shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,878
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Post by shaxper on May 13, 2020 19:06:12 GMT -5
Looks like comicbookplus is still down, so let's extend Krazy Kat an extra day (to May 15th) so that everyone gets a chance to read it.
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,878
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Post by shaxper on May 14, 2020 5:31:34 GMT -5
FYI comicbookplus is back online!
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Post by MDG on May 14, 2020 9:32:49 GMT -5
This is beautiful, my friend. Thanks, shax. It's a strip that fascinated me when I read reprints of it as a kid or saw the King Features cartoon version on TV. I probably couldn't quite get the non-linear narratives, and the different-ness (if that's a word) of it all. Some things you just have to grow into, I guess. When I was young, I was fascinated by the shifting backgrounds of Krazy Kat, though it took me a while to get used to the lettering. Somewhere in my house there's a copy of this though damned if I can find it:
It's a book of the music to the Krazy Kat ballet.
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Post by beccabear67 on May 15, 2020 14:06:19 GMT -5
"Any Kat lived in a dizzy how town..."  I love "Krazy Kat" (and also Archy And Mehitabel), I especially found it charming when there were multiple mices connected to our scoundrel "Ignatz" (uh oh, "Minnie" mouse?). The sunday strips are grander productions than the dailies and seem to have been very sympathetically colored by Herriman himself. I was told he was in a continual state of mourning for a dead spouse and that this 'colored' the mood, and also that Hearst was a major reason, not popular appeal, for it's continuance, and yet... it had begun as a bottom feature below The Dingbat Family... so I think it had some popularity from the start (also appearing in cartoons and comics not by Herriman) and that surely not every moment wasn't a screen for some kind of terrible grief. It's always charming and wonderfully mind-stretching, like Alice In Wonderland. Lovely, and see how he evokes seascapes and sky with almost as few lines as for deserts!
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,878
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Post by shaxper on May 16, 2020 5:47:58 GMT -5
Discussion #24...  Hit Comics #26 (February 1943)Sheldon Moldoff and Otto Binder's Kid Eternity, one of the most unusual heroes of The Golden Age!May 16th thru May 17thA free and legal public domain scan can be found here |
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Post by wildfire2099 on May 16, 2020 19:45:03 GMT -5
I got to read the first strip in that collection before the site went down. (That's happened before at Comic Book Plus.) Anyway, herewith a few remarks. Think Chuck Jones read this strip? Shades of Wile E. and the roadrunner! I think for sure, yes... but it was much more reminiscent of Tom and Jerry to me... they're friends, really, but they fight because they're supposed to... just a bit of a role reversal. IIRC (and it's been a while). Chuck Jones' time with Tom and Jerry that was much more prevalent that before. |
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Post by electricmastro on May 16, 2020 19:54:16 GMT -5
Betty Bates is quite a highlight:  |
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Post by wildfire2099 on May 16, 2020 21:55:30 GMT -5
Definitely going to get to Hit Comics tomorrow! Today, Mystery Men #1.. Phew, that was a LOT of stories.. they sure did pack'em in. I got bored about 1/2 way through, then gave up after the Blue Beetle, which doesn't seem to have anything in common with the later character but the name.
What's up with the art.. it's very fuzzy at points... really bad color seps? Or just a bad scan? It was hard to look at even the better art because of it.
I did really like Rex Dexter.. I mean, I don't get why he's an action hero, but having someone go to the moon and take his wife in 1939 is adorable. The New York of 2000 isn't very futuristic, really.. just planes instead of car, and casual talk about aliens. It wasn't clear if people new Martians were a thing, you'd think that'd be important, but apparently not.
The kid detective gag strip was cute, and I like Chen Chang as well.. a perfectly acceptable Fu Manchu rip off.
The 'main' feature was about as generic a story as one finds for 1939 superheroes... Green Mask has no powers, and actually just calls the cops to catch the bad guys.
It cracked me up in Wing Turner when 6 guys with guns force him to a table to use a 'death beam' on him... you know, because they couldn't just shoot him, too boring.
The Holmes spoof was really terrible... and I hate magicians (and why do they all have Z names?).
Not the worst ever, but nothing really to see here.
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Post by Prince Hal on May 16, 2020 23:50:15 GMT -5
I got to read the first strip in that collection before the site went down. (That's happened before at Comic Book Plus.) Anyway, herewith a few remarks. Think Chuck Jones read this strip? Shades of Wile E. and the roadrunner! I think for sure, yes... but it was much more reminiscent of Tom and Jerry to me... they're friends, really, but they fight because they're supposed to... just a bit of a role reversal. IIRC (and it's been a while). Chuck Jones' time with Tom and Jerry that was much more prevalent that before. Yes, Tom and Jerry! Much closer to that. I think the desert backgrounds, the ones I always associate with the strip, made me think of the Roadrunner cartoons. And didn't Tom and Jerry show some affection at times, as even Ignatz does for KK every so often? Can't recall the RR ever doing that for the Coyote. |
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Post by MDG on May 17, 2020 10:03:36 GMT -5
^^^^ Chuck Jones said that what he wanted to do in the Road Runner cartoons was take what was in Tom & Jerry and a hundred other cat and mouse/dog and cat cartoons and simplify it to its essence (not in those words, but that was the idea--chase for chase's sake.)
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Post by electricmastro on May 17, 2020 12:06:28 GMT -5
I think for sure, yes... but it was much more reminiscent of Tom and Jerry to me... they're friends, really, but they fight because they're supposed to... just a bit of a role reversal. IIRC (and it's been a while). Chuck Jones' time with Tom and Jerry that was much more prevalent that before. Yes, Tom and Jerry! Much closer to that. I think the desert backgrounds, the ones I always associate with the strip, made me think of the Roadrunner cartoons. And didn't Tom and Jerry show some affection at times, as even Ignatz does for KK every so often? Can't recall the RR ever doing that for the Coyote. And after Krazy Kat, came Felix the Cat as well.  |
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,878
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Post by shaxper on May 18, 2020 6:17:33 GMT -5
Discussion #25...  More Fun Comics #10 (May 1936)Early early DC/National comic with two stories by Pre-Superman Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.May 18th thru May 19thA free and legal public domain scan can be found here |
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Post by electricmastro on May 18, 2020 16:01:33 GMT -5
I’d say a highlight would have to be the lesser-known Leo O'Mealia and the intensity his art can give off.  |
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Post by electricmastro on May 19, 2020 16:30:58 GMT -5
Little Orphan Annie clone or not, Linda is still adorably precious, which contrasts to the bleaker world around her.  |
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Post by wildfire2099 on May 19, 2020 19:42:53 GMT -5
I think for sure, yes... but it was much more reminiscent of Tom and Jerry to me... they're friends, really, but they fight because they're supposed to... just a bit of a role reversal. IIRC (and it's been a while). Chuck Jones' time with Tom and Jerry that was much more prevalent that before. Yes, Tom and Jerry! Much closer to that. I think the desert backgrounds, the ones I always associate with the strip, made me think of the Roadrunner cartoons. And didn't Tom and Jerry show some affection at times, as even Ignatz does for KK every so often? Can't recall the RR ever doing that for the Coyote. They definitely were friends at times...they'd be a team against Spike, or something they just had weird adventures together (Chuck Jones was a weird, wonderful genius) |
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