Stripper's Guide

MARINO-FLESSEL

Mr. and Mrs. Peter Marino of 293 Clermont Ave. announce the engagement of their daughter, Miss Marie Grace Marino, to Creig Valentine Flessel of Manhattan and Centerport, son of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Flessel.

Miss Marino was graduated from Alfred University, Alfred, N. Y., with the class of 1936. Mr. Flessel studied at Grand Central School of Art in Manhattan.

…they were desperate so I had to go out and buy a drawing table. They had just one table that they were doing all of the mechanical work on. So I got a table and managed to find a chair and sat down and they said, “Here. Do this.” I think I did a couple of center spreads for More Fun….Detective [Comics] was created while I was there.”

“In 1936, I went to J. Walter Thompson looking for work, because they had been doing a lot of comic ads,” he said. “All the secretaries there knew Tom Johnstone, and one of them told me I should go to Johnstone and Cushing.” Flessel went to the Johnstone and Cushing offices, then in the Commerce Building at 145 East 44th Street, and he took the elevator to the thirty-sixth floor penthouse suite that housed the offices. Flessel was in awe of the staff, which was a cartooning Who’s Who: “There was Albert Dorne, Austin Briggs, Bill Sakren, Joe King, Stan Randall, Paul Fung, Milt Gross, Milt Caniff, Lou Fine, Stan Drake, Noel Sickles, Ralston Jones, Katie Osann…everybody went through there at some point. The talent level was just intimidating,” Flessel said.

…“They had a lot of work and they needed artists,” Flessel said, “but they felt my work was a little crude, so they recommended me to John Striebel.”

Alfred Banner Seen in Sunday Section 

In the funny section last week in the Sunday paper, there appeared an advertisement for Nestle’s which was of great interest to Alfred people and students. The adv. carried the theme of the girl who won a pledge to a sorority by her mother sending her baked goods that suited the taste of some of the girls, who in turn pledged her to their sorority. In this girl’s room was seen an Alfred banner, although the colors were orange and green, the word “ALFRED” was very much in evidence. It was learned that the author, Creig Flessel is the husband of Marie Jean Marino, who graduated from Alfred with the class of 1936 and was a member of the Sigma Chi Nu Sorority. If you were familiar with the sorority pin you would know at a glance the pin in question belonged to Sigma Chi Nu.

According to Who’s Who of American Comic Books 1928–1999, Flessel worked on the Vimms vitamins account.

Cleveland Plain Dealer 6/28/1942

Another advertising campaign, illustrated by Flessel, was for New York state savings banks; the advertisements ran in 1944 and 1945.

Star Journal 5/25/1944

Perry Record 6/29/1944

Nunda News 10/13/1944

Cortland Standard 1/24/1945

Flessel also did illustrations for pulp magazines by publishers such as Street & Smith, and Martin Goodman.

According to American Newspaper Comics (2012), Flessel illustrated the Book-of-the Month adaptation of Colonel Effingham’s Raid, which was published in 1943.

Rockford Register-Republic 9/13/1943

Flessel has not yet been found in the 1940 census. In an April 2006 letter to Mike Lynch, Flessel wrote: “I (We) lived in Brooklyn, near Pratt Institute in 1937. My son was born in Brooklyn in 1940.” According to the Marin Independent Journal, February 4, 2011, Flessel moved back to his hometown of Huntington in 1943.

In the 1950s, Flessel produced illustrations for Boys’ Life magazine and the Sunday Pictorial Review supplement. Boys’ Life covers and comics are here, here, here and here. A couple of Sunday Pictorial Review covers are here. At Johnstone and Cushing, Flessel worked on the Eveready battery account. Samples are here, here, here and here.

From 1958 to 1960, Flessel assisted on the Li’l Abner strip. In the Comics Journal interview, Flessel said: 

…The best part of that job was that we sat there and worked and we had Andy Amato, and Harvey Curtis and Walter Johnson was the inker. Curtis was the manager of the office and Amato was the man who created all the crazy things—crazy penciler—but the reason why I was there was no one could draw a pretty girl. I knew how to draw big tits. If they made them the size of a grapefruit, I’d make them bigger. So that was it….

Flessel took over the David Crane strip from Winslow Mortimer from October 31, 1960 into 1972. Several samples can be viewed here, here and here.

