Stripper's Guide

February 7 1910 -- Herriman offers vignettes from Sam Langford's training camp on the day before his big fight against Fireman Jim Flynn.

Labels: Herriman's LA Examiner Cartoons

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 6:00 AM 0 comments

The aviation strip Tailspin Tommy would eventually be responsible for quite a few toppers, but in the early years it could only manage a single panel, titled Progress of Flight (not counting the comic stamp feature, which we here at Stripper's Guide don't deem worthy of tracking). 

Tailspin Tommy was one of a long list of strips that owed its existence to Charles Lindbergh's historic flight, and despite lackluster art it was consistently one of the most popular of the genre through the 1930s. I think much of that initial success must be due to the slam-bang writing of Glenn Chaffin, which though a bit wordy, really gave flying-mad kids a strong dose of high-flying medicine. Artist Hal Forrest, on the other hand, who semed much more comfortable with doing art for humour strips, always seemed to produce terribly rushed looking work until he evidently found a good assistant in the mid-1930s.

According to a contemporary article in Editor & Publisher, the Tailspin Tommy Sunday page was added for a release date of October 6 1929. However, I've never been able to find a sample of that first page earlier than October 20. Bell Syndicate muddied the waters by allowing papers to run their strips late, making such determinations a bit of a crapshoot. Progress of Flight, a panel offering factoids about early models of airplane and famous aviators, was added with Sunday page #28; counting from October 6 1929, that would put the start date on April 13 1930, but it's not been seen appearing earlier than April 27 1930. Yes, dealing with Bell Syndicate strips can be a trying task. 

Progress of Flight started it's timeline as early as you could, discussing early mythological stories of flying. The feature slowly gamboled through the Renaissance, the Montgolfier brothers, and finally to modern aviation. Early panels were numbered, but that practice eventually stopped. The feature ended with Sunday page #220, after which the top spot went to a new strip, The Four Aces. 

Calculating from the supposed start date, that would put Progress of Flight ending on December 17 1933, but once again, I've not seen that occurring any earlier than the Sunday page run on December 31 1933, which seems frankly like a more auspicious date on which to usher out the old and welcome in the new. It is also the last Sunday written by Glenn Chaffin; artist Hal Forrest would be credited from then on.

If anyone can offer any direct evidence that the Tailspin Tommy Sunday began on October 6 1929 in any paper, I'd be thrilled to hear from you. 

UPDATE PRIOR TO PUBLICATION: I looked at a sampling of Tailspin Tommy Sunday original art at the Heritage auction site, and I think I have the final answer. On most of the originals there is a pencil notation written outside the art area giving the strip number and publication date. The same hand seems to be responsible for other presswork notations, so I don't believe the dates were added later. In each case, the date combined with the number calculates back to a date for Sunday page #1 of October 20 1929. I'm calling this mystery solved, and saying that was the official release date; the article in Editor & Publisher had it wrong.

Labels: Topper Features

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 6:00 AM 2 comments

Couchey was born in Cleveland. As a child there, he dreamed of being a cartoonist. He would layout the Sunday funny papers on the floor and study them for hours.

“That’s how I first got interested in cartooning,” Couchey said.

… Sid was born in Cleveland, Ohio on May 24, 1920 [sic], the son of Lester Couchey and Elizabeth Lasher Couchey. His mother came from Broadalbin. She and her sister studied music at the New England Conservatory in Boston. Sid’s father’s family are North Country people; Lester was born on the Bert Walker farm in Whallonsburg. He was a salesman who had the entire country as his territory. As a boy, he had been a lab assistant to Charles Steinmetz, the electrical wizard of Schenectady. In his later years, Sid’s father, a trouble shooter for Union Carbide, and the family moved around a bit.

Sid went to school in Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois, in his sophomore year, the family moved back here and he graduated from the Essex High School. He went to work for a short time in Schenectady before being inducted into the army, where he served for four years. …

… he graduated from Essex High School, one of a class of five. “I once mentioned to my wife, Ruth, that I had been valedictorian. She was impressed until we moved to Essex and she learned how small the class was,” he said.

… When he was discharged, he went to New York City to study art at the Art Career School in the old Flatiron Building, and to the School for Visual Arts. He had always wanted to be a cartoonist, and after three and a half years of study he found his first job, working for the well-known cartoonist, John Lehti, on the comic strips, “Tommy of the Big Top” and “Tales from the Great Book”. Lehti had had several young men working for him before this, none of whom stayed long, but Sid stayed for almost nine years. It was a successful partnership. Sid worked on other comics too: Flash Gordon, Lassie, and “Space Cadet.” …

… For awhile, Sid worked for Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster who invented and owned Superman. They were looking around for a cartoonist to help them. Shuster had started to go blind then. Sid applied and was chosen out of 125 applicants. … the trio experimented with other characters, none of whom reached success. They split up and Sid went free-lance.

