Category Archives: comics

Not a whole lot is known about the life and times of Dan Gordon, but much of what’s identifiable as his work is fairly phenomenal in its execution. The brilliant, unconventional Popeye cartoons (like this one) bearing his name as “director” may be the only time a Golden Age Paramount short actually properly credited who was at the helm of the cartoon. His comic book work is very much the same as that directorial work, with seemingly normal stories abruptly taking a sharp right turn into lunacy; he never seems concerned that the plot is making any logical sense, only that the audience (and himself) are entertained by the hijinks. He ended up, after a hiatus from animation work altogether, doing ‘story sketches’ for Hanna-Barbera, probably the last place such a mindset would be appreciated.

This Superkatt story from Giggle Comics #71 (1950) is a nice example of his working process. Fortunately (?), the All Comics Group didn’t mind the comics getting as anarchic and meta as the theatrical shorts, something obviously kept at bay in the funny animal books of Western. He’s developing an interesting drawing style here; some of the side characters in particular are easily the closest thing to classic MAD Magazine I’ve seen outside of that title (save the work by Kurtzman, Martin, etc. al did themselves outside the title).

Sherm Cohen did a great bio of Gordon awhile back, Doug Gray has posted several Superkatt stories, and John K. has a nice write-up on Gordon’s skills here.

Just to take a break from the Looney Tunes posts, here’s another gem from the Hubie Karp-Jim Davis days of the Fox and the Crow from Real Screen Comics #33 (1950). It’s a fairly unique take on the duo’s chemistry, with Crawford putting almost zero effort into his scam; Fauntleroy’s anxiety does all the work. Since we’re in an age when it seems almost every Golden Age comic is being reprinted, how about a book of these guys?

Fortunately, not all Heritage Auctions are out of the common man’s limit. I snapped up this beautiful original art by Jim Tyer for a 5-page Dinky Duck story recently. I don’t know which issue it’s from, or the year, but Milton Knight suspects 1955. From Milt:

“The lettering indicates that this was done in 1955 or slightly after; for some reason, the Terry comics adopted an upper-and-lower case font right after the CBS buyout. The change in (lovely) lettering may have been because of the change in publishers too: from St. John to Pines. The energy and quality of the art picked up, too, in my opinion.”

Update: Bob Jaques has a definite answer: Paul Terry’s Adventures of Mighty Mouse – (no issue number) April 1956.

The art and story is a good example of summing up the Terrytoons at their best. Just about every aspect about the cartoon is borderlining retarded in execution, but it’s still eerily beautiful in its uniqueness, an aura almost always coming directly from Jim Tyer. Possibly the funniest part of this story is Rudy Rooster, after getting his sweater, immediately trying to beat up a little baby, then proceeding to “BIFF!” his old man after getting a reasonable warning. Tyer (or whoever wrote the story) needs to establish that the rooster is now a douche, and gets it done as overtly as possible, capping it with the absolutely brilliant “What a sweater!” panel.

The greatest joy in owning the art is seeing some of Tyer’s original penciling and lettering by examining the pages more closely, shattering the common perception that he was always just shitting this stuff through (though in many cases he probably was). Tyer’s greatest work was a carefully calculated brand of insanity, and I’m glad he never got the opportunity to be ‘well-directed’ elsewhere because I can’t begin to imagine a Jim Tyer who wasn’t allowed to do whatever he wanted.

The original art for this 8-page story drawn (and probably written) by Jim Tyer for Little Roquefort #7 was up for auction recently. I watched a pedigreed Tyerphile plan to snap it up, both of us thinking there was no way anyone would go after something like this. We were stupefied by the outrageous price paid for it, at least three times more than it was worth. Fortunately the pages were scanned at a very high resolution, so we can all enjoy this for the unbridled lunacy it is.