Panel Discussion - The ILX Comic Strip Poll Results

=65: BUZ SAWYER by Roy Crane (41 points, 3 votes)
On The Web

Roy Crane created the adventure comic strip with Wash Tubbs, and many a superhero owes a debt to Crane’s square-jawed, hard-hitting adventurer Captain Easy. But during World War II, he left the Captain Easy strip to create a more realistic fighting man, a Navy pilot named John Singer Sawyer, who fought in the Pacific Theater from 1943 until V-J Day in 1945, and whose adventures continued under Crane's pen for three more decades.
"If I had to pick a favorite [classic comic-strip reprint] right now, I’d say the Fantagraphics reprints of Buz Sawyer by Roy Crane. I just love the energy, humor, adventure and charm of them." – Kurt Busiek quoted at Fanta

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/a7/Buzjune44.jpg/550px-Buzjune44.jpg

http://www.bordercrashcomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Roy-Crane-Buz-Sawyer.jpg

http://cdn.comicartfans.com/Images/Category_3563/subcat_29143/CraneD01031977.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-g4GZ377sBkA/TW-g5aIdh5I/AAAAAAAAQfg/3wO323lQifE/s1600/crane03.jpg

http://cdn.coollinesartwork.com/Images/Category_2/subcat_29143/RoyCraneBuzSawyerDaily10181950.jpg

haven't read any buz sawyer, but the wash tubbs sequence in the smithsonian collection is outstanding.

busiek loving crane makes perfect sense

and at the top of the 65 bracket:

=65: ANDY CAPP by Reg Smythe (41 points, 4 votes)
Longform Best Of 2012

“[Reg Smythe] is the most popular English humorist with Americans since Charles Dickens.” -
      - Al Capp

http://www.benzilla.com/uploads/2007/09/andy_capp.jpg

http://cdn.comicartfans.com/Images/Category_3563/subcat_29856/SMYTHEREGAndyCapp61473.jpg

http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20140225171859/ukcomics/images/b/bf/Andy-Capp.jpg

http://api.ning.com/files/kxOsEzy6ZB1FEQjO-kIkk6cRQCcUsmGCRXK0fXpvO*dnbsOC6dD0N0xawo5hFVQcEh1D3GY0kMU-u1Y5qP9Gi3Zuwem57PuL/Andy_Capp_2.jpg

That violent alcoholic is comedy gold i tell ya

That longform piece is really good btw.

i'll give it a look

is Andy Capp the only character to appear in this poll who has been adopted as a mascot by ultras?

http://paper-fang.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/youre-some-hero-andy-capp.html

that depends. what are ultras?

I missed voting on this, but how on earth do Chick tracts count as "comic strips"? They are printed as multi-page "books" that tell one story, seems to me they're comic books, not strips.

we already did this exchange upthread when the poll shifted hands, on the other thread that you didn't vote in and forever and ever over and over until we all die and our bodies are mulched, used to make newsprint with terrible comics printed on it and then we are wrapped around dead fish

or more to the point, if you are disturbed by the inclusion a selection of cartoons placing at #65 in an obscure website's yearlong roll out of a grass roots poll conducted among twenty people (that, incidentally, doesn't even include you) solely because of how those strips are bound, may i recommend:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dI_AoUDReOU

I don't remember the exchange either. When did it take place, 16 months ago when this poll was created?

Freak Bros shouldn't count either.

Freak Bros do count -

The Freak Brothers first appeared in The Rag, an underground newspaper published in Austin, Texas, beginning in May 1968; and were regularly reprinted in underground papers around the United States and in other parts of the world. Later their adventures were published in a series of comic books.

Chick tracts don't.

Didn't know that about the FFB.

There's got to be some scary newspaper somewhere in the United States that runs Jack Chick tracts as some kind of Rex Morgan serial. If there isn't, I've got an idea to pitch to my publisher.

