Leslie Turner, Roy Crane, Wash Tubbs and Captain Easy

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials,

I think it’s hard to take over a comic book or comic strip from a creator whose work is so ingrained in the original. Like Fantastic Four after Jack Kirby or Amazing Spider-Man post-Ditko, or American Flagg! after Howard Chaykin. It can be done, of course, and it’s done all the time since, with few exceptions (Calvin And Hobbes and Peanuts to name just two), keeping the property alive is advantageous to the rightsholder.

Leslie Turner was one of those takeover guys. With Roy Crane’s blessing to his former assistant, Turner took over Captain Easy (formerly known as Wash Tubbs) when Crane left to create Buz Sawyer in 1943. Turner did a pretty good imitation Crane, and even stuck with the Craftint technique that Crane pioneered on the good Captain.

Click to continue reading Leslie Turner, Roy Crane, Wash Tubbs and Captain Easy

Roy Crane, Wash Tubbs, Captain Easy and Buz Sawyer

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Interviews, Independent,

It’s easy to toss around the word “genius,” especially when it comes to comics. We all have our favorites and we all like to think ours are the great ones. But one look at Roy Crane’s work and anyone can see that he definitely was worthy of the “genius” tag.

Crane created two great adventure classics, Wash Tubbs (which later became Captain Easy) and Buz Sawyer, with Wash being called the first true newspaper adventure strip. He’s been dead for 30 plus years, but looking through his strip work, you can see his influence in comics from Milton Caniff to Alex Toth to Howard Chaykin. Even the modern strip, Rip Haywire by Dan Thompson shows a Crane influence as does Randy Reynaldo’s Rob Hanes.

And in a classic Comics Journal interview, Art Spiegelman calls Crane an influence on Jack Kirby.

Continuing my series on cartooning and cartoonists, Roy Crane wrote about himself and his work back in 1964. This is pulled from an oversized saddle-stitched magazine from Allied Publications with the creatively-challenged title These Top Cartoonists Tell How They Create America’s Favorite Comics. It featured an introduction by Beetle Bailey’s Mort Walker and was compiled by Allen Willette.

Here’s Crane on Crane:

Click to continue reading Roy Crane, Wash Tubbs, Captain Easy and Buz Sawyer

Weekend Reading: James Bama, Alex De Campi, Kids and Guns!

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials,

Before going any further, let’s just pause for a minute (which is like a week in internet-time) and send some good thoughts out to Eduardo Barreto, the great comic artist who currently draws the Judge Parker comic strip. He’s ailing with Meningitis and has had to push himself away from the drawing board while he recovers. Aside from being a good guy, he’s a terrific artist and Parker is one of the best-drawn comics currently on the page. We at Comix 411 wish him a speedy recovery. Eduardo’s pal and frequent collaborator, Beau Smith, has an excellent appreciaton as well as an update over at Busted Knuckles.

Kids And Guns: One thing I’ve learned is that kids from the 1950s and 1960s loved their guns, and companies were only too happy to fill their hands with iron, okay, well, plastic and metal parts, but still. Over at Cyclops Central they’ve got an excellent post to prove that point with ads from comics books and television.

Click to continue reading Weekend Reading: James Bama, Alex De Campi, Kids and Guns!