notice, an empty box in proportion to the size of the finished art, and underlined spaces — unused — for the specification of “% BLACK” and “LINES PER INCH.”
My guess is that Mell moved to the smaller size and lighter weight paper in part because he appreciated the convenience of being able to create custom templates for his strips that he could edit at any time and output on a standard home printer and in part because, at some point, as the Internet revolution took hold, he needed to be able to scan his artwork himself — “in house,” as it were — for electronic submission to his syndicate.
At some point, Mell also ditched his dip pen and bottles of ink and began drawing with a fine-point, fiber-tipped pen or “fineliner,” e.g., a Pilot, a Micron, or some such. The 2001 originals were drawn with a fiber-tipped pen, and though I like them well enough, I have to say, if you want to add a daily or two by Mell Lazarus to your comic-art collection, you definitely will want to get hold of one of the large “Miss Peach” originals from back in the day. The drawings are confident, amusing, and expressive — fiber-tipped “archival” fineliners may be convenient and easy to control, but paired with the right kind of paper, dip-pen nibs make beautiful lines — and the gags are often laugh-out-loud funny. And if by chance you find yourself the proud owner of a “Miss Peach” Sunday strip from the 1960s (see below), you definitely will be the envy of at least one other comic-art collector: me!
As you can see here and here, Mell initially drew his daily strips — “Miss Peach” started out this way — as wide single-panel cartoons, and he clearly understood how to parcel out the characters and the dialogue to make that format work. But he was not rigidly committed to the single-panel ideal. Rather, he never hesitated to make changes to his template to allow for more precise control of the timing of his gags. In the “Miss Peach” strip posted above, for instance, Mell has divided the large pre-printed panel in two with a single inked line, thereby establishing a strong pause between the wordy setup and the one-word punchline. And in the “Momma” strip, he has gone much farther, briskly brushing whiteout over sections of the pre-printed lines to open up the second panel right the way along the bottom and at the corners of the word balloon along the top and taking a moment to establish a gutter/pause between the third and fourth panels with two hand-drawn lines and a couple of touches of whiteout. Because even though his cartoon style is simple, and has been the subject of ridicule by some, Mell has always taken seriously the craft of writing dialogue and staging interactions that make people laugh.
Mell Lazarus retired his “Miss Peach” strip in 2002, but he has continued to draw “Momma” right up to the present day. He will celebrate his 85th birthday on 03 May 2012.
BONUS SCANS:
Just for fun, here are the first five pages of “Miss Peach” strips reprinted in the paperback collection, Miss Peach of the Kelly School (New York: Tempo Books, 1972):
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ARZACH PARODY DEP’T:
From No Ducks #1 (1977), here’s “Houndzak” by Tim “Moeboxell” Boxell:
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And from Imagine #3 (1978), here’s “Ersatz” by under-appreciated comics artist Lee Marrs:
Underground comics, or comix, were typically printed in black and white on cheap pulp paper and stapled together with a colour cover printed on glossier stock. While many underground artists/publishers over the years have reserved the back cover as a showcase for full-page illustrations in colour, others have viewed it as an opportunity to give one carefully selected comics page a more lavish treatment! Here are thirteen “back cover comix” — twelve sequential; one non-sequential — from various underground comics with publication dates ranging from 1970 to 1993; information for each piece is embedded in the file title. Listed in the order their work is displayed below, the artists are Victor Moscoso, Foolbert Sturgeon, Fred Schrier, Skip Williamson, Lee Marrs (with Gail Madonea), Victor Moscoso (x2), B. Kliban, Harvey Kurtzman, Pokkettz, Gilbert Shelton, R. Diggs, and Stephane Blanquet:
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From the comic, Sexy Stories from the World Religions #1 (1990), here’s “Ecclesiasticus 9, 1-9,” by the French comics artist Placid:
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From Heavy Metal vol. IV, no. 5, here’s “The Moebius Interview” by Diana K. Bletter; in her opening comment to Moebius, Bletter claims this is the artist’s first interview for an American publication, but I have no idea whether or not that’s true:
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“Trying to enter the land of one’s conscious makes one live science fiction. For example, a science fiction writer might imagine that he is caught in a hole and he’s trying to get out of it. Yet there might be others who know several means of getting out of the hole, and even more people who live outside the hole. I find that the moment one finds a clear vision of the highs and the lows, the past and the future and even the present, and one decides to live in that part that is the future, then one becomes a person of science fiction. Instead of it being something imaginary and political, it becomes something very personal.”
— Moebius, in conversation with Diana K. Bletter (1980)
“I try to be like a surfer riding on the crest of a wave, and I have to stay on the summit. I can’t worry about being comprehensible to everyone.”
— Moebius, in conversation with Diana K. Bletter (1980)
SEE ALSO:
Ragged Claws Network > Rest in Peace: Jean “Moebius” Giraud (8 May 1938 – 10 March 2012) and more!
When Frank O’Neal created “Short Ribs” in 1958, his idea was to write and draw a comic strip without a set cast of characters or a single historical or geographical setting. Once he settled into the routine of actually producing the strip, however, O’Neal quickly found he could not resist returning to certain stock situations and periods — the old West, for instance, or Medieval Europe — bringing back certain characters, and indulging in short bursts of continuity. When he retired from the strip in 1973 to concentrate on advertising work, O’Neal generously handed “Short Ribs” over to his assistant, Frank Hill, who managed to wring another nine years out of the concept. Truth be told, I’m not really a big fan of “Short Ribs,” but when the following pair of amusing and attractive strips from 1980 came up for sale recently at a low, low price, I couldn’t resist:
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Frank Hill’s final “Short Ribs” strip appeared Sunday 02 May 1982. Did anyone notice when the strip ended? You might think not, but my experience reading and arguing about comics on the Web tells me that every comic strip, “Short Ribs” included, is (or was) somebody’s favourite.
Ragged Claws Network 
