Alfred Mazure's Romeo Brown

Wherefore Art Thou Romeo?
 
Romeo Brown first appeared in 1954 in London's Daily Mirror, home of the grandmother of "girlie" strips, Norman Pett's Jane. Romeo Brown was a clueless private detective who fancied himself irresistible. His mysteries always found him surrounded by beautiful girls wearing clothes that never stayed on. The drawings were by Alfred Mazure, a Dutch-born illustrator with a long and interesting career both at home and in England. (I'll talk about his background in my next post.) Mazure drew the strip through 1957.

Romeo Brown is poorly-documented and its history is obscure. Many online sources credit writer Peter O'Donnell as co-creator with Mazure. This is clearly an error: O'Donnell began writing Romeo in 1956. No one seems to know from whom he took over. In an interview O'Donnell merely said he was offered the job because "the editor was dissatisfied." Given that Mazure had written his own scripts in the past, might he have been the original Romeo writer? Maybe, but several sources state that Mazure, after working with O'Donnell for a year, left Romeo to launch "his own creation," Carmen & Co., at a rival newspaper. If he'd been the original Romeo Brown author, wouldn't Romeo count as his "own creation"? At any rate, following Mazure's departure O'Donnell continued writing and Jim Holdaway took over the art chores. We all know where those two wound up. (One source said Holdaway had been Mazure's assistant, but I haven't found confirmation of this.)

In a 2002 online interview, O'Donnell described the strip thus: "Romeo Brown was a comic private detective, and my brief was that every story was to revolve around a girl or girls, and the more clothes I could safely get off them the better."

The Holdaway-O'Donnell Romeo Brown has gained a small international following, though reprints are few. It's too bad that Mazure's Romeo has suffered as a result. While Mazure's free, brushy style and Holdaway's sharp-focused penwork were worlds apart, both men were excellent cartoonists and both did a fine job on Romeo Brown.

Perhaps the greatest difference between the two artists' approaches was in posing. Holdaway developed a broad slapstick approach, while Mazure's work was always tempered by fashion-art elegance.  As we see in the present story, languid, long-legged realistic women co-exist with broadly-cartooned men. Romeo himself has a cucumber head and shoebutton eyes, while his adversaries' husbands--one a wizened alcoholic, the other a bloated bureaucrat--are so incongruous that the reader wonders what the girls see in them. However there's no question what their husbands see in them.

As a fan of both men's work, I'm reluctant to label one the "better" artist. All the same, I'd like to suggest that though Holdaway brought a more consistent, more exciting look to the strip, he never managed to best his predecessor in one area: drawing pretty women. Don't misunderstand me. Holdaway's beauties had great bodies. Their faces were cute. But Mazure could draw a face that was knock-down gorgeous. He proves it in this episode, especially with Pussy, the more free-wheeling of the larcenous ladies. Mazure knew he had a good thing going, and provided us a wealth of ravishing closeups. These faces showcase the best features of Maz' bold, free brushwork.

The following story begins with strip N208. British strips I've seen with letter/number identifiers use the letter to identify which story it is (A for the first story, B for the second, etc.) and the number to indicate where the strip falls within the story (so A1 is first story, first daily and E65 is fifth story, 65th daily). That doesn't seem to be the system here  "N" may mean the 14th story, but "208" must mean something else. Probably not the cumulative number of strips--that would yield an average of only 15 strips per story!

I have never found Mazure's work in English. This story came from an Italian fanzine called Wow. I translated their script back into English. But it's possible that the Italians shot their strips from a French reprint. In that case my approximate script is three generations removed from the original dialogue. But we're here for the pictures anyway, right?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now that we've all admired these beautiful drawings, will someone please explain the talking neck shot in strip N218???!

George Wunder Originals, 1947

Original George
Since I seem to be on a George Wunder kick, I dug out my two and only Terry originals by GW. Both date from 1947. I bought them through an ad in the Menomonee Falls Gazette. They've suffered over the last forty years, having barely escaped a major ceiling-leak that destroyed much of my collection in the mid-1980s. Water chewed the bottom of the first panel of the earlier daily and both took on those brown dots which I believe are called "foxing." They're gems none the less.

Here is the daily for 14 July 1947. It comes near the end of the Theodore Bor continuity from which I've been posting Sunday pages. I've said before that I feel Wunder wasn't a great dialogue writer. In support of this view I offer the amazingly convoluted sentence in panel two.