60: SALLY FORTH by Greg Howard (42 points, 3 votes)
paperback (used) from 10c

idk man, this isn’t the Wally Wood tits-out army strip?

https://comicskingdom.com/system/blog/2012/01/archivist_SFT19820104.png

oh dear god i hate that fuckin strip

sally forth the only strip i can think of where the guy who took over the strip (the medium large guy) i know better than the original artist

http://comicsidontunderstand.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/12.gif

in fairness the one i hate is the one in papers now, that original version is unsettlingly different -- reminds me more of the lockhorns, what with the huge heads and characters yelling at each other instead of just smiling blandly and smirking at each other.

=59: WASH TUBBS by Roy Crane (43 points, 3 votes)
a 1932-33 sequence

Wash Tubbs didn't begin as an adventure strip. Landon wanted down-home humor and dictated that the Wash character work as a store clerk. Crane had other ideas and within a year bespectacled little Wash had hung up his clerk's apron for a fortune-hunting jaunt in the South Seas. He never went back.
Crane's strip adventures were given a tongue in cheek treatment from the very beginning. Wash Tubbs was an extroverted and exuberant strip with a sense of fun to match the adventure. Sound effects blasted from the panels with a blast of stars and exclamation points. The fights, a Crane trademark, were often brutal, drawn with an excellent feel for fluid anatomy, and had a certain cheerfulness about them. Fight sequences in Crane's strips could take days of continuity, rather than the one or two panels other strips used. Wash himself often enthusiastically participated in the kicking, biting, wrestling brawls, but he was fairly puny, somewhat resembling a diminutive Harold Lloyd.
Wash needed a sidekick and in 1928 Captain Easy was introduced into the strip. Easy was the adventurer Tubbs had aspired to be, a brawler and a soldier of fortune with a mysterious past. It was a perfect team up and gradually Captain Easy became the strip's central character. By 1933 Easy was given his own Sunday page, while the Wash and Easy team continued on in the Wash Tubb dailies. In the 1940s the two strips were combined as Captain Easy.
- Steve Stiles

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PT72gIOi-ms/TeewoE7z7HI/AAAAAAAABpE/qqfeJCETh9c/s1600/rc05.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fmMhDKPB4Y0/TeewdIlIbRI/AAAAAAAABo8/juPioi6gMc4/s1600/rc08.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4x069DIpIQ4/Tee0TvJlnJI/AAAAAAAABr0/b-0DyJiwJ9c/s1600/rc31.jpg

"There is no gay, feminine companionship."

Only bears on that ship, then?

=59: STEVE CANYON by Milt Caniff (43 points, 4 votes)
reproduced in color directly from Milton Caniff's personal set of syndicate proofs;featuring every Sunday in color and the daily strips in their original, uncropped versions.

The prominent display there of Lynx’s bosom was too much for many readers: hell hath no fury like that of parents who believe their children are being corrupted into thinking about sex. Letters poured in to subscribing papers. - R.C. Harvey

http://cdn.comicartfans.com/Images/Category_61/subcat_4512/caniff-steve-canyon.jpg

http://cdn.comicartfans.com/Images/Category_3563/subcat_29062/Canyon1950sSun.jpg

http://cdn.comicartfans.com/Images/Category_3563/subcat_29270/CaniffSteve04101951.jpg

http://cdn.comicartfans.com/Images/Category_13014/subcat_34278/cancanypicc.jpg

http://d1g4sq00ps2bp3.cloudfront.net/images/4455.jpg

http://cdn.comicartfans.com/Images/Category_38701/subcat_110367/Milton%20Caniff%20Steve%20Canyon%20.jpg

http://beyondthebunker.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/kirby-caniff-steve-canyon-1961-sunday.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VI5bJV2LucI/UVTLAS8-clI/AAAAAAAAHgs/_uuQCMl81w4/s600/Milton_Caniff-Steve_Canyon.jpg

http://cdn.comicartfans.com/Images/Category_3563/subcat_29270/CanyonD03231956.jpg

sic can you tell me if you got a ballot from me y/n?

not this week, I'm away, but 98% sure that I (/previous pollrunners) did

k cool bcz I remember starting to make one and maybe even finishing one but I cd not find it in my Sent folder!

=57: BRINGING UP FATHER by Geo McManus (44 points, 3 votes)
Archival samples.

