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GRELL’s Tarzan Sundays • DC’s World’s Greatest Super-Heroes KREMER & KAY’s Richie Rich • Charlton’s comic strip tie-ins Menomonee Falls Gazette & more!

RetroFan: The Pop Culture You Grew Up With! Remember when Saturday morning television was our domain, and ours alone? When tattoos came from bubble gum packs, Slurpees came in superhero cups, and TV heroes taught us to be nice to each other? If you love Pop Culture of the Sixties, Seventies, and Eighties, TwoMorrows’ new magazine is just for you! Editor MICHAEL EURY (author of numerous books on pop culture, former editor for DC Comics and Dark Horse Comics, and editor of TwoMorrows’ Eisner Award-winning BACK ISSUE magazine for comic book fans) has assembled an unbeatable roster of regular and rotating Celebrity Columnists to cover the pop culture you grew up with: • ANDY MANGELS (best-selling sci-fi author and award-winning pop culture historian) • ERNEST FARINO (Emmy Award-winning visual effects designer, animator, and director) • SCOTT SHAW! (acclaimed cartoonist, animator, Emmy Award-winning storyboard artist, and historian) • WILL MURRAY (pulp adventure novelist and pop culture historian) • SCOTT SAAVEDRA (graphic designer, cartoonist, and COMIC BOOK HEAVEN creator) • MARK VOGER (renowned pop culture newspaper columnist and book author), and others!

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Meet JULIE NEWMAR, the purr-fect Catwoman! Plus: ASTRO BOY, TARZAN Saturday morning cartoons, the true history of PEBBLES CEREAL, TV’s THE UNTOUCHABLES and SEARCH, the MONKEEMOBILE, SOVIET EXPO ’77, and more fun, fab features! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

Surf’s up as SIXTIES BEACH MOVIES make a RetroFan splash! Plus: He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, ZORRO’s Saturday morning cartoon, TV’s THE WILD, WILD WEST, CARtoons and other drag-mags, VALSPEAK, and more fun, fab features! Like, totally! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

Meet the stars behind the Black Lagoon: RICOU BROWNING, BEN CHAPMAN, JULIE ADAMS, and LORI NELSON! Plus SHADOW CHASERS, featuring show creator KENNETH JOHNSON. Also: THE BEATLES’ YELLOW SUBMARINE, FLASH GORDON cartoons, TV’s cult classic THE PRISONER and kid’s show ZOOM, COLORFORMS, M&Ms, and more fun, fab features! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

Interviews with Lost in Space’s ANGELA CARTWRIGHT and BILL MUMY, and Land of the Lost’s WESLEY EURE! Revisit Leave It to Beaver with JERRY MATHERS, TONY DOW, and KEN OSMOND! Plus: UNDERDOG, Rankin-Bass’ stop-motion classic THE LITTLE DRUMMER BOY, Christmas gifts you didn’t want, the CABBAGE PATCH KIDS fad, and more! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

Meet Mission: Impossible’s LYNDA DAY GEORGE in an exclusive interview! Celebrate Rambo’s 50th birthday with his creator, novelist DAVID MORRELL! Plus: TV faves WKRP IN CINCINNATI and SPACE: 1999, Fleisher’s and Filmation’s SUPERMAN cartoons, commercial jingles, JERRY LEWIS and BOB HOPE comic books, and more fun, fab features! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

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Dark Shadows’ Angelique, LARA PARKER, sinks her fangs into an exclusive interview. Plus: Rankin-Bass’ Mad Monster Party, Aurora Monster model kits, a chat with Aurora painter JAMES BAMA, George of the Jungle, The Haunting, Jawsmania, Drak Pack, TV dads’ jobs, and more fun, fab features! Featuring columns by FARINO, MANGELS, MURRAY, SAAVEDRA, SHAW, and MICHAEL EURY.