The other original is the daily for 27 October. This is the beginning of the storyline which introduced Spray O'Hara. Spray chummed around with the boys for some time, then married Hotshot Charlie. Before long both were out of the strip. I remember reading somewhere that Wunder felt the marriage was a mistake because it severely limited Hotshot's usefulness as a sidekick. For several years afterward Wunder tried out replacements.

By examining the originals closely (they're huge--over 20 inches wide) I noted a couple of technical tidbits. I was interested to see that in many panels Wunder seems to have outlined everything first before applying shadow. For example in the second panel of 10/27 you can see Terry's eyes, nose and mouth were inked with a pen. These details were obscured by shadow. Other bits include buttons and folds on Pat's suit jacket and the steps and runner on the stairs in panel 3. This doesn't seem always to have been the case, though. I can't see signs of Chopstick Joe's hat line, ears, or collar under the shadow in panel one. Of course they might have been inked with a brush rather than a pen, in which case they wouldn't show.

The ink is remarkably black and dense. Few brush strokes are visible within the black areas. Either Wunder laid ink on really thick or the ink he used was much denser than modern inks. Maybe both. I also see that in the last panel an excess word ("to" at the end of the second line) was scratched off with a blade, yet the paper's surface is barely damaged. Sure can't do that with present-day Bristol board!

George Wunder Terry Sundays 1947--2

Nine Days' Wunder

I have no idea whether anyone is interested in these things, but as long as I have them I'll post a few more before giving it up as a waste of time. Here are nine more Terry Sundays from George Wunder's first year on the strip. In these 1947 halves Wunder begins his second storyline. The femme fatale from the previous story, Ermine Toy(!), returns in the company of Theodore Bor, an amazing fat man of the sort only Wunder could have designed. Chopstick Joe continues his supporting role and Terry's old pal Pat Ryan makes a final appearance. Again--regrettably--some strips are missing.

[UPDATE: I didn't get my facts straight. This is not Pat Ryan's final appearance. He continues into the next story, the one introducing Spray O'Hara.]

Ermine Toy represents something that irked me about Wunder's early stories. Under Milton Caniff Terry's romances had always been a big part of the strip. Wunder continued that tradition. The difference is that we could understand Terry falling in love with Caniff's women. (With the possible exception of Burma, who was plagued by the temporal paradox of having met Terry when he was a schoolboy.) Instead Wunder hooked the guy up with a string of wackos that leaves us wondering what the hell Terry saw in them. Murderous, bitchy, vain, manipulative...the prize of the lot was Baroness Popoffnikoff, who was so self-centered that she secretly dumped a cargo of desperately-needed relief supplies to make room for her fancy wardrobe. All these women had to do was approach within twenty feet of Terry, and he would instantly jettison all common sense and fall madly in love.

After awhile Wunder switched the romances to secondary characters, like Hotshot Charlie and his future wife, Spray O'Hara. This was a wise move, as it saved Terry from seeming a complete idiot. These other women were however cut from cloth similar to that of Terry's ex-paramours.

Visually Ermine is a knockout. As Wunder's angular style of character design evolved, women's faces suffered the most. Ermine combines Wunder and a bit of Caniff with excellent results. In my opinion Ermine was Wunder's hottest hottie.

I also need to mention Chopstick Joe. Wunder's work always contained a streak of humorous exaggeration, and Chopstick Joe was right up his alley. Though Caniff created Joe, it was Wunder who brought him to life. Design, posing, even his dialogue, make Chopstick Joe one of my favorite Wunder characters.

16 March 1947

23 March 1947

6 April 1947

13 April 1947

27 April 1947

11 May 1947

18 May 1947

25 May 1947

8 Jun 1947

Next time: respite from Wunder puns.

George Wunder Terry Sundays 1947--1

The Wunder of it All
I read that Hermes Press is reprinting the first two years of George Wunder's Terry and the Pirates. It's a welcome project, though a 9x12-inch book isn't likely to full justice to Wunder's artwork, Especially the Sundays. I feel a shiver whenever I read that Sundays will be "thoroughly restored."

In a recent post Ger Apeldoorn offered black-and-white samples of early George Wunder Terrys. As it happens, a couple of the Sundays which open Ger's post are the ones missing from my stack of 1947 tear sheets. Wunder took over Terry and the Pirates on 30 December 1946. As Ger notes, when he started drawing the strip Wunder followed Caniff's lead for a while before developing his personal style. However this was true mostly with character faces: Wunder's highly-detailed, heavily-inked approach to drapery and settings changed the strip's look immediately. Ger's posting prompted me to dig out my box of old Sundays and scan the few examples I have of Wunder's first Terry continuity.