Bringing Up Father told the story of Irish-American Jiggs, a former bricklayer, and his wife Maggie, an ex-laundress, who came into sudden wealth. While the snobbish Maggie and beautiful daughter Nora (referred to various times as Katy and Mamie in the strip's early days) constantly try to "bring up" Father to his new social position, Jiggs can think of nothing finer than sitting down at Dinty Moore's restaurant to finish off several dishes of corned beef and cabbage, followed by a night out with the boys from the old neighborhood. The clash of wills that ensued often resulted in flying rolling-pins, smashed crockery, and broken vases, all aimed in the general direction of Jiggs's skull.

http://comicskingdom.com/system/blog/2012/12/Bringing_Up_Father_1913-strips.png

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Bringupfather-comic1920.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iqL22lHxzHs/TnzXWKR3BXI/AAAAAAAAG_I/ke7HdiwFp7E/s1600/Wrigley+Ad+-+Bringing+Up+Father+-+6-6-26.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VF-11hNyS1Q/T5b9rUOsbHI/AAAAAAAAEmU/rbUfUeuuAiA/s1600/Bringing-Up-Father-19360112.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_SvmlM7-oNw0/S9nOjNbCJXI/AAAAAAAARug/_0TfN5VzqE0/s1600/bringing+up+Father.jpg

http://www.walrusmagazine.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/fatherpanel.jpg

=57: DREAM OF THE RAREBIT FIEND by Winsor McCay (44 points, 3 votes)
Torrent on archive.org

Eat cheese at night, trip out in your sleep.

http://www.comicstriplibrary.org/images/comics/dream-of-the-rarebit-fiend/dream-of-the-rarebit-fiend-19041014-l.png

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Dream_of_the_Rarebit_Fiend_1905-01-28.jpg

http://cdn.comicartfans.com/Images/Category_4398/subcat_13732/McCay%20-%20Rarebit%20Fiend%201906-04-14.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--bGht5kcc-g/Tyf1ydfHh3I/AAAAAAAAA80/cXS3qvw2dSs/s1600/200-11.JPG

http://classconnection.s3.amazonaws.com/828/flashcards/856828/png/*windsor_mccay__dream_of_the_rarebit_fiend__april_7__1909_1336530921197.png

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xR1wW9HnQPA/Ts0yBL4ZKSI/AAAAAAAACJs/KdEsyOzI7eY/s1600/dreamoftherarebitfiend.png

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Winsor_McCay_-_Dream_of_the_Rarebit_Fiend_1913-05-25.png

http://www.forbiddenplanet.co.uk/blog/wp2013/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/katherine-roeder-commentary-winsow-mccay-dream-rarebit-fiend.jpg

=55: OGLAF by Trudy Cooper and Doug Bayne (46 points, 3 votes)
Oglaf.

Creators of Platinum Grit give up on freeform print whimsy for sexy, squishy fantasy parody on the web.

http://i.imgur.com/i5zyXhY.png

http://img0.joyreactor.com/pics/post/oglaf-comics-nsfw-time-travel-1047749.jpeg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XUvhNhFTMYA/T6fZRgsp7hI/AAAAAAAABtk/IZrnmtAg-A0/s1600/0047+also_elves.jpg

those rarebit fiend strips are amazing

^ can't really be said enough

this next one should have been the previous one:

=55: SCARY-GO-ROUND by John Allison (46 points, 2 votes)

I can’t find an accessible archive online. Here, buy four books’ worth and figure it out for yourself.

Supernatural high-school & twentysomething series set in West Yorkhire.

so to get it back in order, have some extra Oglaf for Xmas

http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/a3/43/82/a34382ebd0010e049da7957ceaaa38d6.jpg

http://img0.joyreactor.com/pics/post/comics-oglaf-sex-chance-848753.jpeg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ys8Xjc8Wy9Y/T6fY_5k3NQI/AAAAAAAABtU/fX_J2MtlvTQ/s1600/0024+skulls.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UH0KJ1GWJ40/T6fZiPL6R3I/AAAAAAAABt0/GjAKHtoV3ws/s1600/0016+Fountain_of_Death.jpg

nsfw

nsfw

nsfw

nsfw

nsfw

note to those unfamiliar with oglaf, "nsfw" not to be taken lightly in this case.

