Holdaway #1665

Here's the latest piece of junk I added to my collection of original artwork. :)
Another piece of Jim Holdaway artwork from his run on Modesty Blaise. This one is from "The Galley Slaves".

Well, I actually made a trade with my friend Germund. He bought this for me from Roger Clark, so that he could get MB strip #1652 from me instead.



Something not related to comics at all: Something sweet. Ecological chocolate pralines! Found them at a discount price over at the local Coop store.

Ought to taste nice! But, hey! What are they filled with?
What does the label say? Let's zoom in.

Kött! That's Swedish for "Meat"...

Holdaway and voting

As reported before, the Swedish edition of Agent X9 now runs Holdaway's Modesty Blaise, with strips mostly scanned straight from original art. On the Swedish X9 blog editor Johan Kimrin recently added a few samples of how the syndicate proofs looks (top) and what the strip looks like when scanned from original art (bottom). Here's a sample from the recently released issue featuring "The Vikings" by Jim Holdaway. (Click to enlarge. Remember that this is just a low rez jpg. Quality in print is even better.)

For more click HERE!

There's also voting going on. Wich Agent X9 cover from 2009 do you like the best?
It's still possible to vote a few more days. So if you want to help the editor when it comes to the direction of future covers please vote! Even if you are living outside Sweden your input will be appreciated!
To vote just click HERE.
(Click the white dot next to the number and then click the button below all the covers that says Rösta/Vote. The you'll see the results so far. )

Sept 15, 1955

Wednesday = Barksday!

Today we have a follow up to two earlier posts (Check HERE and HERE.)
In those I asked the question what this cover originally had looked like.

And I made a rough suggestion.

Well, two and a half years later we are getting just a little closer to the answer.
Take a look at Barks payment records below.

On September 15, 1955 we have an entry for a cover labeled as "Kids Blow Cake Apart".
This doesn't explain why the artwork was altered, but now we know what was supposed to happen to the cake. :)
Also note that he was paid $67,50 for the other two covers listed. But only $50 for the cover to Donald Duck 46. Was this because he only did artwork or because the editors had to revise the art?

Now, back to civilization...

Just arrived

Issue 3/10 (#495) of BAMSE just arrived at the office.
For the cover of this issue we have tried a different approach. By parents Bamse is usually seen as a nice carachter that avoids conflicts. But for this cover we decided to show him upset, angry and furious! (His daughter is missing in the lead story and he begins to accuse every crook in sight of kidnapping her. The story itself is a reprint from the 80's.)


Now, let's see if the parents will avoid to pick it up, or if the kids will be curious enough to why Bamse is so upset, that they'll convince the parents to buy it.

Hmm... maybe the parents would prefer a pink background and hearts instad? ;)


[Layout and rough sketch: Joakim Gunnarsson. Pencils: Lars Bällsten. Inks: Bernt Hanson. Coloring: Lise Jörgensen (Yours truly on the "cute version").]

Walk this way...

Walked around in downtown Malmö (where I live, in the south of Sweden) with Hedvig yesterday.
And saw this.



Seems to be a mix of Marvel, DC with a piece of Roy Lichtenstein thrown in.
I dunno wich target group they are aiming for. And I doubt they have a licence to use the artwork. But hopefully they will sell a few more shoes without beeing sued by any of the above mentioned... :)
Anyhow, it was nice to see that someone apparently thinks comics can help selling shoes.

Go get some VD

Would you drink something named "VD"...?

( Ad taken from Swedish Kamratposten #15 1963. I bet they had trouble if they tried to export it to the UK or US.
Now hear this, youngsters: If you try this, be protected and don't swallow! )

/Joakim.

From Barks to Don and Lynda

Wednesday=Barksday.

This time we have a thank you note from Barks to his friend Donald Ault and his wife Lynda.
Don unfortunately had to sell this piece a few years ago, along with other treasures he had.
Like the Floyd Gottfredson daily below.

Looking for Krazy Kat!

A few words from Craig Yoe:

"My book, Krazy Kat & The Art of George Herriman: A Celebration, is
quickly speeding toward completion--it's almost wrapped up! Tons of
original strip art, drawings, illustrated letters, photos of Herriman,
vintage articles, paintings including many, many jaw-dropping
unpublished pieces. This will be a large format coffetable art book published by Abrams. Introduction by Bill Watterson.

If you would like your Herriman piece to be included you should
contact me immediately. Unpublished pieces of course especially
welcomed. Hand colored strips--yay! Exceptional Sundays originals (I
know, they all are, but we have quite a few and now looking for the
creme de la creme). I really could use more dailies. My editor would
like more art in general with brick throwing! Any very rare vintage
rare newspaper or magazine articles--greatly desired. Rare Herriman
photos, and Krazy Kat toys and animation material, too.