In this story Wunder polishes off two major Caniff characters. Wunder only used six members of Caniff's vast cast. Three enjoyed long runs. Hotshot Charlie continued as Terry's comic sidekick for several more years. Eventually he married Spray O'Hara and left the strip. Chopstick Joe, a shady Chinese entrepreneur, was the boys' sometime employer in the years preceding Terry's return to the Air Force. The unforgettable Dragon Lady continued to pop in and out during the life of the strip, looking different every time. The other three holdovers were Terry's big-brother surrogate Pat Ryan, arch-villain Tony Sandhurst and the voiceless giant Big Stoop. Pat returns briefly in Wunder's second continuity, then fades forever. Sandhurst and Big Stoop make their final appearances in this episode.

As a young fan I used to wonder why Wunder didn't use more of Caniff's famous characters. Over the years I realized Wunder probably knew he'd never satisfy anyone with his take on the likes of Burma, Normandie, Flip Corkin, and the other wartime friends and foes Caniff had made famous. I'll wager he decided to make a clean break and create his own group of players who could rise or fall on their own merits. Except for the Dragon Lady; he'd have been a fool to dump her. At any rate, Wunder's story philosophy was different from Caniff's. Instead of complex, intertwining storylines with characters disappearing and reappearing, Wunder told self-contained stories. He almost never brought a character back.

The following Sundays were published in February and March of 1947. Sorry about the missing dates; check Ger's site to view some of them.

2 Feb 1947

16 Feb 1947

23 Feb 1947

2 Mar 1947

9 Mar 1947

Frank Godwin at Home

Frank Godwin in the 1930s

Frank Godwin, Party Animal
One of the wonderful things about the Internet is the way you find valuable information in places you never thought to look. For example I finally unearthed an example of Alfred Sindall's Paul Temple art on a website devoted to media depictions of ventriloquism (because the Temple story concerned a ventriloquist).

I recently stumbled across another gem: a remarkable glimpse into the everyday life of Frank Godwin during the 1930s. It seems that in 1928 Godwin and his third wife, Sylvia, bought a "cottage" called Fallbrook in upstate New York. The article I found was written by Kihm Winship, an historian of Fallbrook's neighborhood, the lakeside village called  Skaneateles. Curious about the house's history, Winship discovered that Godwin had made the home a sort of "artist's colony," entertaining not only other artists but A-list celebrities like James Thurber. The Godwins held legendary house parties. Though one source called them "wild," a description by Thurber makes the parties sound not like drunken debauches, but rather extended weekends full of fishing, boating, hiking and long luxurious dinners--the sorts of things wealthy Upstate New Yorkers did in Nancy Drew novels.

Sylvia Godwin in the 1930s

I'm not going to paraphrase this excellent essay; rather I charge you to visit the site yourself. You'll find a bio of Frank's wife Sylvia, who not only ran the house but toured South America and brought back textiles which she exhibited at an art museum. You'll also find some great visuals--not only the photos I reproduce above, but also a Godwin family Christmas card, shots of the house, and candid photos of visiting celebs. Be sure to read the comments. People connected to the house, including Godwin descendants, offer further details.

Photo source: http://kihm6.wordpress.com/2011/02/02/frank-godwin-a-genius-on-the-lakeshore/

Frank Godwin Connie Sundays 1935

Miss Mystery, 1935
Here are scans of four tabloid Sundays of Frank Godwin's Connie.They appeared in the Milwaukee Journal in 1935. I bought them a long time ago (you can guess how long by noting that the ad appeared in the Menomonee Falls Gazette).

At the time I had seen only one Connie Sunday, a translated, undated reproduction in a French fanzine. It was  part of a continuity and was drawn in Godwin's familiar Flagg-Gibson style. So I was surprised to find these Sundays to be self-contained "mysteries of the week" drawn in the simpler style of the early Connie dailies. That would change within a year, because by 1936 Connie was a full-blooded adventure continuity strip. The Sunday stories didn't tie into the dailies, which was a good thing. Few papers carried Connie dailies; fewer yet ran the Sundays.