I think Oglaf is pretty hot tbh

can't remember if I voted for it, of course

oglaf is great. nsfw barely does it justice though.

also i totally just bought a copy of the 1973 dover rarebit fiend compilation on the strength of this thread.

oglaf & scary-go-round are cute, rarebit fiend is a miracle. need much, much larger images tho...

for people looking for much, much larger images of early-C20th newspaper strips, Sunday Press is having a sale - eg two table-sized volumes of McCay's Little Nemo for US$185, down from $250

http://www.sundaypressbooks.com/

Speaking of Little Nemo, this exists. I am very close to breaking down and ordering a copy.

that one's still the same negs as the Fanta books from the 80s AFAIK.

So are the Sunday Press versions much higher quality in addition to being larger? I wound up ordering that new collection last night regardless; reviews seemed generally positive and I had Amazon gift cards burning a hole in my pocket. I don't know all that much about the reputations of all the prior anthologies.

53: CAPTAIN EASY by Roy Crane (49 points, 2 votes)
Four enormo hardcovers in a bundle

Wash Tubbs gets taken over by sidekick.

http://www.lambiek.net/artists/image/c/crane_r/crane_captaineasy1941.jpg

http://cdn.comicartfans.com/Images/Category_16688/subcat_32609/Captain%20Easy.jpg

http://www.art4comics.com/capeasy.jpg

http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/easy2-625x337.jpg

Are these colours legit?

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Am9n2FV8y7U/TxaXTHtV8kI/AAAAAAAABlA/kHibSFMCy-4/s1600/captain%2Beasy%2B1.JPG

Yep. There are some coloring notes from Rick Norwood in Fanta's vol. 1 that confirm that and describe the process. Almost all the pages are reproduced from scans of the printed pieces.

amazing, would love to see that (in some kind of generous library). (also for ppl to post it on DK2 argument threads 13 years ago!) that one seen alone, seems done almost entirely for effect, not realism or narrative flow or anything traditional.

also a+ on the varying body types in the harem.

And the page composition, esp. on the right side: top of tree, middle of tree, bottom of tree. Decades ahead of Neal Adams.

Because I'm bored and waiting for work that should have come to me a week ago, here are those coloring notes. Most of this stuff won't be news to people who know the pre-digital comics production process.

For most of the history of the color Sunday comic strip, the colors were produced mechanically rather than photographically. The artist drew the strip on heavy, slightly off-white "boards," usually twice the size of the printed art. Then, in those pre-Xerox days, Velox copies were made on glossy white paper. The Velox process was both more time-consuming and more expensive than modern methods, and so the number of Velox copies was kept to a minimum.
Roy Crane then splashed colors directly onto the original art as a color guide, at least for the first frew years of the Sunday page.
The original and four Velox copies were then sent to the color separators. (Most Sunday comics were colored by Chemical Color Plate Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut.)
Young women sitting on tall stools at drafting tables created the color by adding black ink to three of the Velox prints, one for yellow, one for cyan, and one for magenta. The fourth Velox print provided the black. They were helped in this task by the artist's color guide and by a colorist who placed a transparent sheet over the color guide and, with a grease pencil, wrote color values. For example R2B3 meant that the magenta Velox would get a number two screen would have a number three screen in the same area. The result, when printed, would be a shade of purple.
A proof page was then prepared with each color on a separate overlay, and changes were made as necessary. The artist did not see the strip in color until he got that proof page in the mail, in some cases not until he saw the printed strip in the Sunday paper.
As you can see on the following pages, the artist's colors were not an attempt to create a painting, but just enough color to help the color separators do their job.
All of the Sunday pages in this book, with one exception, are from color color scans of Sunday pages printed in the newspapers. The one exception is the strip for October 6, 1935, where no color newspaper page could be found. That page has been colored in-house from a scan of a page in a newspaper that ran [the] strip in black and white.