Skipper/s in the Spotlight panel from the Navy Times

Mario DeMarco illustrated this panel comic in Navy Times from 1961-1981, and maybe longer. These examples from the US Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery's Historical Office's biographical files run from 1961-1981. The GCD and the Marvel Wiki have credits for DeMarco, but Jerry Bail's Who's Who in American Comic Books has the best data, and shows him as doing "Sports comics (pen/ink/) 20 yrs in Navy Times." I could only find two other examples online (which are at the bottom), and the Times search engine is useless returning almost 7000 results. 

"Skipper in the Spotlight, Robert W. Elliott, Jr. (Dental Corps) U.S. Navy, Assistant Chief for Dentistry and Chief, Dental Division, BUMED."  03/05/1975; Navy Times Number 20, page 16

"Skipper in the Spotlight … Maxine Conder (Nurse Corps) U.S. Navy, Director, Navy Nurse Corps."  05/24/1976; Navy Times

Skipper in the Spotlight, Frances T. Shea, Rear Admiral, U.S. Navy, Director, Navy Nurse Corps. Navy Times 09/01/1980

"Skipper in the Spotlight: Rear Admiral Robert L. Baker (Medical Corps) U.S. Navy, Commanding Officer, Naval Regional Medical Center Philadelphia." Navy Times 06/14/1976

"Skipper in the Spotlight: Felix P. Ballenger (Medical Corps) Commanding Officer, National Naval Medical Center." Navy Times 11/05/1969

Skipper in the Spotlight: Wade H. Hagerman, Jr. (Dental Corps) U.S. Navy. Inspector General, Dental, and Deputy Chief, BuMed. Navy Times 03/20/1974

Skipper in the Spotlight: William J. Jacoby, Jr. (Medical Corps) U.S. Navy, Commanding Officer, Naval Regional Medical Center, Portsmouth, Virginia. Navy Times 08/06/1975

"Skipper in the Spotlight: Rear Admiral Paul Kaufman (Medical Corps) U.S. Navy, Assistant Chief for Material Resources, BUMED. " Navy Times 01/12/1976

"Skipper in the Spotlight. Rear Admiral Roger F. Milnes (MC) U.S.N., Commanding Officer, Naval Aerospace and Regional Medical Center, Pensacola, Florida." Navy Time 05/25/1981

"Skipper in the spotlight: Rear Admiral Richard D. Nauman (MC) USN, Fleet surgeon and assistant chief of staff for medicine, Atlantic Fleet." Navy Times 06/13/1973

"Skipper in the Spotlight: Eustine Paul Rucci (Medical Corps) U.S. Navy. Commanding Officer, Naval Regional Medical Center, San Diego." Navy Times 06/08/1981

"Skipper in the Spotlight: Edward J. Rupnik (MC) USN, Assistant Chief for Planning and Logistics, BUMED." Navy Times 07/03/1974

"Skipper in the Spotlight: George D. Selfridge (Dental Corps) U.S. Navy, Commanding Officer, Naval Graduate Dental School, Bethesda. Navy Times 11/13/1974

"Skipper in the Spotlight: Henry A. Sparks (Medical Corps) U.S. Navy. Commanding Officer, Regional Medical Center, Oakland." Navy Times 03/21/1977

"Skipper in the Spotlight: Rear Admiral Herbert G. Stoecklein (MC) USN, Fleet Surgeon and Assistant Chief of Staff for medicine, Atlantic Fleet." Navy Times 02/09/1972

"Skipper in the Spotlight: Julian J. Thomas, Jr. (Dental Corps) U.S. Navy, Commanding Officer, Naval Regional Dental Center San Diego." Navy Times 09/29/1980

"Skipper in the Spotlight: Rear Admiral Robert G.W. Williams (MC) USN, Staff Medical Officer, Naval Logistics Command Pacific and Fleet Surgeon, Pacific Fleet." Navy Times 10/01/1975

"Skipper in the Spotlight: Vice Admiral Donald L. Custis (MC) USN, Surgeon General of the Navy." Navy Times 08/15/1973

"Skippers in the Spotlight: Rear Admiral Edward C. Kenney (MC) Navy Surgeon General and Chief of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery." 6/7/1961

Skippers in the Spotlight: Rear Adm. Frank T. Norris (MC) Assistant Chief, Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (Personnel and Professional Operations). Navy Times August 30, 1967.

