Category: Cartooning

Mask On!

The epidemiologists were right about Delta-Covid creating another pandemic wave. Incredibly, the Trumpy simpletons continue to insist they know more than communicable disease experts, and that masks are completely useless. Some masks are, sure, because they’re just a piece of cloth, or proper masks that have been overused. What’s really concerning for public health are the anti-maskers who are also anti-vaxx.

I like this clever faux Winsor McCay cartoon by Peter Kuper in The New Yorker, from early in the pandemic, April ’20.

Click to enlarge

I’m going to assume Kuper worked from an actual McCay cartoon. For reference here’s a Little Sammy Sneeze.

Here’s another McCay creation, Dream of the Rarebit Fiend, featuring an early appearance of Gertie the Dinosaur. Gertie appeared the following year in an animated cartoon by the prolific McCay.

What I’d Say If I Were On Twitter

“The Internet really has sped things up. It takes only a minute for me to sort the two Sunday papers I get, and not much longer than that to read the tiny comics sections.” Hmm… that’s 170 characters. Ten too many? I’d better trim it down.

“The Internet has sped things up. It takes only a minute to sort the two Sunday papers I get, and not much longer than that to read the tiny comics sections.” There, only 156 characters.

I’m not on Twitter, but I’m on Facebook, and every time I go there it asks, “What’s on your mind, Doug?” How about what was on my mind 55 years ago?

Let’s Rap About Cap and Crap

Ever since arranging the estate sale at my late parents’ house in Arizona three years ago, I’ve been mulling over the problem of having all of the stuff I’ve accumulated over these many years. When the late publisher and comic art dealer Russ Cochran announced he was selling most of his massive collection, I couldn’t imagine why he would want to do that. But I was much younger then, and now I can imagine all too well. Cochran was getting old, he was planning ahead, and he needed to downsize.

Jerry Beck, the noted animation historian and archivist, moved recently. Beck has announced on Facebook that he is holding a garage sale to clear a storage space of “lots of magazines, toys, plush figures, books, DVDs, VHS tapes, stuff.” Jerry is my age, and I have the same inclination. Yard sale? Craigslist? eBay? I suppose all three will be useful.

While I contemplate divesting myself of possessions, I am of course continuing to accumulate. The “Get Back” Beatles book to accompany Peter Jackson’s documentary is on pre-order. As is Andrew Sandoval’s revised, expanded and definitive Monkees day-by-day book. No date has been announced yet for the long-delayed second volume of IDW’s Artist’s Edition of Jim Steranko’s 1960’s work at Marvel.

The original art for the center spread from Captain America #113 is coming up on Heritage Auctions. The first two Cap issues that Steranko drew, #110 and #111, were inked by my pal, the great Joe Sinnott. The whereabouts of the original art for the center spread to one of those issues was the subject of some controversy. The art had been promised to Joe, but he never saw it again. Joe had only the original production stat for the art. Someone said they saw the original art hanging in the home of a well-known comic book person, but when asked about it later, that person reportedly denied ever having the art. I assume the art was eventually located and scanned for inclusion in the Artist’s Edition volume, but some of the pages in the first volume were taken from stats.

When Steranko couldn’t meet the deadline for issue #112, there was a Kirby fill-in. Jim returned for his trilogy’s big finish in issue #113, which was inked by Tom Palmer. Steranko has always said that he, rather than Palmer, inked the two center pages. This scan confirms it, although the use of Zip-a-Tone was a Palmer trademark.