Nightscrawlers

Hi Dave
I'm wondering if you still have any of your Doc Savage newspaper strips.
I've seen a couple for sale over the years and would love to get one.
If they are all gone, do you have any stories about the strip that you can share?:worship

I gave the entire set of original strips to the late Mark Hanerfeld, who wrote the strip under a pseudonim I no longer recall, except that the last name was Dent (after Lester Dent, the original writer of the Doc Savage stories). I've been told that some of the strips have turned up recently on Heritage Auctions. Mark's heirs had an enormous collection of art, books and comics to dispose of and probably realized a small fortune from it.

Stories about it? Well, we did two weeks worth, including one Sunday strip. Due to time demands from Bantam Publications--for whom we did the strip, with permission of Conde' Nast, the original owner of Doc Savage--the second week was only penciled. Bantam shopped the strip around to n ewspaper syndicates, and although we had a couple nibbles, there were no takers. Personally, I think we might have gotten better results if Mark and I had done the shopping-around. At least we'd have been more passionate about it.

The fact is, though, that adventure strips don't sell well any more, and most of the great old ones, like Flash Gordon and the Phantom are gone, or restricted to limited markets these days. Humor and 'family' strips are the only ones to stand a chance in today's market. It's too bad. Today's comic strip readers are missing a great experience.

Thanks for the information.
Heritage did have the Sunday. I kept a scan of it from the site and had heard tales of dailies.
Take care!:)

As a kid in the 70's and early 80's I loved to read Dan Barry's Flash Gordon, Lee Falks' Phantom & Mandrake in my father's newspaper.
For humor strips i liked very much "Woody Allen" & "Peanuts"

And is it necessary to say that i am, of course, a fan of Alex Raymond?

ho... and there was Justice League of America too. this newspaper strip^was probably my first contact with Superheroes.

[Edited on 14/8/06 by STEPHANEGARRELIE]

I wasn't aware of a Woody Allen strip. And Justice League of America?!? I'm pretty sure that was never syndicated here in the States. The US comic strip readership g enerally considered superheroes 'too juvenile'. Superman, Batman and Spiderman had some success, but that's it.

Alex Raymond was, of course--along with Hal Foster--the greatest of the comic strip artists.

I remember a story where Flash needed a brain operation after a fight, so Superman shave his head ot protect his secret identity so that the doctors could not identify him.

Stuart Hample from 1976 to 1984 ran INSIDE WOODY ALLEN



[Edited on 14/8/06 by STEPHANEGARRELIE]

He'd have to have his head shaved in any case, for a brain operation.

.....
Yes.

Thats just that i remember Superman saying to the doctors that he had shaved Flash's head himself (with his heat vision I think), to protect his secret identity. I think a doctor had say something like "I didn't know Flash was bald" and Superman was answering "he isn't, i shaved his head with my heat vision to protect his secret identity". but i'm not sure.

I remember Steve Canyon, Terry and the Pirates, Mark Trail, and the old Prince Valient. The artwork in Prince Valient was gorgeous and you really had to be able to read to follow the stories. Something I don't think our current crop of HS grads would be able to do. But I really liked the errant bullet trails in Dick Tracy. He'd shoot someone and the bullet would go off like some drunken fly. I learned more about nature from Mark Trail comic strips then from any personal teaching. By the way, Dave, I learned my metal rendering techniques from Steve Canyon and Terry and the Pirates.

[Edited on 14/8/06 by GalacticAgent]

Dave, there really was a JLA comic strip syndicated here in the states. It was called "The Worlds Greatest Superheroes" and it ran from 1978-85. When I was reading it, George Tuska was the penciller and I think Vinnie Colletta was the inker.

Well, at the time I was really jealous of your metal rendering techniques. I was a fan of Canyon and Terry myself, because of all the airplanes that appeared in them--but somehow I managed not to pick up any instruction from them. Actually, I learned my metal techniques from Neal Adams and from Russ Manning in Magnus, Robot Fighter.

The work in Hal Foster's Prince Valiant was probably the most beautiful art ever produced for comic strips. It deserves to be hung in art museums. Ditto Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon. And I think maybe Will Eisner's Spirit deserves a place on that wall too.

Originally posted by GalacticAgent
I remember Steve Canyon, Terry and the Pirates, Mark Trail, and the old Prince Valient. The artwork in Prince Valient was gorgeous and you really had to be able to read to follow the stories. Something I don't think our current crop of HS grads would be able to do. But I really liked the errant bullet trails in Dick Tracy. He'd shoot someone and the bullet would go off like some drunken fly. I learned more about nature from Mark Trail comic strips then from any personal teaching. By the way, Dave, I learned my metal rendering techniques from Steve Canyon and Terry and the Pirates.

[Edited on 14/8/06 by GalacticAgent]

;pant Not the scene with Flash, but one from another story i remember pretty well:



[Edited on 30/8/06 by STEPHANEGARRELIE]

Interesting. It appears to be a story involving Jimmy Olson as Elastic Lad. Sadly, the JLA strip never turned up in any paper I ever subscribed to.

If I recall correctly Dave, that strip eventually turned into just a solo Superman strip. It was pretty cool though, to open the newspaper back then and suddenly find a JLA comic strip inside!

Just like it was cool to see Marshall Rogers draw a Batman comic strip.