tth2

Still no new scanner but at least now I can show some of my bigger saved files. Don't know why it took me so long to sign up with photobucket, I'm just a combination of stupidity and laziness sometimes!

Photobucket rules! Just opened an account, and can now load up some of my scans which are too big to meet the 150kb limit here but which I've been too lazy to resize. Here's a SA duck. Sorry about the overt display of the label at the expense of showing the full cover, the scan was made for, er, commercial purposes (although in fact I still own it).

Wow, nice books, Acme! Question: how is the art inside the books? Flessel only did the covers, correct? Isn't one of the criticisms of a lot of GA, particularly the smaller publishers, that they engaged in bait and switch by commissioning gorgeous covers by truly talented artists and then filling the insides with horrible cut-rate art?

The travel stories, all of them! My favorite is probably Mexico, and then after that in descending order Hawaii, Hollywood and Washington DC. Am I missing any one?

Thanks for posting this, Joe. What a great article. I found myself nodding in agreement with just about everything Fred says. One thing that occurred to me is Wiseman and Toole must have been compensated pretty well, because this was the only comic they worked on, correct? Which means their income from just this one comic was enough to provide them with a reasonable standard of living (unless they continued to do advertising work on the side). Contrast this with the huge amounts of product generated by the artists and writers at Marvel and DC, presumably to generate sufficient income to achieve an approximately equal standard of living. Either that or Stan and Jack were becoming wealthy because their output was double or triple everybody else's.

Great thread! Flessel's covers were really outstanding!

And of course they were read constantly which added to the wear and tear! You've got an awesome Dennis collection, Joe!

Is this thread running out of steam already? We're just looking for a place where all the Duck covers can congregate, because they've been spread out over a lot of different threads so far. So feel free to post here even if you've posted elsewhere, or it's not high grade, or it's SA or BA or modern. Today's addition, WDC&S 136:

Wow, CBG and BB, you guys are the masters of the Dennis universe! I'd never seen Ketcham's early Dennis strips before, being a kid who only came of reading age in the early 1970s, so it's interesting to see that his early style was much tighter and clearly influenced Wiseman's depiction of Dennis. My memory of the Dennis comic strip by the time I started reading it in the early 1970s was a much looser style, which perhaps not surprisingly was mimicked by the much looser post-Wiseman depiction in the comic book. Was this Ketcham himself getting lazier through the years, or the result of ghost artists taking over the drawing duties?

Bonds, if that's a serious inquiry, I'll be happy to PM you. LMK.

Wow, that's a spectacular copy! Too bad about the dust shadow down the right edge. The WDC&S 41 is gone, but this WDC&S 85 is still available:

It would be good to hear that they did get closer before Hank passed away. I don't know anything else about the family situation, what I do know (and which I mentioned above) was all learned from an article in People magazine. Actually, now that I think about it, Hank moved to Switzerland in the 1970s or so, didn't he? Which undoubtedly would have made it more difficult for him to stay in contact with his family (unless that was the point).

Nice book as always, Adam!

Is this thread dying already? Not if I can help it! WDC&S 41 (no longer mine , sold to a collector in Texas. Thanks to hkp for the introduction! )

VG+, thanks for posting the great Doc Savage paperback covers! That's a real trip down memory lane, I loved those covers and loved the books, had tons that I bought back in the mid- to late-70s, and I think they're all tucked away in storage somewhere.

But you like Flash as a tub of lard? I think one of the reasons I was always drawn towards the non-Supes/Bats heroes were that they got better artists. Flash, Atom, GL, Hawkman, etc.--none of them looked like fat tubs of lard, which is what the 1950s Superman and Batmans looked like, IMO. Sekowsky was probably the most old-school of the SA artists, and may have been one of the factors that held back JLA. His Supermans, and his Earth III Ultra-man looked like the 1950s style tubs o' lard. You definitely should start a thread, I think there would be interest. I don't really have any subjects to suggest, as I only know the more mainstream artists and think most people have become pretty good at identifying their work.

I seem to recall reading that things were not so good in the Ketcham household, and that Dennis became estranged from his father and was leading something of a hand-to-mouth existence in his later years.

Do you know if there has been a feature on Dennis or on Wiseman-Toole in Comic Book Marketplace? That seems to be the main place where notable events or artists/writers get broken out for public consideration.

WOW!

But Joe, you could make the same case for Duck books, that Carl Barks would always be overshadowed by Walt Disney. I think the difference is that relatively early on a few influential fans trumpeted Barks' name and built a cult, whereas that never happened with Wiseman. Perhaps now is the time to start. Frazetta and Al Capp is different, because no public credit was ever meant to be given to Frazetta (or any of the various unacknowledged ghost artists that have worked on many successful comic strips through the years). They were day laborers who were intended to perpetuate the myth that the strip creator was doing all of his own work.

Nice book, Dr B! Is that yours? I've posted this elsewhere, but one of my faves:

Hear hear! Great post, Billy, I agree that Wiseman-Toole's work ranks up there with anything the industry has ever produced. The scenes showing the havoc wreaked in a department store by Dennis were classic, and so incredibly detailed. I think you're absolutely right that unlike Barks and other masters, there has never been any major advocate championing Wiseman-Toole's cause.

Nope. Good analysis, and I'm sure others can jump in with their examples too. I have to admit I'm not a fan of the 1950s style of DC art, the fat Supermans and Batmans don't do a whole lot for me.

Beautiful book, Hans. Here's my copy of FC 422.

"Billy", let me first say WELCOME TO THE BOARDS! And thanks for your insights, particularly on whether it really was Hank Ketchum doing the covers. As to your question, there are 2 ways to do this. The easiest way is if you indeed have your scans stored on another website, in which case you only need to click the "image" link below and then paste in the URL in the box that appears. This is the best method if you have really large scans. The second easiest way is to use these boards as your website, but the size of your scan is limited to 150kbs. The steps are: 1. Post the text that you want to post, then hit "continue". 2. You'll see a prompt asking if you want to attach a file. Go ahead and attach the file, and then hit "OK, Submit". 3. You'll now be returned to the thread, and your post will appear at the bottom of the thread. You'll see a link to "attachment" at the top of your post. Click the link, and you'll come to a page with your scan. Copy the URL for that page, then return back to your post. 4. Click the edit link for your post. Now click on the "image" link, and then paste in the URL for your scan into the dialogue box that pops up. 5. Confirm you want to make the change, and you should get a test page showing what your post will look like, including the scan. Click continue and voila, back in the thread with your scan now showing.