Doug Wildey's The Saint, Stretch Bannon, & Jonny Quest

One of the earliest strips Doug Wildey worked on was Leslie Charteris famous thrill seeker, The Saint. I've heard that one day the creator saw the initials of his character, Simon Templar, and imagined the nickname "Saint" would be the perfect title for his creation. His adventures have been documented in books, films, radio, comics, and television since the early thirties. Charteris even wrote his newspaper strip from 1948 to 1961, which was syndicated worldwide by the New York Herald Tribune. When Wildey was called to helped finish out the series, he took over the artistic chores from Bob Lubbers and continued in Bob's style for a few months before developing his own unique look for the character. Even though Doug relied heavily on photo references, his Saint's new look was to be of great importance in the near future. Wildey's dapper man of the world, now with a classic goatee, quickly developed into the prototype for Dr. Benton Quest of Hanna-Barbara's Jonny Quest fame. Later, other major Quest characters were developed when Wildey pitched his own Sunday strip about an globe trotting race car driver, Stretch Bannon, that unfortunately never caught on with any syndicates. But don't take my word for it, this is what Doug had to say.

"As everybody in the illustrative cartoon business has done, I once tried an automobile comic strip. Because this whole country runs on the automobile economy, right? I know at least five other cartoonists -- I can't name them all any more, but I think they include Leonard Starr, Mel Keifer, Frank Frazetta -- who all tried something with an automotive background. In my case, my guy was sort of an automobile designer. He raced cars. He had this glamorous European background, and raced on American tracks. I called him Stretch Bannon. I liked the name Stretch Bannon. Then, later on, I tried another strip about a writer-artist team that traveled the world getting into adventures. The name was Race Dunhill. So I put the Race and the Bannon together and that's where Race Bannon came from. I originally named the show (Jonny Quest) The Saga of Chip Balloo. It was a working title, I wasn't really serious, but that was it for the beginning."

But the interesting part is when you look at those few Sundays try-outs, if Stretch Bannon was an early prototype of Race Bannon, his young sidekick mechanic called "Chip" was a dead ringer for Jonny Quest, though older than the boy the series finally settled on. Apparently, the speed required of producing both a daily and Sunday strip, coupled with Wildey's comic book work, proved too much for him. As Dick Ayers wrote," Doug had me ink some of his Saint daily strips back in "60 or "61. We'd meet in a local parking lot to trade penciled strips and inked strips." You can see in some of the work the heavy line of Ayers creep in over Doug's fine line pencils which was always a stark contrast to Doug's inks, but as any syndicate man will tell you those deadlines can be a killer and you have to do what you can to keep the feature moving. As Wildey said to Russ Heath when he started to draw the short lived Lone Ranger feature,"Any illustrative strip is going to fall behind in deadlines and you will call your artist friends (to help) and stay up working all night." Well thank goodness Doug worked on all these strips from the past or we might never had all the wonderful Quest characters today.

National Cartoonist Society Profile: George Evans

By the wee hours of the 5th of February 1920 a blizzard had buried tiny Harwood Mines, Pennsylvania up to the clothesline. It stopped the doctor, but with an assist from a midwife, I got through. Harwood's only "literature" was the newspaper, and by the age of four, driven to know what those wonderful cartoon character's were up to, I learned to read -- and have been hooked on comics ever since. A depression kid, I worked any/every kind of job I could find to buy an art correspondence school course. I began (modestly!) sending stuff to the "pulp" mags, and my first sale was at age fourteen. After three WWII years in the Air Force, I got staff job at "Fiction House" in New York. Took courses at Art Student's League but stupidly quit for work offers. I did nearly every kind of illustration work, and much comics. Ghosted bits for many "name" strips, including the "Terry and the Pirates" dailies for George Wunder that lasted thirteen years. Past fourteen years writing/drawing "Secret Agent Corrigan" for King Features Syndicate, plus commissioned paintings (especially aviation).

National Cartonist Society Profile: Frank Kelly Freas

Well, its been a year of posts on my original comic art blog, and I hope you've all enjoyed some of the articles about my favorite hobby. Here is another in a series of profiles on the NCS artists from a few years ago, written by the creators themselves. Featured today is one of the most prolific and loved of science fiction illustrators, Frank Kelly Freas... Cartoonist, illustrator, cover artist, pin-up painter, caricaturist, educator. Kelly Freas is universally recognized as one of the most prolific and popular sci-fi and fantasy artists in the world. His work has graced the covers of hundreds of books and magazines, and illustrated stories of hundreds of authors, all of whom agree on his ability to express the inner meaning that makes a story something special. "I illustrate for readers - and for writers" says Kelly, "no story is so good that it can't be made better with good illustration."