8/6/1961; scan courtesy of the Fabulous Fifties

From 1969 to 1977 Flessel drew This Week in Astrology which was written by Carl Payne Tobey; Flessel signed the feature with his middle name, Valentine, which was his paternal grandmother’s maiden name.

Artist Winning Fame Is Native of BinghamtonA Binghamton boy, William Ely Hill, is achieving widespread fame through his full-page sketches, which are appearing in several of the big Sunday newspapers under the title, “Among Us Mortals.”

Picking types from the everyday folks he sees on the streets, or wherever people gather, Mr. Hill satirizes in a genial way, little weaknesses that are common to mankind. The freshness and novelty of his work, and its artistic merit him given “Among Us Mortals” a front place as a newspaper feature. Mr. Hill is a son of Mr. and Mrs. W.S. Hill of New York, formerly of this city, and is a nephew of Mrs. C.W. Sears.

The Washington Times, which features the sketches in the Sunday edition, recently had this to say about Mr. Hill and his methods of work:

“William E. Hill, whose speaking likenesses of everyday people appear in The Sunday Times under the caption of ‘Among Us Mortals,’ came to Washington today.

“Some weeks ago Mr. Hill drew a picture of men and women rehearsing for a burlesque show and had the audacity to call the burlesquers’ life ‘vain and hollow.’ All sorts of complications arose the burlesquers at a local playhouse rising in righteous wrath and offering to bet all kinds of money that they received more pay than Mr. Hill.

Seeks Inspiration Hero.

"When Mr. Hill was found by a Times reporter he said he had not come to Washington to settle the burlesque situation, as he believed the, diplomats at the state Department probably could handle that, but he did pictures of ‘Life' as it is in the National Capital.’

“He said he intended roaming over Washington and making sketches of people in various walks of life here. The National Capital, he said, offered such a prolific field for sketches of so many and varied types of men, women and children that he anticipated difficulty in exhausting all the subjects here before laying down his charcoal and closing his artistic career.

His Work Widely Admired.

“Practically no one who sees Mr. Hill without being introduced to him would guess for an instant that this modest and retiring young man is the creator of the most human and true life sketches every [sic] printed in America.

From coast to coast and in foreign countries his work is admired for its fidelity to nature and to types. Everyone who has seen his drawings of people one meets in the streets, in the theater or other gathering places, never fails to remark, ‘I’ve seen exactly that type, and the artist must have sketched some one I’ve seen.’

Mr. Hill pictures people at work, at play, on their way to work, at home, at meals, or on picnics. He doesn’t try to make any one handsome who is not handsome, and men and women wearing eyeglasses appear frequently in his sketches, not because he wears them himself and likes to draw them but because he finds these people wherever he goes to faithfully and truly reproduce what he sees.

No Need to Imagine Types.

“ ‘I learned very early in my career as an artist that if you stick pretty close to the people you see about you, every day you need not draw on your imagination for types,’ said Mr. Hill.

“ ‘People, just plain, everyday, commonplace people, alive and in motion fascinate me far more than anything else in the world.” he continued.

“ ‘They look and dress, and do everything that they could be imagined doing, and they are everywhere that there is anywhere to be.

“ ‘When I made my first sketch of people as I really found them, I had no idea of keeping it up. That was simply one day’s work. I remember the first sketch very distinctly. It was made only a year and a half ago and was a few glimpses at the Easter parade in New York City.

“ ‘When that was printed it suggested another sketch of human life as it is and every sketch suggests a great many others. Human nature is an exhaustible subject and a man might draw types of men, women and children for a hundred years and still not scratch the surface of his subject.

Finds Washington Different.

“ ‘I have come to Washington because life here is very different from anywhere else in the United States and types are to he found here which could not be found in any other city in the country.

“ ‘The vast army of Government employes rushing to their work, the crowds fighting to get on already overcrowded street cars, the blank look on the voteless inhabitants of the city, the rich and the poor, the humble and the great mingling together on your streets, the omnipresent soldier, sailor and marine; the children of the rich playing in the parks, the visitors at the Capitol, the tourists, the scenes at markets, al1 hold a tremendous interest for me and doubtless would for any one coming to Washington for the first time.

“ ‘Selection and elimination will be my only trouble here, for there are a vast number of types I have not seen before, but which I will do my best to picture to readers of the Times.’

“ ‘If Mr. Hill does his best that will be about all readers of the Times will want from him.”