Miscellany Day

  • Comics researcher Rob Stolzer is writing a bio on cartoonist Jay Irving. He’s discovered an ad from July 1923, shown above, for a sports strip called Bozo Blimp. Problem is that neither he nor I have ever found a newspaper appearance of this very early Irving effort. Can anyone help Rob with information about this strip?

  • I’m betting that there’s some Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan out there who can tell me who was responsible for what on the daily comic strip. The feature didn’t carry any credits. From an article by John Wells in Comics Buyers Guide #1208 (January 10 1997) I learned that the creators were, or included, Dean Clarrian, Ryan Brown, Jim Lawson and Dan Berger. Problem is I don’t know which were artists, which were writers, or when each of them worked on the strip. Can anyone help?

  • I am trying to complete my runs of Cartoonist Profiles and the old Cartoons Magazine. I have quite a few duplicate issues from these series if anyone wants to trade, or I’ll pay cash. I’m looking for:

Cartoonist Profiles #1, 132, 142

Cartoons Magazine
1912: February, March, April, May, June
1913: June, October
1914: March, May
1915: December
1921: July

  • For reasons unknown this sad news doesn’t seem to have gotten much press coverage. Al Scaduto, who has been handling the art chores on They’ll Do It Every Time since 1966, and the writing since 1991, passed away on December 8 2007. The syndicate has decided to end the feature when Scaduto’s material already in the pipeline runs out. Last releases were to be February 2 2008 (daily) and February 10 (Sunday). King Features has been syndicating the feature since 1929, and it was originally created by Jimmy Hatlo.

  • I’ve looked through my files and I can’t find a few things I know should be in there some darn place. Maybe someone out there happens to have cites at hand.

1- Looking for proof that Marvelous Mike, a 1956 United Feature strip by Bob Kuwahara, was chosen for syndication in some sort of national contest.

2- that Pat Oliphant made a public stink when Doonesbury won the Pulitzer in 1975.

Or are both of these events just conjured out of random neuron firings in my noggin?

  • Does someone who goes by the eBay moniker “fundaysunnies” happen to be a Stripper’s Guide reader? You won something on eBay recently that I’d very much like to ask you about.

17 comments on “Miscellany Day

  1. Hi Allan,

    I hadn’t heard about Oliphant criticizing when Doonesbury won the pulitzer (although I’m sure he probably did), but I’ve seen it mentioned many times that he criticized them when Berke Breathed won it… here’s a quote from Breathed about it:

    “In the world of hardcore editorial cartoons, there’s a small, unpleasant fellow with a very little penis, the result of a sneeze during circumcision, named Pat Oliphant—himself a Pulitzer winner—who threatened a boycott when my prize was announced in 1987. Those were the days.”

    The quote is from this interview:
    http://www.avclub.com/content/node/22539

    Hope that helps!

    Steven Stwalley
    stwallskull.com

  2. OK, you have me curious with that Kuwahara “Marvelous Mike” strip. I know he did a strip called “Miki” for few years, but I’ve never heard of that one. Any samples (of both strips) to share?

    Kuwahara was mostly in animation, specifically at Terrytoons, where he worked as an animator, and briefly a director. One of the characters he created was Hashimoto, about a Japanese mice family.

  3. Hi Allan,
    On my site, http://www.itsthecat.com/blog/, I’m currently reprinting “Marvelous Mike” from the first strip. Scans aren’t the greatest, they are from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch microfilm, but it will do until someone does a really good reprint book of “Mike” someday. I also paid tribute to Al Scaduto.
    I love your site, read it each day,
    Regards, Mark Kausler

  4. Regarding the Turtles – Jerry Bails’ Who’s Who site
    http://www.bailsprojects.com/(S(me2obr55nat1qz45varr2t45))/whoswho.aspx
    says that Clarrain was writer 1990 – 1994, Brown did pencils 1990 – 1991, Lawson did pencils 1990 – 1992, and Berger did inks 1990 – 1992.

    Other places have Michael Dooney and Steve Lavigne contributing to the strip, though I don’t know what they did.

    I have co-creators Eastman and Laird listed as co-editors, but they may have more to do with creator courtesy than reality.

    I think after everyone listed above went elsewhere it was Dan Berger who continued the strip as writer/artist. His (occasionally signed) strips are the one being run on gocomics these days.
    http://www.gocomics.com/teenagemutantninjaturtles/?ref=ql_cmcs

    One last thing – my notes say that “Dean Clarrain” is a pseudonym used by TMNT editor/writer Steve Murphy, but I can’t prove that.

  5. Hi Mark –
    I checked out your blog — a marvelous assortment of oddball stuff! A couple corrections about Kuwahara — Marvelous Mike was syndicated, not a strip done for the SLPD (you’ll find runs of Marv Mike in the Washington Post and the Long Island Star-Journal ferinstance). Also, Miki was not an ethnic strip — in fact its pretty much the SAME strip as Marvelous M, about a little kid.

    –Allan

  6. Hi Allan,
    Thanks for your comments on my blog. I did not mean to imply that Marvelous Mike was a SLPD exclusive, it’s the only run of the strip I have access to right now. Do you have any episodes of MIKI or BARKER BILL that you could post? I would love to see some of them. Thanks for all the Herriman Saturdays!
    Mark

  7. Hi Allan,
    One more thing I forgot to ask you, do you have an end date for MARVELOUS MIKE? It’s probably in 1957 or ’58, but I’m not sure.
    Thanks again, Mark

  8. Allan,
    Thanks for this end date! I am up to 9-14-57 in the Post so far, I will let you know what happens when I reach 9-21!
    Mark

  9. Hi Allan,
    Just found out today that the last MARVELOUS MIKE strip that ran in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch was 9-21-57, the ending date you gave me. Kuwahara wound up the whole storyline on that date, so he knew his strip was ending. Thanks for all your help.

  10. Jim Ivey sent me a copy of the article I was remembering where Marvelous Mike won a contest in order to become syndicated. I’ll run it on the blog soon. Yippee, I’m not senile after all!

    –Allan

  11. Hello, we recently bought several hundred Jay Irving watercolors & sketches for his comics – from sports subjects to Colliers Cops. We’re probably going to post on ebay, but please email me at laura@natedsanders.com if you’re interested in them.

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