Marc Deckter Challenge Day Five

Here's a special treat brought to you by Joseph "JoJo" Baptista.

Today marks the fifth day of our bi-annual fundraising drive. Two great supporters stepped up to bat today, so there's a lot of exciting things to see- so much in fact, that I'll be rolling over a couple of contributors' comics until tomorrow. There's still time to do your part and contribute to help us purchase hard drives to carry us through the next six months of digitization. Here's how it works...

THE MARC DECKTER CHALLENGE
One of our most steadfast supporters is Marc Deckter. Marc is allowing us to digitize hundreds and hundreds of rare 1930s Sunday pages from his extensive collection. Last year, Marc issued a challenge to readers of this blog. Today, he is challenging you to help again.

Contribute $20 to the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive through the PayPal link below, and Marc will provide us with a vintage Sunday page to publish here on the website. Donate $50 and he will share three of them... donate $100 and he will allow us to post eight pages. Purchase one of these hard drives and have it shipped to the Archive, and Marc will post FORTY rare Sunday pages! Marc has classic Otto Messmer Felix the Cat, Chic Young's Blondie, Cliff Sterrett's Polly and Her Pals, Milt Gross Count Screwloose and other great pages ready to go. All you have to do to see them is contribute. As the total rises, Marc is prepared to throw in some extra treats, like he did last year. When you contribute, everyone benefits.

IT'S TIME TO SUPPORT THE ARCHIVE

TODAY'S CONTRIBUTORS
Today, I have two new Archive Heros to introduce to you. The first is Chappell Ellison, who visited the archive recently to see the Grim Natwick exhibit. Here's a batch of great Otto Messmer Felix the Cat Sunday pages!








Next up is our new Archive Hero, Brian Homan. For Brian, Marc has selected a variety of Sunday pages... potpourri!







WANT TO SEE MORE?
If this site has provided something of value to you through the hundreds of articles we've posted over the past couple of years, this is your opportunity to give something back. Every day for the next week or so, I'll post the names of the folks who are contributing to make this site possible along with the Sunday pages they sponsor. Please consider joining in and doing your part. If you believe in what we're doing at the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive and you have benefitted from our posts in the past, you'll want to contribute so we can bring you even more.

If you can, link to this post from your website or blog. Encourage your friends to join in the challenge. Let's all pull together, and take this project to the next level.

Thanks!
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
.

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Cartooning: Byrnes' Complete Guide To Cartooning Part One

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 8 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great info on the history of animation told through the careers of great animators.

REG'LAR FELLERS, LI'L ABNER, FLASH GORDON, TERRY & THE PIRATES, GAGS & GALS, STEVE CANYON... Meet The Men Behind The Comics

Today, we began digitizing an important book... Gene Byrnes' Complete Guide To Cartooning 1950. Marc Crisafulli and David King generously lent us a copy of this amazing collection of capsule features on all of the major cartoonists of the early 50s for digitization. It's said that Ralph Bakshi learned to cartoon from this book.

In the coming weeks, I will be posting more from this book, along with a little biographical info on the featured artists. Today, the cartoonists profiled are all newspaper comic strip creators... Gene Byrnes, Jefferson Machamer, Alex Raymond, Louis Eisele, Charles Voight, Al Capp and Milton Caniff.

REG'LAR FELLERS
By Gene Byrnes
Gene Byrnes intended a career in sports, but after being laid up from a leg injury in 1911, he took to copying cartoons by Tad Dorgan and decided to take a correspondence course in cartooning. He began his career as a professional cartoonist with the help of Winsor McCay, who got him a job with the New York Telegram as a sports cartoonist around 1915. In 1917, he created his most famous strip, Reg'lar Fellers. which ran for over thirty years. He wrote several influential books on cartooning and illustration in the 40s and early 50s. He passed away in 1974.



RIP KIRBY
By Alex Raymond
Alex Raymond is best known for creating the comic strip, Flash Gordon in 1933. He was responsible for several other important strips as well, as creator or ghost artist, including Rip Kirby, Jungle Jim, Tim Tyler's Luck and Tillie the Toiler. His strip, Secret Agent X9 was created in collaboration with Dasheill Hammett. He died in a car accident in 1956.




JEFFERSON MACHAMER
Thomas Jefferson Machamer began as a staff artist on the Kansas City Star in the early 1920s, and soon moved to New York, where he secured work with the New York Tribune. He made his name with his cartoons of pretty girls in Judge magazine in the late 1920s. In 1932, his strip, Gags & Gals debuted in the New York Mirror. He continued to be active in both newspaper cartoons and magazine illustration throughout the 40s and 50s, and passed away in 1960.






LOUIS EISELE
I don't have any information on Louis Eislele. If anyone out there knows his biographical details, please post them to the comments below.



CHARLES VOIGHT
Charles Voight was known as a "girl specialist" with illustrations and comics in the New York World and Life magazine in the early decades of the 20th century. His strips included Petey Dink and Betty. He passed away in 1947.



ON THE WRITING OF CONTINUITY
By Al Capp
At the age of nine, Al Capp lost a leg in a streetcar accident. He became the youngest syndicated cartoonist in the country at age 19 with his strip, Colonel Gilfeather. He ghosted the strip Joe Palooka for Ham Fischer for a while, before striking out on his own with Li'l Abner in 1934. The strip was among the most popular of all time, entering the popular culture with Capp's creations like "Sadie Hawkins Day", "Kickapoo Joy Juice" and "The Shmoo". Capp's strip inspired a Broadway musical and feature film and ran until 1977. Capp died two years later.





DETOUR GUIDE FOR AN ARMCHAIR MARCO POLO
By Milton Caniff
Milton Caniff was born in Ohio in 1907. He took a job as a staff artist with the Associated Press in 1932, and soon inherited Al Capp's strip Colonel Gilfeather when Capp left the syndicate. In 1934, Caniff created the comic strip he is best known for, Terry and the Pirates. The series was hugely popular throughout the war years, but Caniff didn't own the copyright- it belonged to The Chicago Tribune/New York Daily News. He left the comic behind to create a new one, Steve Canyon, which spawned a short-lived television series and ran until Caniff's death in 1988.





I'll have more from this book soon.

If you found this post to be interesting, see... Byrnes' Complete Guide To Cartooning Part Two: Studying Comic Strips

Also see...Nat Falk's "How To Make Animated Cartoons" Part One: The History of Animation, Part Two: The Cartoon Studios, Part Three: How Cartoons Are Made, Part Four: How To Draw Cartoons and Part Five: How To Animate. Also, see... Willard Mullen on Animals.


Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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