Our BARBARA EDEN interview will keep you forever dreaming of Jeannie! Plus: The Invaders, the BILLIE JEAN KING/BOBBY RIGGS tennis battle of the sexes, HANNABARBERA’s Saturday morning super-heroes of the Sixties, THE MONSTER TIMES fanzine, and more fun, fab features! Featuring ERNEST FARINO, ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW!, and MICHAEL EURY.

Interview with Bond Girl and Hammer Films actress CAROLINE MUNRO! Plus: WACKY PACKAGES, COURAGEOUS CAT AND MINUTE MOUSE, FILMATION’S GHOSTBUSTERS vs. the REAL GHOSTBUSTERS, Bandai’s rare PRO WRESTLER ERASERS, behind the scenes of Sixties movies, WATERGATE at Fifty, Go-Go Dancing, a visit to the Red Skelton Museum, and more fun, fab features!

MAD’s maddest artist, SERGIO ARAGONÉS, is profiled! Plus: TV’s Route 66 and an interview with star GEORGE MAHARIS, MOE HOWARD’s final years, singer B. J. THOMAS in one of his final interviews, LONE RANGER cartoons, G.I. JOE, and more! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

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Volume 1, Number 136 July 2022 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Michael Eury

Comics’ Bronze Age and Beyond!

PUBLISHER John Morrow DESIGNER Rich Fowlks COVER COLORIST Glenn Whitmore COVER DESIGNER Michael Kronenberg PROOFREADER David Baldy SPECIAL THANKS Ronn Sutton Mark Arnold Roy Thomas Mike W. Barr Steven Thompson Dewey Cassell Howard Chaykin Mike Tiefenbacher John Wells Gerry Conway Dennis Wilcutt Rosie Ford Marv Wolfman Grand Comics Database Mike Grell Rich Handley Ron Harris Heritage Comics Auctions John K. Kirk Paul Kupperberg Paul Levitz Steve Lipsky Marvel Comics Val Mayerik Robert Menzies Javier Meson Ian Millsted David Moreu Dean Mullaney Bob Rozakis Alex Saviuk Jerry Sinkovec John Siuntres

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BEYOND CAPES: Friday Foster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 The pioneering adventure strip starring an African-American heroine FLASHBACK: Charlton’s Funny Papers’ Funny Books . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Blondie, Snuffy Smith, and other King Features stars in Bronze Age comic books BACK IN PRINT: The Menomonee Falls Gazette . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 The rise and fall of the fanzine-newspaper that published strips old and new UNKNOWN MARVEL: Spider-Man and Dan Dare’s Creator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Frank Hampson’s not-so-amazing rendition of your friendly neighborhood wall-crawler PRO2PRO: Spider-Man, the Amazing Newspaper Strip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Alex Saviuk and Roy Thomas discuss the long-running feature’s final years WHAT THE?!: Howard the (Duck) Newspaper Strip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Trapped in a syndicated world he never made FLASHBACK: The World’s Greatest Superheroes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Superman and the Justice League in daily and Sunday adventures BEYOND CAPES: Star Hawks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Ron Goulart and Gil Kane’s space opera ONE-HIT WONDERS: Richie Rich . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 The poor little rich boy’s blink-and-you-missed-it syndicated strip BACKSTAGE PASS: Star Trek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Boldly going from a movie reboot to your local newspaper BEYOND CAPES: Mike Grell’s Tarzan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 The fan-favorite artist’s version of the Lord of the Jungle BACK TALK: Reader Reactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 BACK ISSUE™ issue 136, July 2022 (ISSN 1932-6904) is published monthly (except Jan., March, May, and Nov.) by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. Phone: (919) 4490344. Periodicals postage pending at Raleigh, NC. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Back Issue, c/o TwoMorrows, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614. Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: BACK ISSUE, c/o Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief, 112 Fairmount Way, New Bern, NC 28562. Email: euryman@gmail.com. Eight-issue subscriptions: $90 Economy US, $137 International, $39 Digital. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Spider-Man and Howard the Duck TM & © Marvel. Friday Foster © Tribune Syndicate. Star Hawks © Newspaper Enterprise Association, Inc. Star Trek © CBS Studios Inc. Other characters © their respective companies. All Rights Reserved. All editorial matter © 2022 TwoMorrows and Michael Eury. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING

Bronze Age Comic Strips Issue • BACK ISSUE • 1

Smile! Original publicity artwork by Jorge Longarón, dated October 7, 1973, for the Friday Foster newspaper strip. Courtesy of Heritage Auctions (www.ha.com). Friday Foster © Tribune Syndicate.

