Category Archives: comics

This turned up on Howard Lowery’s auction site four years ago and I don’t recall ever seeing it posted elsewhere (and I swore I had), so I’m putting it here. It’s a 1952 letter that animator-cartoonist Gil Turner wrote to his friend Preston Blair’s wife Hope, who was—er—hoping Turner might give her some tips for how to get a job writing for Western Publishing.

As everyone knows, Turner was one of the Western comics’ better writers. He wrote and drew many funny, inventive stories with Disney’s Big Bad Wolf and no-goo-do-gooder son Li’l Bad Wolf for Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories. He also wrote many stories with the Warner and MGM characters, and wrote-and-drew the not-so-good Pancho Vanilla feature that graced the back pages of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies Comics.

Unfortunately, Turner is channeling Chase Craig, the editor who presided over the increasing banality of the art and writing coming out of Western’s California office, in much of his advice. But there’s still kernels of truth herein that I find myself following to this day when writing and localizing comics with the Disney characters—truths of which a lot of other writers remain sadly ignorant. See what you think – transcription follows the gallery.

Oct. 25, 1952

Dear Hope:
So glad to hear from you after all this time. It has been an awfully long time since we have seen or heard from you and Preston. We have thought and spoken of you both many times, and wondered how you are. Hope, I will try and do my best and advise you how to write for Dell Comics. I have had, perhaps, more than my share of good luck, by having only two or three stories turned down since leaving Metro in 1946… anyway, the following formulas seem to work for me.

1. Don’t attempt a story until you have made a thorough study of Dell magazines. It’s the only way you will really learn the requirements. Read the current magazines and as many of the back issues as you can find. Become so familiar with the characters that you will know just how they think, talk, and react to given situations. A story that in itself may be funny and have merit may not be worth a nickle [sic] as a vehicle for “Bugs”, Porky, Mickey, or any of the others.
2. A GOOD BEGINNING. Something interesting, amusing or exciting should be going on from the very first panel. Get into the actual story as quickly as possible and keep it moving.
3. ACTION. Every page should have action. If you find a page is getting “talky”, figure out a way to get action into it. However you should avoid having too much going on in one panel.
4. CLEVER DIALOGUE. Don’t just fill in a balloon. Make it as interesting and snappy as possible. Don’t put too many words in a balloon. It varies, of course, with the situation, but a good rule of thumb that has worked well for me has been to keep the number of words in a page UNDER 100… as many words under as possible. Make your “heavies” tough without the use of DESE, DEM, DOZE, etc.
5. THE PLOT. As in any form of writing, each story should have a plot, regardless of how simple it might be. Make sure your story isn’t merely a series of incidents. Avoid counter plots. Keep chuckles throughout the story.
6. THE ENDING. A really clever ending has saved many a mediocre story for me, so give plenty of thought here. The reader should feel satisfied with the outcome, and there should be no loose ends.
7. Don’t use flashbacks. Avoid dream sequences. They are MURDER with an editor… at least an editor with Dell.
8. Never use more characters than are necessary to tell your story. If a character is created, BE SURE that it doesn’t outshine the lead character.
9. Be as fantastic as you like but be sure to make plausible explanations.
10. Avoid sophistication and adult themes such as psycho-anaysis [sic]. The bulk of the readers range from 6 to 16 years of age, with the peak around 11 or 12. This doesn’t mean, though, that you can “write down” to them… far from it. They are surprisingly quick to discover this sin in a story.
11. Keep them in good taste. Avoid anything dealing with race, politics, religion, labor, suicide, death, torture, or physical handicaps. Don’t make fun of the police.
12. NEW IDEAS. Avoid doing the obvious. Follow the same pattern, but get a new twist to your story. Avoid trite “cops & robbers” themes. On Bugs Bunny, avoid “carrot stealing” as the main theme. This has been worked to death.
13. DON’T under estimate writing for the comics. Don’t say, “Anybody can write that stuff!” … Writing for comics has become as highly specialized as any field of writing.

That’s about all the tips I can think of, at the moment, Hope. I am enclosing several stories of mine, so that you might see the way I submit my stories. If you follow this general format, you will be safe… regardless which character you feature. It isn’t neccessary [sic] to sketch the stories carefully. You can just draw stick-figures… so long as they are labeled, or otherwise identified.