Manhattan, New York City directories from 1953 to 1959, listed Couchey at 237 9th Avenue.

… The firm of Harvey Comics owned the three characters with whom Sid became best-known: Richie Rich, Little Lotta and Little Dot. He invented the secondary characters for their stories and did the story line. At first he was under editorial supervision but the editors soon realized Sid could operate on his own. This was the release Sid was waiting for. He and his family “hotfooted it up here” in his words. They were able finally to live where they most wanted to, and Sid could do his work from a distance.

For the past three years Couchey has been working on a cartoon character for Vermont’s Department of Human Services. “Rascal Raccoon” was chosen by school children from three characters that Couchey submitted. The story line involves the dangers of alcohol abuse, and the targeted audience is the early grades, kindergarten and up.

“I had never done animation before. It was a tremendous undertaking. For a spot 30 seconds in length, I had to make 400 drawings. But once I got the hang of it, it went well. You created the background, then draw the action on acetate overlays. I’d draw the outline on the top, and color it in on the other side.” However, it nearly drove Ruth crazy. “There were sheets of acetate hung out to dry all over the house,” Couchey remembered.

Rascal Raccoon was a howling success. The spots were aired on local television, posters hung in the schools, and the teachers had lesson plans. “It was a one-two-three punch,” Couchey said. A survey revealed that after the first two spots aired, 95 per cent of the students knew who Rascal was and remembered his message; and 65 per cent had discussed Rascal with their parents. …

Labels: Ink-Slinger Profiles

# posted by Alex Jay @ 6:00 AM 0 comments

Lehti,—John A., beloved husband of Christine W. (nee Clayton), on May 28, 1913, at Montreal, Canada. Recently of Washington, D. C, formerly of Bay Ridge. Services will be held at 453 Eighty-first st. on Saturday evening, May 31, 1913, at 8 P. M. Interment at the convenience of family.

…[he] studied at some of the finest art schools in the nation: the Art Students League (under George Bridgman, Frank Dumond, and Nicholaides), the National Academy, the Beaux Arts Institute, and Grand Central Art School under Harvey Dunn, probably the greatest influence on his art and approach to work.

Lehti started in the 30s as an illustrator and writer of westerns and detective stories. In 1936, he started in the new field of comic books. Among the many ‘union suit’ heroes of that era, his famous Crimson Avenger has long since become a collector’s item.

Jack Lehti, as he was known in the early days, jumped from the pulps to National Comics such as “Steve Conrad,” “O’Malley of the Red Coat Patrol,” and “Crimson Avenger.” Lehti was in the Army reserves when the bombs fell on Pearl Harbor; he quickly told DCs Whit Ellsworth to hire his inker, Charles Paris, then headed to Europe. “Jack Lehti was a dogface,” Paris said. “He told me one time that he jumped into a foxhole in France and there was a copy of Detective Comics, with the Crimson Avenger. It gave him a funny damn feeling. Here he is lying out in the middle of nowhere, he might as well be on another planet with shells falling around and dead people and mud and dirt…and there’s a copy of a DC comic book.

When war came he joined the 104th Infantry and served in “Terry Allen’s Timberwolves.” He became a sergeant. He won the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart and four campaign ribbons. When the war in Europe ended he was shaking hands with Russian soldiers 70 miles southwest of Berlin. Mr. Lehti illustrated a book published by his outfit.

Picture News … made its debut in January and is the size of regular comic books. Its publisher and editor ([Emile] Gauvreau is “executive editor”) is Leigh Danenberg, publisher of the Bridgeport (Conn.) Sunday Herald.

Danenberg conceived the idea of presenting news in comic strip technique, with sketches and balloons, and about six months ago he persuaded Gauvreau to join him in introducing the idea.

They assembled a staff that includes John Armas Lehti as art director, Henry J. Cordes and John Milligan, artists; Jane Brower Wyckoff, editorial research assistant, and Judson Lahaye, Jr., promotion manager.

The first issue of Picture News, which is printed at at Bridgeport by the Lafayette Color Press and sells for 10 cents per copy, featured a story on the atom bomb, containing George Bernard Shaw’s observations on the subject; reviewed Henry Wallace's “Sixty Million Jobs” and had personality features on Barbara Hutton and Hoagy Carmichael, among others. … Books, plays and movies will be reviewed regularly in Picture News. … and other regular features will be “Laughs by Milt Gross” and beauty hints and advice.

Increasing the book’s new coverage, Colonel Bob Allen, who with Drew Pearson established the “Washington Merry-Go-Round,” will supply the artists with regular Washington news to illustrate. ...