If you ever think about the classic, long-running newspaper strip Friday Foster, what comes to mind is likely only its badass black reporter heroine, and that’s the problem. Since Friday Foster has never been reprinted until last year, and then only the Sundays, most who know of it at all just think of it as a pioneering feminist adventure strip with a black female heroine. Only Friday wasn’t really an adventure strip at all—more a soap-opera strip. Nor was it “long running,” lasting as it did just a touch beyond four years. Add to that the fact that Friday herself wasn’t really all that much of a badass, or even a feminist. She was, in fact, a photographer’s assistant, a photographer herself, and eventually a model, but never a reporter. So, yeah, Friday Foster isn’t who you think she is. If you actually know Friday at all, it’s most likely from the 1975 Pam Grier movie, released more than a year after the strip itself had ended, but widely seen today on streaming services. It’s a good movie, but it was a whole new Friday. We’ll talk about her in a bit but first, let’s go back to the previous Friday and take a closer look.

by S t e v e n

JUST THE FACTS, FRIDAY

Thompson

“Girl Friday” is a sexist expression derived from the racist expression, “Man Friday,” which originated in Daniel Defoe’s 1719 novel, Robinson Crusoe. “Girl Friday” as a job description, though, was also what African-American woman Friday Foster was to hunky Caucasian, rich, famous, globetrotting glamour photographer Shawn North. North sometimes seemed like the actual star of the strip. A strong case could be made that the entire four-year run was really the story of a white photographer slowly becoming woke. When white writer Jim Lawrence and Spanish artist Jordi “Jorge” Longarón introduced Friday Foster to the world in January of 1970, the headiest days of the Civil Rights movement were already receding into the past, and the golden age of Blaxploitation was still to come. Thus, even though it’s simple to think of Friday Foster as being strongly influenced by those two things, she was actually more independent than that. According to Lawrence in early publicity, it was 1969 when he noticed that while his native Newark, New Jersey, was 50% black,

2 • BACK ISSUE • Bronze Age Comic Strips Issue

Daily Doses of Friday Original art to three Friday Foster dailies by Lawrence and Longarón, from the stylish strip’s first year, 1970. Courtesy of Heritage. © Tribune Syndicate.

there were no black faces anywhere in newspaper comics, which is A strip set in the world of fashion that revolved around a swinging where he worked. A hack writer in the truest sense of the word, soul sister like Luna would be colorful, with eccentric characters. Jordi “Jorge” Longarón was a Spanish comic artist with no formal Lawrence had started out writing for radio in the 1950s and wrote for many different magazines including a few Doctor Strange comic training who had begun working in the industry in the 1940s when he was still in his teens. In the early 1960s, he was one of the books for Marvel in the 1960s. Mainly, though, he ghosted series many Spanish illustrators whose work appeared in the weekly fiction for young readers including Tom Swift, Jr. and the girls’ comics in the UK, such as Valentine, often illustrating Hardy Boys. At the same time, he had developed a songs or stories of popular music artists. reputation for being able to write continuity strips. According to Longarón, in an interview with David That’s not as easy as one might suspect. The dailies Moreu, Jim Lawrence hooked up with the Spanish carry the story along, but the Sunday has to sum up agency he worked through via his writing James the previous week while showing some movement Bond. Lawrence informed them that he was looking on its own, which would then be summed up in the for an artist to draw an as yet unnamed “character following week’s dailies. Ideally, the Sundays should with an Afro style.” Longarón found his own inspiration tell the story without the dailies, as many readers in Playboy’s Miss October of 1969, Jean Bell, from would only see the Sunday paper. This can all lead whom Friday’s straight hairstyle came, and began to to pretty slow progress unless the writer is particularly draw some samples. adept at his job, like Jim Lawrence. After he was chosen, the strip quickly sold to In 1969, Lawrence was already writing several jorge longarón the Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate and strips including Captain Easy and the UK-only Longarón flew to the US to meet Lawrence and sign newspaper version of James Bond, but he became Normaeditorial. contracts. Of Lawrence, Jordi said, “He was a great determined to create something uniquely his person and he also brought me to Harlem to get documentation for the own—a black newspaper strip star. In a piece on black representation in comics, Sepia magazine wrote comic strip.” He added, “I had the feeling it was a poorer neighborhood that Lawrence spotted willowy black supermodel Donyale Luna— than the rest of the city, but it had a lot of life. However, there were some perhaps best remembered today as Groucho Marx’s silent sidekick in black people who did not seem very happy when they saw me with a the infamous movie, Skidoo—on a television program and was inspired. camera.” This scene would be echoed early on in the strip itself. Bronze Age Comic Strips Issue • BACK ISSUE • 3

