Tuesday, May 20, 2008

 

News of Yore 1952: No Day of Rest for Beetle

King Offers Sunday Page On Private Beetle Bailey
By Erwin Knoll 8/2/52

Private Beetle Bailey, who in the past year-and-a-half has safely entrenched himself as by far the most accomplished goldbrick in this man's army, will per­form his duty-shirking antics for Sunday read­ers too when King Features Syndicate launches a color page Sept. 14. Undertaken at the request of papers subscrib­ing to the daily strip, the Sunday page will be available in tabloid, one-third and half-page regular sizes, and has already been signed by the Amer­ican Weekly.

As in the daily strip, Sunday action will take place in and around the stateside training camp in which Private Bailey seems to be doomed to spend the rest of his army days, relieved only by an occasional home furlough. As be­fore, the emphasis will be on army humor with primarily civilian ap­peal. And the theme will con­tinue to be Private Bailey's re­lentless war against standard oper­ating procedure.

"Beetle Bailey" was launched by King two years ago as the nation's only comic strip dealing exclusively with college life, fea­turing Beetle as B.M.O.C. (Big Man on Campus for the uninitiat­ed.) With the beginning of mass inductions under the Selective Service law, it was decided to have Beetle join the colors, and immediately the strip's popularity took an upward turn.

Fan mail indicates that wives, sweethearts and mothers clip the strip and forward it to servicemen, and reprint rights are often re­quested by camp newspapers. Teen-agers also seem to make up a large part of "Beetle Bailey's" fan circle.

Creator of "Beetle Bailey" is Mort Walker, 28 and, of course, an ex-GI. He patterns Beetle and his buddies after some of his Kappa Sig fraternity brothers at the University of Missouri, where he edited the Missouri Showme, once described in these columns as the outhouse of journalism.

Walker, the son of an architect and a former newspaper illustra­tor, started drawing at the age of four, sold his first cartoon when he was 11. When he was 15 he drew a once-a-week comic strip called "The Limejuicers" for the late Kansas City Journal. A year later he was an editorial designer for Hallmark greeting cards.

In 1948, college and army serv­ice behind him, he came to New York and started selling gag panels to the Saturday Evening Post, Collier's, This Week and other national magazines, and joined the top 10 cartoonists in the country in number of panels sold. It was in the pages of the Satevepost that he introduced the confused youth with hat perennially over his eyes who evolved into Beetle Bailey.

While turning out his daily strip and advance pages for the new Sunday feature Walker continues to hit the big magazines with gag panels regularly. And to keep busy he has just taken on the editorship of the Cartoonist, quar­terly publication of the National Cartoonists Society.

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Interesting story!

Still going strong after all these years!

Ready last Sunday's one?
 
I was looking for Beetle Bailey's sunday startiung date. So this means the first Checker book won't have any sundays. I hope they don't mess it up.

Is there anywhere on the web I can find the BB sunday? I'll go and have a look.
 
Don't know if Ger Apeldoorn got an answer about the Sunday Beetle Bailey strips--but all you have to do is go to King Comics web site to see them. They have a nice selection of vintage strips--The Phantom, Bringing Up Father, etc. I don't know if the first Sunday Beetle is still up--but you can at least read them there! Try this one--

http://www.dailyink.com/en-us/content_offerings/
 
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Monday, May 19, 2008

 

News of Yore 1952: Small World to Debut


Frailties of Modern Life In New HT Comic Strip
By Erwin Knoll 8/9/52

Sam Brier sounds like a man with a mission. Through the comic strip medium he wants to show us all the small facets which to­gether form the pattern of Ameri­can family life— the things he calls "the frailties of modern living." And he wants to do this without being malicious or snide; there's quite enough viciousness in the comics now without his help, he feels.

As a medium for this project Mr. Brier has worked out a comic strip called "Small World," which the Herald Tribune Syndicate will offer for nation-wide release in three or four-column size begin­ning Oct. 13. The strip will fea­ture the day-to-day activities of a couple of youngsters playing house, and will reflect the routine problems of adult life. Mr. Brier, a modest man, thinks "Small World" is "a beautiful medium" for getting across his ideas.

Though technically a "gag-a-day" strip, the emphasis in the new feature will be on humor rather than gags. The traditional last-panel kick will be played down in favor of a general atmosphere of friendliness and innocence.

Mr. Brier, 29, has been cartoon­ing for 13 years, selling panels to some of the nation's leading slick magazines. In addition, he has been designing childrens' toys for the past two years. Before that, he spent his spare time singing pro­fessionally with bands and in night clubs. A native of Montreal, he now lives in Brooklyn with his wife and two young sons, whom he depends upon for most of the ideas he will incorporate into "Small World."

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This strip has been a favorite of mine,ever since I copied a run from the late fifties from the International Herald Tribune 25 years ago. A charming little strip, with remarkable art. A very clever variation on the sort of thing Charles Shutlz was doing. I would love to see a couple of samples, especially if there was a sunday version as wellOh, wait - there probably isn't. I have a Herald Tribune sunday from 1952 that says the strip is weekdays only...
 
Hi Ger -
I too really like Small World, though its pretty derivative of Peanuts (perhaps its first imitator!). There was definitely no Sunday.

--Allan
 
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Sunday, May 18, 2008

 

Jim Ivey's Sunday Comics

Jim responds to a query regarding a previous post ...


Order Jim Ivey's new book Cartoons I Liked at Lulu.com or order direct from Ivey and get the book autographed with a free original sketch.

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