His marriage to Jean Tighe, radio and TV singer who has appeared on the Kate Smith Show, the Carnation Hour, and starred on Mutual Broadcasting System’s “Jazz Nocturne”. The Lehtis live in Syosset, Long Island. They have a ten-year-old daughter, Sandra.

Labels: Ink-Slinger Profiles

# posted by Alex Jay @ 6:00 AM 0 comments

By the 1920s, comic strips were apparently a mature enough bit of newspaper content that they could be trusted to offer serious content. This was when the story strips really got going, and factual and educational strips began to be offered and become popular with readers. 

One of the last realms to be conquered was religion, but biblical stories in comic strip form began being offered in this decade, too, though not with any notable popularity. The idea with these strips seemed to be to ingratiate the newspaper with religious folks, or at least to enliven their Saturday church pages. Quite a few were tried, and some lasted many years, but none exactly set the newspaper world on fire.

No religious strip made any real dent in the syndication world until 1954, when John Lehti convinced Publishers Syndicate that his version of a bible strip would sell big. What was different about it? Well, a combination of ideas coalesced to make Tales from the Great Book a hit. First, it was a very colourful and well-drawn Sunday, not a weekly black and white strip as many had been before. Second, while scrupulously researched, Lehti picked his stories for their ability to translate into exciting graphic narratives. Third, he kept his stories short, rarely more than eight or so episodes, so that the stories moved along and didn't get bogged down in lots of speeches and philosophizing. Fourth, he told stories that weren't the endlessly repeated stuff like Adam and Eve, Noah's Ark, and so on; readers were presented with stories that many of them didn't already know. Finally, Lehti stuck to the Old Testament so that both Christians and Jews would feel comfortable with the material. 

Here is the article announcing the new strip in Editor & Publisher, March 20, 1954:

Tales From The Bible For Sunday, In Color

By Mather Wallis

 A Sunday release from Publishers Syndicate dealing with great biblical stories is due to make its initial appearance March 21. To be done for color comics sections by John Lehti, ‘Tales from the Great Book” will deal with episodes from such stories as Samson, Joshua and the Walls of Jericho, and Daniel. Plans call for them to appear in that order. Mr. Lehti said titles beyond that re somewhat tentative.

The creator of this feature, who lives with his wife and daughter in Syosset, N. Y., did “Tommy of the Big Top” from 1946 to 1950. A member of the 104th Infantry Division during the war, and wounded in action, Mr. Lehti said he has had the idea for this work in mind for about six years.

 “I’m really keyed up about this,” he said. “I’ve got a lot of biblical and archeological research under my belt, and I’m having a lot of fun doing it. The reason I wanted to do it is not just for the story value, and these stories are the basis for all literature, but to show the feelings of people and how they did things in those days — how they cooked, what they wore, what kinds of door hinges they had on their houses.”

 Prior to service in World War II Mr. Lehti did. as he put, “a little of everything, but mostly advertising art.” For this new feature he said he has been doing “a lot of heavy research for the past six years.

 Born in 1912, Mr. Lehti studied at the Beaux Arts Institute, the Art Students League and the National Academy of Design. Some of his New York sketches have appeared at the Modern Museum of Art. His wife is Jean Tighe, radio and television singer, and he is the grandson of Johann Gustave Lehtinen, chapel designer in Finland and later founder of one of the first Finnish language newspapers in the United States.

 The style of ‘Tales from the Great Book” is clean but immensely detailed with great attention being devoted to dress, artifacts and the tools of war.

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

Above, sample strips from the first 1954 story and the final 1972 story

Lehti's strip was practically an instant success. It ran from March 21 1954 and ended April 16 1972. During that time Lehti's art style changed a bit, but never for the worse. It was consistently one of the most attractive strips in the comics section. He is known to have had at least one assistant, Sid Couchey. 

It is unknown why Tales from the Great Book was cancelled in 1972, but Lehti still saw a clientele for it. He reworked the old material and came up with a new feature he titled Facts About the Bible; the new feature was black and white and was marketed mainly to smaller papers. According to Lehti's daughter, he prepared ten years worth of weekly material, and it was known to have been still in circulation in reprints until quite recently. 

Here is a complete list of the stories serialized in Tales from the Great Book. Though several titles were reused, as far as I can tell the only story that was actually re-run was Nebuchadnezzar's Second Dream, in 1961 and '71. Apparently the end of syndication came unexpectedly, because a new story (Joshua And The Promised Land) was announced to follow Zechariah a Young Prophet.

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 6:00 AM 3 comments

Here's another from August Hutaf's series on apples, published by A.B. Woodward Co. in 1907.

Labels: Wish You Were Here

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 6:00 AM 0 comments