Send stories to Mr. Chase Craig
Whitman Publishing Co.
9916 Santa Monica Blvd.
Beverly Hills

Or to: Mrs. Alice Cobb
Same address

} Mention me if you wish— Best regards to you and Pres — and good luck — Gil

P.S. Note the number of pages in story of character you are writing – (As example: “Li’l Wolf” is always eight pages. Pancho is always 5 pages, etc.

Envelope:
I have been writing and drawing “Li’l Bad Wolf” for Walt Disney Comics and “Pancho Vanilla” for Warner Bros. since leaving Metro in ’46 – plus writing Sylvesters, Porkys, Bugs, Mickeys, etc.  for others to draw. I went back to the animation business, though, Sept. 1st with Walt Lantz. I am only doing two stories a month now (in spare time) for Dell – “L’il Wolf” and “Pancho”.

Angelyn sends regards to you both.

Top: the Aug. 1, 1941 strip of Ernie Bushmiller’s Nancy. Bottom: the Terrytoon School Daze, one of two failed animated shorts with Bushmiller’s Nancy and Sluggo. The adaptation of that ’41 strip starts at around 1:25. Note that the strip (which is even legible at thumbnail size) is readable in some six seconds, whereas the Terry guys ballooned the joke to some 90 seconds. The new Fantagraphics book How to Read Nancy: The Elements of Comics in Three Easy Panels doesn’t discuss why things went so wrong with the animated cartoon, unfortunately, but once you finish the book you can probably figure out why.

Full-disclosure: this review is by someone who has chided Mark Newgarden over the years for even doing his long-gestating How to Read Nancy project with Paul Karasik. Along the lines of, “How to Read Nancy? With your Eyes Wide Shut.” But I always knew if someone like Mark respects Ernie Bushmiller enough to do a 44-chapter-and-then-some intense study of him, there has to be something special at work there.

How to Read Nancy will inevitably be an important college text: its writing is engaging but never fannish, and breaks down the concepts of visual storytelling in a manner that will not turn off the average reader or student. I can easily see this becoming an alternative to Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics in many curriculums. That book has its virtues and will always be valuable, but I always thought it an awful idea for McCloud to do it as an actual comic book. Newgarden and Karasik lavishly illustrate the history and their thesis, and also understand that concepts need to be explained in words without distracting the reader with the authors’ own creative concept.

Which is the point of the book and its subject: simplicity is important, underrated, and misunderstood. Newgarden and Karasik don’t try to hide that the prevailing opinion in the comic critics world is that Bushmiller was a hack. As they said in a Comics Journal interview: “Krazy Kat and Little Nemo resemble “Art.” Peanuts resembles “Philosophy.” Nancy resembles nothing more and nothing less than a comic strip (and a gag-driven, self-proclaimed “dumb” one at that), hence: easily dismissed from the canon.”

I certainly sympathize with battling critical prejudice. Friz Freleng gets the same flak from animation fans and historians for not being as flamboyant as the other Hollywood cartoon directors, despite the simple poses and animation in his cartoons generating as many (and arguably more) laughs as anyone else’s pictures. While I didn’t leave the book thinking Nancy is some misunderstood classic that deserves the sort of attention as Herriman, Schulz, or Milt Gross’ work, the authors have certainly made their case that Bushmiller implemented intelligent design on a daily basis. And not just because of his intense gag-writing process that’s covered well here.

The fact is, a lot of comic strips were and are junk. Newgarden and Karasik are able to take a single innocuous Nancy cartoon and analyze some forty-four elements within the following categories: the strip, the script, the cast, props and special effects, costumes, production design, staging, performance, the cartoonist’s eye and hand, details, and the reader. In not one single instance does it feel like they’re reaching—the elements are all there and done well enough that they can be highlighted individually. I’m hard pressed to think of another strip simple enough to analyze cartooning principles in this depth, even my absolute favorites. Maybe a Peanuts strip, but then again, that “philosophy” would overshadow the non-philosophical lesson intended. There’s no “philosophy” at work in Nancy—just craftsmanship that delivers the goods in seconds. That certainly cannot be said for all the long-standing dinosaurs that are part of the King Features family. And that’s why the book is proving so interesting and popular: that you can mine all of this education out of a dismissible Nancy strip.