20 January 1935:

27 January 1935:

3 February 1935:

10 February 1935:

Frank Langford, Jack and Jill

 He She, Ho Hum
Today we see examples of a long-running but poorly-documented British daily strip, "Jack and Jill."  According to Lambiek it ran in the Herald and Sun tabloids, but I've been unable to determine just when. These strips were printed in translation in an Italian comic collection called Eureka Drink, dated 1975. Eureka was one of many 1970s Italian magazines reprinting both old and new comic strips from around the world. While Italian fan publishers were positively anal about providing publication dates for strips they reprinted, periodicals like Eureka almost never did. In fact they seldom gave much information about the features beyond the creators' names.

"Jack and Jill" was a daily gag strip featuring a young married couple. Jack works in an office; Jill stays at home. In the strip's first week they discover "the Pill didn't work" and Jill is pregnant. The jokes are divided between his office and her pregnancy. Around strip #230 Jill has twins. That's all I know because that's where the Italian reprint ends.

"Jack and Jill" was written by Les Lilley, a giant of British comics. The Independent's 1998 obituary called Lilley "...a scriptwriter of literally thousands of strip cartoons and gags...[and] a man who spent many years of his life endeavoring to promote that Cinderella of the comic arts in the public consciousness." Alone and with others Lilley wrote not just for comics but also for TV. He started the Cartoonists' Club of Great Britain and became President of the Federation of European Cartoonists' Organizations. Among his countless projects, American fans may recognize "The Seekers," "Tiffany Jones," and "Scarth."

(source: anthonyscomicbookart.com)

"Jack and Jill's" lovely drawings were by Frank Langford, a prolific English comics artist who didn't leave much of a biographical footprint. His best-known UK comics were TV-related strips like "Lady Penelope"  and "The Persuaders" and an s-f strip called "The Angry Planet." In the 1970s he drew several romance stories for DC Comics, probably the only time US fans ever saw his work. Langford drew a slew of advertising strips in the UK and apparently did movie posters as well. Langford appears to have died in 1998, the year of Les Lilley's passing.

In 2008 the Bear Alley blog hosted a long thread about Langford with input from the artist's niece, who provided much interesting information--including the fact that Langford was born Cyril Eidlestein but later changed his name.

Though Les Lilley was a fine writer, "Jack and Jill" was minor stuff with very lightweight gags. Frank Langford's artwork is definitely the strip's main draw.  Langford quickly developed a clean, figure-centered style. He seldom went in for elaborate backgrounds or dramatic effects, but that didn't hurt the strip. His men were handsome, his women beautiful, and his line elegant and assured.

Eureka Drink ran some 60 pages of "Jack and Jill." What follows are six typical pages. They've been re-translated from the Italian, of course, so heaven knows what the original dialogue was. At least you can get an idea what the story was about.

IDW Star Trek Strip Reprint

Thomas Warkentin's Star Trek Revisited

IDW have released the first of two books reprinting the Los Angeles Times' early-80s Star Trek newspaper strip. It's a classy production: a 272-page 8.5 x 11 hardback with dust jacket. Sunday pages are reproduced in color. This volume presents all the strips by Thomas Warkentin, the original writer/artist, and about half of the ones I illustrated. The second volume will finish my run and go on to the Shigetani, Myers, Colon, and Kulpa periods.

Re-reading Warkentin's stories I was reminded how very good they were. Thomas obeyed the Daily Strip Commandments--brisk stories and concise dialogue--yet he always delivered an extra bit of characterization and a clever plot twist.

His artwork was equally enjoyable. His likenesses of Spock, McCoy, Scotty and friends were just right. I especially liked his McCoy. Over time his Kirk evolved from looking like Shatner into a more generic hero, but it didn't harm things. I think the change was driven by limited reference material. Back then about the only source of useful reference was the series of comics-style Trek paperbacks using frame blowups from the TV shows. One quickly realized how often TV directors used identical setups for close-ups of major characters.

Thomas was a meticulous craftsman with a gift for drawing spacecraft and mechanical backgrounds.  This served him well on Star Trek. In a few words, the strip looked great. I heartily recommend this book--with the warning that it costs fifty bucks. The price isn't bad considering you get a quality package But it's still fifty bucks.

By the way, I don't get a piece of the sales, so my recommendation carries no ulterior motive. You get a lot of good reading for your dough. Buy the book if you can afford it.

Brick Bradford Revisited

The Brick of Human Kindness
In an earlier post I ruminated upon my ambivalent relationship with Brick Bradford, the "other" 1930s s-f adventure strip. In brief, it was a strip full of interesting ideas overwhelmed by meandering scripts and indifferent artwork.