Freaky Friday (top) Dell Comics’ single issue of Friday Foster, #1 (Oct. 1972). Art by Jack Sparling. (bottom) The year after the strip was discontinued, Pam Grier played the comic-strip heroine in the Blaxploitation film, Friday Foster. In this sexy lobby card (courtesy of Heritage), Thalmus Rasulala as Blake Tarr romances Grier as Foster. Friday Foster © Tribune Syndicate.

and she was backed up with an amazing cast of some of the best black screen actors of the day. These included Thalmus Rasulala and Yaphet Kotto as two characters from the strip—black millionaire Blake Tarr and Colt “Blackhawk” Hawkins, here a private detective. Others included Julius Harris, Carl Weathers, Eartha Kitt, Scatman Crothers, Godfrey Cambridge, and Ted Lange. Pam’s Friday was charming, flirtatious, unflappable, resourceful, and observant. At times, she was also scared, sad, aroused, reluctant, curious, and skittish. Only the casting of Shawn was questionable. Logic dictated that they downplay his strong role in Friday’s life in a film aimed largely toward black audiences, but to cast a slight, pretty boy actor—Stan Stratton in his first of only a handful of roles—felt wrong. Kotto’s Colt Hawkins, a winning performance, fills what would have likely been Shawn’s hero role had this story been in the strip itself. It’s a goofy, convoluted plot, in which wheelchair-bound white supremacist Jim Backus (in the film for just about two minutes) funds a plan to gather all the black leaders of the country together secretly, only so they can then be done away with. The film received mixed reviews. Coming so late in the Blaxploitation cycle didn’t help it either. The main issue, though, is the fact that it tied in to a comic strip that parts of the country never saw and that had, itself ended almost two years earlier. Sadly, no TV series was forthcoming. More than 40 years later, in 2019, came the final footnote, as Friday Foster, the character, was revived in a two-week “Minit Mysteries” run in the Dick Tracy comic strip. Illustrated by guest artist Andrew Pepoy, Friday here is a successful fashion photographer. When one of her models turns up dead, Tracy shows up. It’s clear the two are old friends and Friday helps Dick solve the murder. The last Sunday in the sequence appropriately features a full panel text tribute to the then just-deceased Jorge Longarón (Longarón’s son maintains a tribute site at http://longaronmuseum.org) . Her creators played it safe, never really allowing their girl Friday to become particularly controversial. She was a safe, friendly, comic-strip career girl—more Winnie Winkle than Angela Davis by a long shot. But there’s no denying Friday Foster made a lasting impression on anyone who ever discovered her, both inside and outside her comic strip! Special thanks to Javier Meson and David Moreu, Michael Eury, Howard Chaykin, and Ronn Sutton. STEVEN THOMPSON once rode a Greyhound bus 100 miles to catch the Friday Foster movie. He has been writing about comics, movies, TV, and radio since 1988. He has worked in various capacities on more than 150 books and magazines to date. He currently writes a regular column in TwoMorrows’ Comic Book Creator and maintains multiple blogs online.

