Friday, March 1, 2024

Popeye Plays Golf! er . . "Gorf"

Good afternoon, Kids! So nice to visit with you all again!

Today we have the tried-and-true work of Mr. Bud Sagendorf, the assistant for Popeye creator E.C. Segar. Mr. Sagendorf went to work for Mr. Segar as a teenager, working for $50 a week on Thimble Theater and Sappo. Following Segar's death in 1938, Sagendorf moved to New York City and went to work for King Features developing marketing materials while also developing Popeye toys and games.

From 1948 until 1967, Mr. Sagendorf was the sole artist-writer of the ongoing Popeye comic book across three different publisher (Dell, Gold Key, and King Comics). In 1959, he assumed complete command of the Thimble Theater comic strip.

What I truly love about Bud Sagendorf is that, unlike nearly every other cartoonist I have highlighted on this blog, he (for all intents and purposes) spent his entire artistic life rendering a single cartoon world: Thimble Theater and all the wonderful characters that inhabited the Popeye universe.

Let’s enjoy some of Mr. Sagendorf's bouncy, kinetic work now. This comes from Popeye No. 11, February-March 1950. This is all Sagendorf, including the cover and the back-cover at the post's end.

Well, that's all for now, Kids! Coming up next, shall we try a little Super Mouse by the great Milt Stein? I think we shall!

I will see you all again very soon. Until then, I hope you are all warm, safe, and happy!

--Your friend, Mykal

Thursday, February 1, 2024

Marty Taras and his Rags Rabbit!

Good afternoon, Kids! So nice to visit with you all again!

Today we have an older Harvey title, Rags Rabbit, a character introduced to compete with the Sheldon Mayer's Bo Bunny and (of course) the most famous bunny of them all, Bugs!

Rags was created by Marty Taras, whose classic, happy Harvey work we see here.

Marty Taras was (like so many artists in comics in the 40s and 50s) both a cartoonist and animator. He worked for Paramount's Famous Studios in the late 1930s, animating Popeye and Little Lulu shorts. For Harvey he animated many Casper and Baby Huey cartoons (Mr. Taras is also usually credited with creating Baby Huey). Mr. Taras went on to draw for such titles as Casper, the Friendly Ghost, Spooky the Tuff Little Ghost, Wendy, the Good Little Witch, and others throughout the 40s and 50s.

Let's enjoy these Rags Rabbit stories (and a Jesty and Pesty story - Rags' two little twin brothers) as well as the beautiful, lush-brush art of Mr. Taras!

Everything here, including the cover, is from Rags Rabbit No. 17 (January 1954).

Oh, and by the way: The Big Blog has a new subscription service as my old tried-and-true service, Feedburner, went out of business. I have imported all subscribed emails into the new service, Follow-It, but I why risk it? If you haven't already, please enter or re-enter your email in the box on the sidebar - and thank you!

Lets wrap things up with a couple of beautiful advertisements from Daisy Air Rifles and Scwhinn Bycicles. I so adore the graphic design in the commic books full-page ads I see from this era!

The final ad for Fleer Bubblegum is illustrated by Ray Thompson, who always illustrated these Fleer Dubble Bubble Kids! I love his round, bouncy style and would love to see it collected in a hardcover release. I have a lot of his work posted in this blog. Just click his name below in the labels!

Well, that's all for now, Kids! Coming up next, shall we try a little Popeye by the legendary Bud Sagendorf? I think we shall!

I will see you all again very soon. Until then, I hope you are all warm, safe, and happy!

--Your friend, Mykal

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