National Cartoonist Society Profile: Al Jaffee

I was born a long time ago in what is now known as Savannah, Georgia and it's been down hill ever since. I've tried many fields of cartooning and one of these days "I"ll get it right." I've done comic books, satire magazines, and a minor syndicated feature titled "Tall Tales". One day, in a fit of madness, Alfred E. Neuman invited me to join the "usual gang of idiots". In 1964 I created the "Mad Fold-In" which still appears (yeech!) as of this writing. I've been a member of the National Cartoonist Society since 1950 sponsored by Frank Fogarty, (one of the sweetest people I ever met) and Gill Fox (not as sweet but a great artist). The National Cartoonist Society has been a marvelous joyride.

Irving Phillips' The Strange World of Mr. Mum

Based on a stage play created by Phillips for Broadway, The Strange World of Mr. Mum debuted on May 5, 1958, with its whimsical iconic style that helped pave the way for other one panel cartoonist with off-beat humor like Gary Larson's, The Far Side, or Dan Pirraro's, Bizarro. Our man on the street, Mr. Mum, was a good-humored, befuddled gentleman who somehow always came across one zany situation after another with his tragic deadpan expression. If ever shaken to his core from these outer limits type weird happenings, the most we ever saw out of this silent bystander was an occasional raised eyebrow. At the peak of its run, starting with the Hall Syndicate and later ending with the Field Newspaper Syndicate, it graced 180 newspapers, spawned a Sunday page in 1961, and was printed in 22 countries...no translation required.

Whether it was a single mother with a brood of children shooting a stork at the local zoo, or a caveman returning several overdue stone tablets to a amused librarian, Mr. Mum somehow remained stable at what he observed. This signature strip won Irving Philips the International First Prize and Cup of the Salone dell' Umorismo of Bordighera, Italy, in 1969. Two books, ten years apart were published about Mr. Mum's exploits, but often appealing to only a narrow section of newspaper readers, until the series eventually ended in 1974 despite protests of his many loyal fans.

Comic Art Legend: Frank Thorne

Born in Rahway, New Jersey on June 16, 1930, Frank Thorne broke into comics at eighteen drawing romance stories at Standard Comics while studying at the Art Students League in New York. After his graduation, Thorne illustrated Perry Mason for two years at King Features Syndicate, before returning to Dell Comics to work on Jungle Jim, Flash Gordon, The Green Hornet and other adventure related titles. From 1957 to 1964 Frank drew a very well received medical strip called Dr. Guy Bennett for the Arthur Lafave Syndicate before revisiting comics once again. Switching to Gold Key, he worked mainly on Twilight Zone and Mighty Samson and a handful for of other books, before going to DC to draw Tomahawk, Korak, and various war and horror stories. Fans are also quite fond of his few excellent works at Atlas/Seaboard Publications in their black and white and color creations on Son of Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, and Lawrence of Arabia, before next landing at Marvel Comics.

Thorne is best known for his 1975 rendition of Marvel's "She-Devil with a sword", Robert E. Howard's, fiery female Red Sonja. The artist's perfect mixture of sword and sorcery fantasy and the sexy red-haired Amazon made his the definitive image for the character, with a tremendous success that few could follow. Though After three years, Thorne decided to leave Marvel to create his own blond warrior woman, Ghita of Alizzar and began his long career drawing bawdy characters for various publishers such as Playboy (Moonshine McJuggs), Heavy Metal (Lann), and Comico (Ribit!), just to name a few. Besides doing comics, Frank Thorne has done numerous gag cartoons, and the Illustrated History of Union County, for the New Jersey area where he was born.

Make Mine Marvel: Luke Cage

Luke Cage, Hero for Hire was first introduced by Marvel at the height of the blaxploitation films that hit the silver screens in 1972, when Richard Roundtree starred as Detective John Shaft. Archie Goodwin was chosen to produce the snappy "hip" scripts as George Tuska did the art chores. One of the rare black cartoonist in the field, Billy Graham, was inker for their new sly African-American private eye/superhero series. Sent to a maximum security prison for a crime he didn't commit, Carl Lucas volunteered for a scientific experiment in order to be paroled early, and find the real crook who framed him. Like other supermen before him, the experiment Lucas was involved in went terribly wrong, turning him into a "bulletproof brother" who busted out of prison to seek his revenge. Wanting to profit from his new found skills, he changed his name to Luke Cage and set up an office on West Forty-Second Street to charge high-dollar clients for his new superhuman assistance. So was the story of Luke Cage for many years until the sales on the series finally dropped. Marvel then started calling him the Powerman and teamed Cage up with the martial artist Iron Fist to capture a whole new audience. Recently the popular character has been revived once again in a solo title with adult edgier story lines for the ultimate tough guy title simply called Cage.