6 • BACK ISSUE • Bronze Age Comic Strips Issue

by M

ark Arnold

As longtime readers of this magazine probably already know, Charlton was a comic-book publisher that existed from 1945 to 1986 that is now best known for their publishing many superheroes that later became the basis for DC’s Watchmen title, movie, and TV series. They are also known for taking on the Hanna-Barbera titles during the 1970s when Gold Key gave up the license for older characters. [Editor’s note: See BACK ISSUE #79 and 129, respectively, for those stories.] What is not as commonly known is that Charlton took on many of the licensed comic-strip characters from King Features after being published for many years by Dell, Gold Key, and King’s own short-lived line of King Comics. King Features Syndicate is a print syndication company that distributes about 150 different comic strips, newspaper columns, puzzles, games, and editorial cartoons to newspapers worldwide. It is owned by Hearst Communications and was founded by William Randolph Hearst and launched on November 16, 1915. The name King came from Hearst’s manager Moses Koenigsberg, who gave it his own name translated from German (Konig means king). Sylvan Byck was King Features’ comics editor from 1956 through 1978. As editor, Byck helped many King Features comic strips become adapted into both theatrical and television cartoons. He also helped many of these same strips get launched into lengthy comic-book runs initially with Dell and Gold Key, and some with Harvey. By 1966, many of these comic-book titles ended their runs with Gold Key and Harvey and were continued by the company’s own King Comics imprint. King Comics lasted two years, but the line suffered from distribution problems, partly caused by King’s content not being approved by the Comics Code Authority (CCA), according to John Wells and Keith Dallas in American Comic Book Chronicles. (Interestingly, Dell and Gold Key Comics were never CCA-approved, and never had distribution problems until the 1980s, more due to the advent of the direct market.) The King Comics line was essentially done by the end of 1967, with occasional titles appearing from 1972–1979. Charlton took over the publishing duties for many titles during 1968 and 1969, assuming publication with original numbering such as Beetle Bailey with #67, Flash Gordon with #12, Jungle Jim with #22, The Phantom with #30, and Popeye with #94 (all cover-dated Feb. 1969). Strangely, Charlton did not assume publication of Mandrake the Magician from King and the title remained cancelled. Some of these King characters have been discussed in other issues of BACK ISSUE, but here are a few King Features Syndicate characters that haven’t been mentioned, until now.

Everybody’s an Art Critic! King Features cartoonist Bob Donovan kept Charlton’s Barney Google and Snuffy Smith comic book looking true to form. Final page of “Snuffy Gets Zee Brushoff” from issue #6 (Jan. 1971). Original art courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). © King Features Syndicate.

Bronze Age Comic Strips Issue • BACK ISSUE • 7

The strip came about from Beetle Bailey going on furlough from his Army duties and visiting his sister, Lois. Lois was married to Hi Flagston and together they had four children: son Chip, twins Dot and Ditto, and later on, baby daughter Trixie. Lois was originally a housewife, but also became a real estate agent later on. Like Blondie, Hi and Lois is about a suburban family. The strip debuted on October 18, 1954, four years after Beetle Bailey. Beetle would continue going on furlough from his strip time and time again, usually with Sergeant Snorkel in tow. Hi and Lois was and remains successful, winning the Reuben Award for Browne in 1962. Dik Browne died in 1989 and Mort Walker died in 2016. Today, Hi and Lois is written by Mort’s sons, Brian and Greg Walker, and drawn by Dik’s son, Chance Browne. Apart from the Charlton series, Hi and Lois starred in one issue from King Comics in 1974, but was only successful in paperback comic-strip reprints and not comic books.