Please spread the word on this to anyone you know with Herriman art or artifacts and
have them get in touch with me. Thanks to the many
collectors, museums and institutions who have already made generous
efforts to contribute to this book--I am most grateful. Please spread the news. Thank you deeply,--Craig Yoe
yoecomix at hotmail dot com"

[Image taken from onpanel.wordpress.com.]

Hedvig's birthday! :)

Today is my girlfriend Hedvig's birthday! :)
If you feel like it, drop by her blog and say hi. And at the same time you can check out some nifty pieces of artwork. Like these. Enjoy!



Now, I gotta rush downtown to meet her after work. Then it's out for a few drinks and a dinner. So long!

Barks at Emigrant Creek.

Wednesday = Barksday
A photo that I don't think has seen print. (?)
Looks like it was shot the same day as the photo labeled "Late 1920s" at carlbarks.dk's photogallery. But I have to disagree about that date.
To me, Barks looks more like he's in his early 50's.
[Edit: He's probably in his 30's. See Gunnar Andreassens comment.]

December drawings

Some odd December drawings by yours truly.

"Fiskvampyren Allan" means "Fish vampire Alan". Named so for no other reason than I think it sounds funny. :)

Artists and Models promo photo

Ever heard about the movie "Artists and models"?
It was released in 1937 and features some of the great illustrators of that time: Russell Patterson, Rube Goldberg, John LaGatta etc.
Checked my files and I found a promotional photo from that movie.
It features Peter Arno, Jack Benny (not an illustrator of course...) and McClelland Barclay, and is dated June 14, 1937. Enjoy!


While not beeing available on DVD yet TCM will show this in the US on February 23. And they have posted a few clips online! Including this one where we see Patterson and other artists drawing.
HERE are a few more clips.

Shhh! It's a secret!

A rare newspaper ad from April 9, 1941 that I found on eBay a while ago. The secret? Blondie and Dagwood's second child Cookie that first appeared on April 11.

Unfortunately I don't have the first Cookie strips but here are a few others from '41 (taken from an eBay listing), featuring Cookie and the rest of the Bumstead family.



And while we are at it here are "Prattle & Tattle" and "Town Topics". Two odd and unsigned strips that appeared in the Loris Sentiel in 1957. For those of you who just can't get enough of rare and unusual Newspaper comics. :)

If you like to see more obscure american comic strips: make sure to check out Stripper's Guide.

More Barks gags from the 40's

Wednesday=Barksday.
Some more gag cartoons as a follow up to the post I made in early December.






And as a bonus: A topless savage from the 40's. :)

Micke Mus

A long time ago the Swedish weekly magazines were family oriented and published lots of comics. Back in the 50's the Mickey Mouse sundays were published in Hemmets Veckotidning under the name "Micky Mus". (Although he was already known as "Musse Pigg" in the comic books. And "Musse Pigg" is still the name we use in Sweden.)

Since these weeklies were distributed over the whole country no other weekly magazine could print the MM sundays. Well, what to do if you were a publisher that wanted to have Mickey anyway?

Either the publisher or the syndicate came up with a "clever" solution: They mounted three old dailies (by Floyd Gottfredson) to a look like a sunday page. And to be on the safe side they changed the name to "Micke Mus". I don't know how long that lasted but here are two samples I found last summer. Both from a christian weekly called "Svenska Journalen".


The page numbered 83 is from #44/1945 and the page numbered 7 is oddly enough from #9/1946. They seem to have been published out of order, suggesting that they might have been used elsewhere first.

As a bonus for those of you who are interested in Swedish comics history here are three other comics from the 1946 issue.
Rather primitive, but this is what Swedish comics looked like in general at that time.

God save the mouse!

Couldn't resist posting this gem by Bobby London that's up for auction right now.
"God save the mouse" is naturally a reference to Sex Pistols punk hit/classic "God save the queen" from 1977. If you like Bobby London make sure you don't miss his Dirty Duck in Playboy magazine.
(For a really early Herriman influenced sample of Dirty Duck click HERE.)


Some really disturbing news on the radio right now. Sweden has about 200 wolves. (That's right, only two hundred!!!) The desicion has been made to shoot ca 20 of them. The slaughter is already taking place.
This is naturally totally insane. No doubt these hunters are the same kind of people that wants to shoot the remaining tigers and gorillas too. The same people who thinks it's OK to eat shark fin soup. Stupid, stupid people.
There are more hunters than wolves in Sweden.
Something has to be done about THAT...
I think you can read my mind...