Skippers in the Spotlight: Rear Adm. Harry S. Etter (MC) Assistant Chief (Planning and Logistics), Bureau of Medicine and Surgery. Navy Times April 10, 1968.

Skipper in the Spotlight: David P. Osborne (MC) USN, Assistant Chief for Personnel and Professional Operations, BuMed. Navy Times November 24, 1971.

Skipper in the Spotlight: Rear Adm. Harry P. Mahin (MC) USN, Commanding Officer, Naval Hospital, Oakland, Calif. Navy Times December 8, 1971.

Skipper in the Spotlight: Robert C. Laning, (MC) USN, Ass't Chief of Operational Medical Support, BUMED. Navy Times 7/5/1976.

And two strips from the web, the second deleted from a Wikipedia article.

RADM Floyd H. Miller, Commander, Navy Recruiting Command

Benjamin T. Hacker, Sr.

Good Heaven! Changing understanding of a cartoon postcard

 

I picked up this postcard at a flea market last weekend. These days, you're most likely to see an image like this in a history of medicine collection although when it was made it was just a gag cartoon, and not graphic medicine. So what's going on? The presumably newly-married pair has gone to bed and the man sees all the prosthetics the woman has removed to sleep - a wig, dentures, an artificial leg, and hand. One wonders where his thick glasses were if he didn't notice these before bedtime.

The card's artist signature is cut off on the lower right, but the company is Lotus Pub Co, NY. They seem to have published a bit of everything, but there's a few more cartoon postcards online. There's nothing at all on the back.

If anyone has any further information, please leave it in the comments. I'll probably donate the card to the Library of Congress.

Secret Histories of Comics - Finds in an Arlington Flea Market

 Arlington has a perfectly pleasant monthly free market put up on by Civitan for charity. It started up again for the year on April 1st, and I spent about $30 on this pile. I wonder how much of this will be familiar.

Below is Marge's Little Lulu character, of which the ace cartoonist historian Rodrigo Baeza told me ""TVE" logo at top right is from Spanish TV (Televisión Española). Probably tied to this Japanese-animated version from the late 1970s:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Lulu_and_Her_Little_Friends "

I picked it up because historian Charles Hatfield and I were talking about his upcoming DC-based class on comics, I'm a fan of how comics mutate to follow the money. Little Lulu started as a panel cartoon by Marge Buell in the Saturday Evening Post, moving into being a spokeswoman for tissues, became a well-lauded set of comic books by John Stanley for Dell, appeared as a comic strip, and then sometimes popped up in things like the cartoon Rodrigo mentioned. Dark Horse did a set of reprints most recently.

Next are some cartoon postcards. The first one is an advertising on using a Heath Robinson / Rube Goldberg scheme to make pea soup. I've already bought 2 different versions of this and gave them to the Library of Congress.

Mosquitos have been a recurring theme in cartoons for years. I have no idea who Lotus Pub of NY is, but you can see a linear descendent of this mosquito, which I'm guessing is from about 1915, in the Navy's World War II cartoons about Private Snafu and malaria.

I have no idea what the below is except that I guess it refers to President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal programs to stop the depression?

Going to the Library of Congress are those two postcards and the Tio Rico comic below, titled Brujerias, featuring Magica de Spell and Uncle Scrooge, according to Rodrigo again, is "a Chilean edition from Editorial Pincel, probably from the early 1980s."

Big Little Books were popular off and on since the 1930s, and have been done within memory for Star Wars. I don't collect them anymore, BUT this beat-up Ellery Queen appealed to me, because I loved the character, and read all my parents and grandparents books, even when they dealt with murder victims having their heads cut off and being nailed up on crosses.

I imagine this is adapted from one of the comic books, which I've never seen.

Finally, this 1944 print of The Sea Wolf by Harry A. Gardner, Jr. confuses me. At first I thought this was Leonard Sansone's Wolf character, also from World War II, but it's obviously not. Anyone have any thoughts?