While looking for bathtub reading recently I stumbled upon a small press reprint of "The Lord of Doom," a Bradford continuity from 1936. I realized I'd only read the story once before, and that was Club Anni Trenta's Italian translation. So I gave it another look.

Like many of William Ritt's yarns, "The Lord of Doom" is a huge story, running for nearly a year (13 Apr 1936 to 6 Feb 1937). The tale opens with Brick, June, and Dr. Salisbury crash-landing in the arctic wastes of northeastern Canada. They discover a hidden nation populated by descendants of Ghengis Khan's Mongol warriors. The place is technologically advanced and bristles with modern weaponry.



When they're brought before Temuchin, ruler of the hidden land, our friends are surprised to recognize Gola Mongola, a noted Hollywood actor. Mongola, it seems, was sent into the outside world as a youth to study foreign ways and plan for an ivasion. The Mongols are fed up with their hard life in the arctic wilderness. They want to seize territory in Canada and the United States so they can relocate to a friendlier climate. With the aid of brilliant scientist Kalla Kopak, Temuchin has amassed vast army and air forces. The Mongol invasion is about to begin.



The rest of the story describes the war between the raiders and the North American nations. The narrative alternates between a long view of warfronts and troop movements and a close-up view of Brick's adventures. Professor Salisbury helps the allies deploy an "electric wall" across central Canada. The wall is a series of stations transmitting a ray that causes moving metal parts to congeal into a single mass. There is a chilling scene in which Temuchin's planes first encounter the invisible wall. The entire fleet falls from the sky as engines and control surfaces freeze solid. Their modern weapons rendered useless, the warring armies revert to cavalry  and foot soldiers. The Mongols attempt to break through a section of the front not yet protected by the wall. Canadian, American and Mexican troops beat them back.


Ritt describes the war in elaborate detail. As the opposing forces mass for their first combat the story switches to "real time." Each daily strip presents the events of a day in Bradford's universe. The device becomes unwieldy when Brick's personal adventures move to center stage and Ritt wisely abandons it.


Our hero survives numerous clashes on both sides of the front. Several times he enlists the help of a plucky Canadian boy, a short wave radio enthusiast whose home always seems to be nearby when Brick's plane crashes.

This reliance on coincidence spoils a potentially exciting story. The North Americans' final victory arises from two credulity-straining events. To begin with the allies notice that Brick resembles one of Temuchin's lieutenants who died in battle. They disguise Brick as the officer and send him across the enemy lines to penetrate Temuchin's inner circle. Whereupon the warlord notices his lieutenant's resemblance to Brick...and sends him back to spy on the allies "disguised" as Brick Bradford! By the time Temuchin figures things out Brick has communicated all the invaders' plans to the good guys.


Equally unimpressive is the incident that finally ends the war. Ignoring his officers' advice Temuchin flies a solo sortie over allied lines. He is promptly shot down and taken prisoner. In captivity Temuchin realizes his cause is hopeless. He gives up and sends orders to Kalla Kopak to surrender.

It's a disappointing way to end the story, but Ritt saves it with a last-minute surprise. Following the surrender Bradford sympathizes with the Mongols' desire to escape the frozen tundra. He proposes that Temuchin's people be allowed to emigrate to the United States. Brick personally lobbies the League of Nations to permit the former enemy to resettle in the central states and to take a shot at becoming productive citizens of the World's Greatest Country.


It must be remembered that when "The Lord of Doom" was written America was living through one of its many periods of belligerent xenophobia. Popular literature teemed with sinister Orientals leading yellow hordes. For Brick to offer a vanquished enemy--a vanquished Asian enemy--such generosity is astounding.

Brick's faith proves well-founded. The new immigrants thrive. They even carve a commemorative bust of Brick into a mountain overlooking one of their new cities. Kalla Kopak becomes Brick's friend. In subsequent stories he is Brick's Dr. Zarkov, sharing the hero's exploits. Kopak's origin is quickly forgotten as is with the war itself. Forgotten it may be, but in my book Brick's handling of the invasion's aftermath wins him permanent standing as a first-class hero.


 
Postscript: Sorry I was able only to reproduce part of most of these dailies. My regular scanner was unavailable and this damned "all-in-one" monstrosity wouldn't fit an entire page without wrecking the book. All reproductions are from a two-volume "Limited Edition  for Collectors" with no publisher information.