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Yesterday, the Michael Sporn Animation “Splog” featured scans of a multi-page interview with Alex Toth that was conducted by Bill Spicer for his own Graphic Story Magazine and published in 1969, when Toth was about 40 years old. The interview includes this famous exchange:

[TOTH:] Whither the comic book; where’s it going, except to hell?

[SPICER:] Someday graphic novels will take up where comic books are leaving off, but what about the artist who has to sit down and draw them? If some one came to you with a 200-page pictorial novel to illustrate, and if the money was okay, do you think you’d be interested?

[TOTH:] I’d probably blow my brains out. It could be done, and there are plenty of guys around who could and would do it. But I’d rather have twenty 10-page stories than one 200-page story. I found this to be the case when I was freelancing; I could be tired as hell, having just come off a job, when a new script would arrive in the mail and I’d be perked up by it. Despite being tired, and wanting a few days off before starting the next assignment, a new script would get me enthused. Change itself is refreshing; a new subject to tackle is stimulating. It juices you up to get into it right away. To sustain yourself for 100 or 200 pages would be rough. Even those 34-pagers used to drive me up the wall. It would have to be a damn good script to keep me going.

This graphic novel concept frightens me. Although, I have to wonder where comics are going. Where the medium is really going. If comic books are going down the drain, and if newspaper strips are being killed off by ads crowding ever deeper into the pages — and by the lack of any real contributing function of their editors — then I think the strip may be finished. If they would reach out into new subject areas, maybe graphic novels will happen as dollar or two-dollar soft covers in black & white or color. The medium deserves a better shake than it’s gotten from its practitioners who’re making it go on the way it’s been going down. I don’t know who’s really doing the experimentation and planning for new off-shoots of the strip. I’d like to get into it, though, when it happens.

Golden Age Comic Book Stories > Walt Kelly (1913 – 1973): “Deck Us All with Boston Charlie” — Mr. Door Tree presents a compilation of “Boston Charlie”-themed Pogo strips from 1959, 1961, 1967, and 1971.

EVER SINCE ADAM AND EVE part one
EVER SINCE ADAM AND EVE part two
EVER SINCE ADAM AND EVE part three

Featured artists include Alfred Andriola, Stan and Jan Berenstain, Walter Berndt, Milton Caniff, Irwin Caplan, Al Capp, George Clark, Chon Day, Gregory D’Alessio, Harry Devlin, Rube Goldberg, Harry Hanan, Al Hirschfeld, Hank Ketcham, Frank King, George Lichty, Marty Links, Kate Osann, Russell Patterson, Alex Raymond, Carl Rose, Charles Schulz, Ronald Searle, Barbara Schermund, Noel Sickles, Otto Soglow, Henry Syverson, J. W. Taylor, Hilda Terry, and Mort Walker.

Quite a few heavy hitters in there, I think you’ll agree. But of all the cartoons and drawings from Ever Since Adam and Eve that Mike posted, here’s the one that interests me most:

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The artist is Gregory d’Alessio, and the model is his wife, cartoonist Hilda Terry, whose work has been featured several times here at RCN:

Ragged Claws Network > Look Here, Read: Four “Teena” Sunday strips by Hilda Terry
Ragged Claws Network > Look Here, Read: Four more “Teena” Sunday strips by Hilda Terry
Ragged Claws Network > Ten more “Teena” Sundays by Hilda Terry

In addition to being a syndicated cartoonist, a painter, and an influential guitar music enthusiast, Gregory d’Alessio was vice-president of the Art Students League in New York from 1937 to 1944 and was an instructor in drawing at the League from 1960 until his death in 1993 at the age of 88. D’Alessio’s wife of 55 years, Hilda Terry, also became a regular instructor at the League in the 1980s (after her “retirement”), teaching a class in drawing twice a week, and continued in that capacity, near as I can tell, pretty much right up until her death in 2006 at age 92.

BONUS IMAGE:

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BONUS LINKS:

The Bronze Age of Blogs: “Cimmeria,” poem by Robert E. Howard, art by Barry [Windsor-]Smith and Tim Conrad, Savage Sword of Conan #24 (November 1977).

Barry Windsor-Smith Unofficial Blog: “Cimmeria,” poem by Robert E. Howard, art (in pencil) by Barry [Windsor-]Smith, Savage Tales #2 (October 1973).

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Here’s the info from Amazon.ca:

Reid Fleming: World’s Toughest Milkman [Hardcover]
David Boswell (Author, Artist)

List Price: CDN$37.50
Price: CDN$19.75

# Hardcover: 224 pages
# Publisher: IDW Publishing (Jan 11 2011)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 1600108024
# ISBN-13: 978-1600108020

“David Boswell’s classic counterculture icon is collected here in an oversized hardcover format. This volume collects the first Reid Fleming comic and the mini-series, Rogues to Riches, as well as Heartbreak Comics.”

If you’ve never read David Boswell’s Heartbreak Comics, you’re in for a real treat!

Since I’ve never read most of the other Reid Fleming comics, but have always wanted to, this is my chance to get them all in one fell swoop, and at CDN$19.75 for a 224-page hardcover collection via Amazon.ca, I simply can’t resist.

BONUS LINKS:

Follow this link, and if you have very good eyesight, you will able able to read the first 32-page issue of the original series, Reid Fleming: World’s Toughest Milkman, for free.

David Boswell’s Official Web Site includes examples of his photographs, comics, cartoons, and illustrations. He also has various prints and other merchandise available for purchase.