Original art of Ding, Lolly, and... Carl Ed's Victor Veribest? (UPDATED 2x)

by Mike Rhode (updated 11/19/21 with scans)

So a clump (gaggle? flock? murder?) of cartoonists walk into the American Visionary Art Museum's giftshop... 

Cellphone photo with caption

 

Sure, it sounds like a shaggy dog story, but this past weekend I went to the museum with a group of local cartoonists, and someone opened a flat file drawer in the gift shop, and pulled out a 'Ding' Darling panel. 

                                                              Scan, with caption cut off

There were 3 of these, which appear to tell the story of a young potato growing up into a crop. Barbara Dale said she and another friend had already bought 2 others on a previous visit. I bought this one.

 

Lolly June 21, 1970

 

The next strips I pulled out were 'Lolly' by Pete Hansen, a working woman gag strip that I read in the New York Daily News as a kid. It started in 1955, but these are from the 1970s when I was reading it.

Lolly Sept 3, 1972

Finally, there were 3 strips by Carl Ed of 'Harold Teen' fame. These 'Victor Veribest' strips seem like they might just predate 'Harold Teen' that started in 1919, or more probably, be running parallel to it as an advertising strip for an Armour Hour radio show of which I've found mentions of for 1929 and 1933-1935. I'd be glad to hear from anyone with more knowledge about them.

 

UPDATE: My friend, the crack comics historian Rodrigo Baeza, comes through "I found a sample of the Victor Veribest strip that ran in 1933: https://the-avocado.org/2018/05/10/thriftstorm-6-news-and-views-of-armour-crews/ And a few years ago Rob Stolzer was selling another original (which he believes was done in the late 1920s):https://web.archive.org/web/20180509214243/http://www.comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?piece=1326468  I was just reading a couple of days ago that Carl Ed was one of Roy Crane's teachers at Chicago's Academy of Fine Arts in 1920."

  

 

So, the strip is actually for the Armour meat company's internal newspaper. And these 3 strips more than double the amount of them that can be found on the web apparently.

 

Sports cartoons found at estate sale - Christy Walsh and Morris Scott

 I grew up in the tail end of the life of the sports cartoon. Bill Gallo was still at the NY Daily News, and the local Bergen Record had a sports cartoonist. By now, the field is mostly gone, but as Eddie Campbell has written about it, in its heyday, it launched the careers of many a cartoonist.

This past weekend I found an original sports cartoon and a pritnted comic strip at an estate sale.

The original cartoon is by Christy Walsh, a failed sports cartoonist. However, Michael Cavna, of the Washington Post, used to be a sports cartoonist himself and he put me on the track of finding out Walsh was the Kevin Bacon of his day and knew everybody. He might have not been a great cartoonist, but he became a fantastic sports agent and syndicator and became a rich man, representing Babe Ruth and others. (UPDATE 5/26/2021: I gave this to the Library of Congress' Prints & Photos division)

Blue, All-American First Baseman, 1923 

Comics historian Steven Rowe tells me "Blue is wearing a cap with what seems to be the letter D.
Since Lu Blue played first base for Detroit in 1923, Blue is indeed likely to be Lu Blue."

The other item is a clipping of a comic strip about the World's Series in baseball by Morris Scott from the Boston Post, October 8, 1913. The New York Giants are facing the Philadelphia Athletics.* I've cleaned the image up; the original is perfectly legible, but yellowed from being displayed for years.

 

Two crack comics historians helped out with tracking this bit of history. Rodrigo Baeza provided me with the artist identification, and Art Lortie found a couple of the articles that Rodrigo suggested from Newspaper.com. Here's 3 items about Morris Scott, who appears to have died rather young, as well as another comic strip from 1918.

 *Rod Beck sent in the following bit of baseball history - "Frank Baker (shown on the back of the elephant) was known as Home Run Baker. The year 1913 was in what is called The Dead Ball Era. Baker led the American League in home runs from 1911 thru 1914 with 11,12,10 and 9 homers respectively. The Philadelphia Athletics beat the New York Giants 4 games to 1 to win the 1913 series."

Boston Post March 3, 1918

Obituary, BP Dec 5, 1922

"Scott with Squad," BP March 3 1918

Funeral, BP Dec 7, 1922