Freas was born in Hornell, New York on August 27,1922. He was one of MAD'S premier cover artists for nearly seven years, doing most of the covers: front, inside-front, and (his favorite) the back cover with it's fake and satirical ads. His more serious work has earned him numerous awards in many areas, such as the a NATTIS Hall of Fame; Starlog's List of the 200 Most Important People in Science Fiction; and ten HUGO Awards for Best Professional Artist of the Year. Freas is the author of three published volumes of his collected works: The Astounded Fifties, The Art of Science Fiction, and A Separate Star. He resides in the Los Angeles area with his illustrator and radio host wife, Laura Brodian Freas.

Those Fantastic Filipinos!

Those fantastic Filipino artists never cease to amaze me with their phenomenal detailed work they did for DC, Marvel and Warren in the seventies and eighties. Not to mention all the pages produced in the Philippines by these comic masters way before they ever hit the American shores. I’m impressed with any Filipino work, but especially the artistry of Tony DeZuniga, Rudy Florese, Rafael Kayannan, Jess Jodloman, Rudy Nebres, Alex Nino, Jesse Santos, Alfredo Alcala, and Nestor Infante. Out of these creators, I've only been able to meet DeZuniga a couple of months ago at a local show. He was quite a reserved gentleman with an enormous talent, (his pencil work has to be seen in the originals to be believed) and has a delightfully charming wife. It was a real treat to finally meet one of my most prized comic creators who is still going strong in the business today.

Recently I ran across some Arthur Geroche factoid pages that were planned for DC’s Bible book(s), that were never published up for auction. Unfinished only at the logo, they were beautiful vivid scenes that displayed different trades, carpentry, weaving, and other professions in biblical times. I was lucky enough to purchase some Geroche’s King Arthur factoid pages about armor, warfare, and castle siege engines back in 2001 in San Diego. At that time, a friend saw, but did not purchase the Bible pages, since they were bought up before he could grab them! So finally after seven long years of waiting, here was my chance to own these beauties I’ve heard about, but never seen until now. Unfortunately, one bidder wanted these precious gems even more than I did, as I was greatly outbid at the last second. But at least I have one example of his lush delicate work. Not much more was produced by Geroche, being late to arrive to DC when the Filipino’s contributions were just about ending. The artist did only six brilliant stories for the mystery/horror anthology books that I know of, and these few unpublished factoid pieces mentioned, before drifting off with his peers to find work elsewhere in the industry.

Nestor Redondo, on the other hand was one of the earliest illustrators to sign with National in the seventies (after Tony DeZuniga) and helped bring many of his fellow countrymen to work for DC in his eleven years with the company. Best know for his beautiful run on Swamp Thing and all-time fan favorite, Rima, the Jungle Girl, Nestor ended up doing around fifty horror stories for DC. But surely one of his greatest achievements was his spectacular work on the oversized Limited Collector’s Edition of The Bible. Redondo was the perfect choice to illustrate the special project (over Joe Kubert layouts), since he was a deeply religious man who had already done a biblical adaptation in his home country in one of his comic creations. Nestor also served as art director for Pendulum Press’ Classic series of paperbacks which had many of his friends produce some real stunning little stories. Too bad you lose so much detail when printed in an average size paperback book. When the work at DC was dying out in early eighties, Redondo did a few assorted covers for Marvel and some other publishers before going into animation like many of his peers.

Another one of my beloved Filipino artists is the talented E.R. Cruz, who drew close to an astounding two hundred stories for National’s war, Western, and horror books. But the artists moody noir look was best displayed I believe in the marvelous short-lived issues of DC’s Sherlock Holmes and pulp icon, The Shadow. His extremely detailed inking style with a strange oriental feel was well displayed in those titles and the Pendulum Press issues he illustrated for Redondo, not to mention his work for Warren, Marvel, and Dark Horse. Finally, I wanted to show a page from Rudy Florese who was a solid illustrator with a beautiful graceful line as shown in this wonderful Korak page. He drew many Edgar Rice Burrughs features for DC , mainly over Joe Kubert layouts, and also a handful of chilling horror stories.