Al Capp in "Se" 1954

Here's something I saw in the window of an used book store in Gothenburg last week.

A copy of "Se" ("Look") from 1954. For only 10 sek! (Less than $2)
I grabbed it at the sight of a Schmoo on the cover.
(For those of you not familar with Schmoos:
It's not the beauty to the right. :)
It's the small white creature in the lower left corner.)

And here's the spread on Al Capp and Li'l Abner from that issue.

Here's a bonus image from that issue that I just couldn't resist. Enjoy!

Puzzle Pt III

Time for another piece. This time we got the left hand bottom corner.

 

And I found a prize for the winner! More info in the next puzzle post.

A Merry Christmas from Frank King

[The original art to this x-mas card by Frank King recently surfaced on eBay.]

Puzzle Pt II

Time for the second piece.

 

Now, we need a prize to make this competition interesting, don't we? 

Let's see what I can find...

Puzzle Pt I

Just for fun, here's the first piece of a puzzle.
The other pieces will follow over the next few weeks.
Now, let's see who will be first to identify exactly what this is. ;)

/Joakim.

PS. Happy Holidays to all of you!

The Donald Duck backup issues Part II

As promised, here are some more photos from the "lost" issues of Kalle Anka & C:o/Anders And & Co.  [See previous post HERE.]

As you can see the small package has plenty of proofs in various stages. Some are lettered in Swedish, some in English and some have no text at all, but separate scripts instead. D-coded stories are mixed with stories from USA, Holland and Italy.

It's worth to mention that a few of these stories are unpublished.

Did we have fun browsing throught these stories? You bet. ;)

Let's take a closer look at some of the items.

First we have the compilation list for No 8.

Then the title pages to a few unpublished D-coded stories. 

Now, the big question is: What was in the big package? I had hoped for some long lost Al Hubbard original art pages, or something like that... But no such luck.

What we found was proofs pasted up on heavy card board.

If you click on the image below you can see how an Italian story was re-formatted to standard Scandinavian format.

And there were even a few unpublished Rydahl covers.

I hope you enjoyed this glimpse of "what could have been".
:)

/Joakim.

The Popeye x-mas calendar

If you are a fan of Popeye you shouldn't miss Jimmy Wallin's Popeye blog.

It's in Swedish but it's loaded with artwork and comics for your eyes to enjoy.
(You can always use the Google Translated version of the site if you prefer a rough English version of the blog.)
However, don't expect scans of old strips or comic books.
No, the artwork is all new.
Besides a weekly "sunday page" written and drawn by Jimmy himself there's an x-mas calendar going on right now with "fan art" by Swedish comic book artists.
My contribution appeared on Dec 2 and I had the pleasure to do the Jeep.

Here are a few of the other contributions:

Artwork by: Åke Forsmark, Natalia Batista, Alf Woxnerud and Hedvig.

/Joakim.

PS. I havn't forgotten about the second part of "The Donald Duck backup issues". I'll try to post the second part this weekend. [Edit: Or so I thought. Am I ever so optimistic or what...]

Saint Lucy's day today

Meeeeeeeeow from Hedvig and her Lucy cats!

Genius x 3 and Barney too

Some great news for all of us Toth fans!

The book "Genius, Isolated: The Life and Art of Alex Toth" has expanded into a slipcased three book set! Read more HERE!

Barney Google
Got the new Barney Google book produced by Yoe Books!
And it's everything I expected it to be, and more. Besides all of the dailies from 5-18 to 12-26 1922  there's also loads of rare artwork shot straight from the original art, and plenty of photos of Billy DeBeck.
If you like funny stuff, and now I'm talking really laughing-out-loud-funny stuff, you should get this volume. Don't be scared about he fact that the strips are nearly 90 years old. The reason Barney Google was such a big success was that DeBeck, like Roy Crane and other greats, wrote in a more "modern" way than most of their contemporaries. It's still funny and gives us a glipse of 1920's life in the US.
Now, go get it!
Time's a wastin'!

Who is this guy?

A few years ago these photos of Jim Holdaway appeared in a Swedish Modesty Blaise collection.

Now, the question is: Who is the guy in the photo to the right?
I doubt it's Holdaway. The editor told me that the photo came from the syndicate, so I guess it's another comic artist/writer?
Modesty Blaise related in any way? Just curious. :)

/Joakim.

PS.
Here's a photo of Jim for comparison:

Adv. of Patsy page added

Just added a page with some samples from the newspaper strip "The Adventures of Patsy" by Mel Graff and Charles Raab.
You can find it above or by clicking HERE.

/Joakim.