Ponytail was a comic panel about a teenage girl’s life that was written and drawn by cartoonist Lee Holley. Prior to Ponytail, Holley worked in animation in Friz Freleng’s Looney Tunes unit of animated cartoons in the mid-1950s, and then worked for Hank Ketcham on Dennis the Menace in the late 1950s, drawing the Sunday strip as well as the character for various merchandise, advertising, and children’s storybooks. Holley sold Ponytail to Teen Magazine in August 1960, and King Features Syndicate picked up the strip for newspaper syndication beginning on November 7, 1960, with a Sunday strip added on January 7, 1962. Holley left Dennis the Menace to work on Ponytail full time. In an interview I conducted with Holley on October 11, 2014, the cartoonist said of Ponytail’s cancellation, “It lasted 30 years from 1960 to 1990. It was a good run. It was a mutual decision to quit. From day one at my earliest days with the syndication, within a couple of years, I knew I was on to a really good thing and was paid, by my perspective, a lot of money for my age. “Then I got to thinking, ‘This may not last forever.’ I’m paying taxes, and I had a conversation with an attorney. He said, ‘Well, look at it this way, Lee. Think about yourself as a young actor. You’re in show business. That’s what you are. Think of yourself as a young actor. What you’re doing if you’re making a movie, you’re big time, but as time goes on another young guy comes along and he’s making the movies and you’re not.’ What he was trying to tell me is that one day you won’t be doing what you’re doing, quite possibly. “In the back of my mind I thought about real estate. I started reading and researching and thought that this may be a good way to go. As much as I loved what I was doing, and I liked the kind of money I was making, maybe I could branch out and continue doing what I was doing and use that money to set up a retirement so to speak, so I started investing in real estate. I was really into it. It was a short period of time that the comic strip became a means to an end. I used the money to make money in real estate. The more involved I got in it, the more successful I became with it. That became my focus.” The strip was successful enough to spin off into its own comic-book series, which debuted in 1962 from Dell Comics. After 12 issues, Dell cancelled the series in 1965. Charlton took over the series in 1969, retaining the same numbering. Holley commented about the comic book, “We wrote it and drew it. I’m sure King Features got their piece of the action. They approached me through the syndicate. We also did a couple of

pocket books through Dell, I think it was. They reprinted the dailies.” For the comic book as well as the comic panel, Holley recruited the services of Frank Hill, who also worked on Dennis the Menace comic books during the 1960s and ’70s, as well as Bob Gustafson (who worked on the comic-book versions of both Hi and Lois and Beetle Bailey) and MAD’s Dave Berg. Said Holley of his assistants, “Frank Hill worked with me for a while. He wrote the Sunday page. Him and I would sit down. We had a lot of fun together writing the Sunday page. Then, the comic book came along and he wrote the comic book and did some of the artwork.” Ponytail was fairly successful throughout the 1960s and 1970s, but by the 1980s, sales to newspapers began to slip, and Ponytail was quietly cancelled on October 16, 1988. Holley didn’t mind retiring from Ponytail in 1988 as he became very wealthy with multiple real estate deals over the years. Holley explained, “The client list started to diminish. It wasn’t an issue with me. I continued until the end until it just petered out, so to speak. The syndicate and I mutually agreed to end it. We had a very nice conversation with a cartoon editor there who asked me, ‘How are you doing, Lee? How are you fixed?’ “I said, ‘I’m fixed fine. Don’t worry about it.’ “He said, ‘Well, I think it’s time.’ “I said, ‘Well, I agree.’ I was down to less than 100 papers. Something like that. It didn’t bother me. It wasn’t a big deal. I had this run and did what I wanted to do and I moved on.” Holley was also a pilot and flew his own airplane. Unfortunately, he died in a plane he was piloting which crashed shortly after takeoff, on March 26, 2018.