One other element of the book I particularly admired, as a fellow cartoon archaeologist, and fear will be ignored in other reviews was the historian aspect of Newgarden and Karasik’s scholarship. The story of Bushmiller—his work, his influences, and what made him tick—is covered more thoroughly here than it will be ever again. Most illuminating was the reveal that there is no complete run of the Nancy comic strip available anywhere. In fact, they didn’t even have an original copy of the 1959 strip when they started the book—nor did they know the actual date it appeared! (For the original essay, the strip was taken from a Nancy collection where it appeared undated and without the syndicate/copyright information.) Thankfully that little dilemma was solved, but the larger one remains.

Theoretically there could be a Nancy run assembled by some enterprising historian willing to go through hundreds of thousands of microfilm, but to this date that hasn’t happened. In an age where just about everything is getting reprinted, often material that doesn’t warrant it (I’m thinking of the fussy Al Taliaferro Donald Duck strip that’s getting the red carpet treatment from IDW), perhaps this tome will lead to Bushmiller getting his due. I mean, why not?

Perhaps the most profound thing reprinted in the book that makes the authors’ case is a 1959 newspaper comics page where the strip originally appeared. Even without knowing what I was looking at, my eye was drawn to Bushmiller before anything else, including the more respectable cartoons like Li’l Abner. Even if you stubbornly cling to the idea that Nancy is junk, the book is still worth reading because everything Newgarden and Karasik say can be applied to cartooning and comedy in general. The book is also important for the influence it will hopefully have on the cartoonists who read it. The medium is crowded with clutter and it remains difficult to discern those who deserve attention, whether it’s in a book or at a gallery. That doesn’t mean to draw as simplistic as Bushmiller or just go for the dumb laugh—just take a leaf out of his book so your art will stand out in the wallpaper of the cartooning world.

Now available from Fantagraphics is The Return of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which features four of the stories Romano Scarpa drew with the movie characters for the Italian Topolino. Scarpa only wrote the latter two stories, while Guido Martina (whom I’ve dubbed the Italian John Stanley) wrote the first two.

These are strange, wild stories that deal with mortality in very grim and chilling ways, but they also have a coherence and humor that makes them genuinely entertaining, far more than any American comics with the characters. (Who else but those Italians would think to have Jiminy Cricket have the hots for the Wicked Queen?) I would place them in the same tier as other Mickey Mouse stories Scarpa and Martina made in the 1950s like “The Blot’s Double Mystery” and “The Mystery of Tapiocus VI”. Scarpa was arguably the best comic book author of the Mouse, and he did some fine Duck comics, but Scarpa working with the Dwarfs in Topolino was one of those rare combinations in Disney comics, much like Gil Turner was with the Big Bad Wolf in Walt Disney’s Comics & Stories. In those stories, the author is able to make something promising out of characters that were just about always throwaway filler.

As presented by Fantagraphics, the comics retain their original coloring and are well reproduced from decent stats. The American English translations are mostly by Jon Gray (with David Gerstein and Michael Catron), who’s been the main script-writer on the Disney books by IDW. I’ll admit, knowing Jon as I do, that I was nervous these particular stories might have been out of his wheelhouse, but that nervousness was certainly misplaced. He deftly delivers Dwarf English these thrillers deserve.

My only caveat is that there’s no accompanying article about these stories in the book, save a little uncredited blurb on the copyright page. While sometimes the stories themselves are enough, it’s still accepted that the publisher needs to justify why this unseen material is being presented in an archival collection. Hopefully a future collection will have some substantial accompanying text by David or Italian comics scholar Alberto Becattini, as there are more than enough Scarpa/Martina Snow White comics to justify a second volume. But it’s the comics that matter, and they’re served well herein.

For some reason, I now have an author’s page on ComiXology. Well, I do know the reason, actually: the entire line of Disney comics published by IDW are being published digitally on February 1st, and since I’m credited as a creator for my “Duck English” scripts of international stories, there be my byline.

As I’ve said many times, it’s been a privilege working with David Gerstein to bring these stories stateside. Despite some hiccups and dud concepts, it’s easily the best curated run of Disney comic books period. Case in point: “The Great Rock of Power-Plus”, by Francesco Artibani and Giorgio Cavazzano, a modern 57-page (!) masterpiece that manages to make the wholly unsympathetic Magica De Spell a sympathetic character. It was an honor to play a small part in bringing it stateside via last October’s Disney Giant Halloween Hex.

More later…