Tiger was a comic strip created by Bud Blake that ran from May 3, 1965 through 2004. It was about a group of suburban boyhood pals along a similar vein as that of Peanuts. Blake drew the strip until he was 85, and then passed away two years later on December 26, 2005. Asked if he could continue to produce the strip, Blake told an interviewer in Hogan’s Alley Magazine, “Sure, I could keep doing it. But I can’t. I’ve had enough.” After Blake retired, the strip continued to appear as reprints. In comic books, Tiger appeared in six issues at the same time as Barney Google and Snuffy Smith. Blake drew all of the covers. An additional issue appeared in 1973 where Tiger was paired with Quincy, another King Features comic strip. This issue was published by King Comics. After 1976, King Features Syndicate never tried to publish comicbook titles with these characters again, and decided for the most part to stick with newspapers and paperback compilations. King Features did license some of their characters like Popeye and Beetle Bailey to Harvey Comics in the 1990s, but that seems to be King’s last gasp in the oncethriving comic-book marketplace. MARK ARNOLD is a pop-culture historian with over 15 books to his credit on subjects ranging from The Monkees, The Beatles, Underdog, Pink Panther, Cracked, Disney, Dennis the Menace and more. He is currently at work on a book on the history of MAD and has upcoming books on Disney, TTV, and Pac-Man.

10 • BACK ISSUE • Bronze Age Comic Strips Issue

by J o

hn Wells

Calling All Adventure Lovers! This 1970s DC Comics house ad for The Menomonee Falls Gazette attracted lots of subscribers— including ye ed. Were you one of them? Character art by Mike Tiefenbacher. Prince Valiant and Phantom © King Features Syndicate. The Spirit © Will Eisner, Inc. Batman and Superman TM & © DC Comics. Tarzan © Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. Buck Rogers © Dille Family Trust.

Collecting comic books in the early 1970s was easy. Distribution could be spotty, yes, but the number of outlets selling them was still large enough for any devoted fan to track down most of their favorite titles on a regular basis. Collecting newspaper comic strips was another matter entirely. The typical fan was limited to whatever strips that were carried in their local papers. Subscribing to major out-of-town papers offered the devoted collector greater selections, but it was also a far more expensive undertaking than buying comic books off the rack. How nice it would be, some fans thought, if someone published all the great current comic strips in one place. The solution had its roots in 1960s fandom, where comic-book and comic-strip collectors took it upon themselves to do what mainstream publishers were not. Canadian fan George Henderson devoted issues of his fanzine Captain George’s Comic World to reprints of vintage strips such as Little Nemo in Slumberland, Krazy Kat, and Superman in a tabloid newspaper format. Elsewhere, Ann Arbor English teacher Edwin Aprill, Jr. published two slick magazines—Great Classic Newspaper Strips (1964– 1968) and Cartoonist Showcase (1968–1972)—that collected runs of long-lost strips such as Buck Rogers and Frank Frazetta’s Johnny Comet as well as then-current fan-favorite features like Russ Manning’s Tarzan and Archie Goodwin and Al Williamson’s Secret Agent Corrigan.

Joining Aprill, Henderson, and others in their noble comics preservation agenda were Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, fans Jerry Sinkovec and Mike Tiefenbacher. “Jerry called me up in May 1970 after seeing a letter of mine that ran in Rocket’s Blast-Comicollector, we compared collections, became friends, I went to work on helping him publish his fanzine, Comics Commentary, wound up writing most of the filler material, drew all kinds of artwork for it, and we began to attend comic-cons together,” Tiefenbacher details for BACK ISSUE. During a spring 1971 drive to Chicago, it was Sinkovec who conceived the idea of a tabloid newspaper called The Menomonee Falls Gazette… as a comic-book news-zine on the order of The Comic Reader. “I talked him out of the idea for the very good reason that we had no source for the news out here in the Midwest,” Tiefenbacher explains. Instead, the conversation turned to newspaper strips, inspired by Aprill and Henderson’s pioneering work. “That newspaper idea, the newspaper name and the fact that using it enabled Jerry to write the syndicates well before we started—and they actually sent sample proofs!—coalesced, having far more to do with Jerry than it did with me. He’s five years older than me, so he naturally became the boss (I was never a partner, only an employee—albeit one who had far more input than that arrangement suggests.)

Bronze Age Comic Strips Issue • BACK ISSUE • 11

Back Issue #136