X-9 by Mel Graff

click for larger version

I discovered today that I like the look of Mel Graff's 40's-50's cartooning, so I tracked down some strips at Heritage Auctions. I turned them into line art and put them into one page as a fun comic strip continuity project! Thrill to the adventures of Corrigan (aka X-9), Corrigan's double, Joe Otterfoot, and the handling of illegal venison. Strips are from 1944, 1949 and 1955.

Also make note of Graff's special lettering for the caption boxes--good stuff!

Graff promo art and bio at Joakim Gunnarsson's blog

Secret Agent X-9 wikipedia entry

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Chinese Comics: Peng Di (aka 朋弟), A Molin 2

Here's another batch of strips scanned from a book I brought back from China in 2004. This stuff is by cartoonist 朋弟 (aka Peng Di, Feng Di, Peer Di), and I'd say these examples are from the 30's/40's, but I can't say for sure. The title seems to be A Molin 2, which, according this this guy is a funny tranlation:

"I found a better dictionary and noticed that the word 阿木林 can mean someone who is easily decieved or a fool. I think that is what the name 阿摩林 should be translated as. Perhaps this is a way to say the same thing in Shanghai. From now on Ah Molin will be known as Suckah."

Maybe "A. Dupe" would be a good name.

Anyway, this is from a series of reprints published in 2003; I bought three different ones, but gave the other two to friends. This book is all four-panel strips, while the others I saw looked like longer stories. The strips from this book deal with class struggle, the male/female dynamic, and hygiene, I guess.

Title Translations:
pg 1: Eat Well
pg 2: The Suction Kiss
pg 3: Standard Table Lamp.

That's about all I can figure out. I found these on the Google-translated page here. I'll make up unfunny but jokey fake titles from here on.

Thus,

pg 11: Now He Has One Leg!

pg 19: Sharing Hooker's Bed Bugs
pg 31: Popeye Contest
pg 39: Baby Collector ???
pg 46: Fickle Lady

pg 52: Ass Licker
pg 57: Rickshaw and Severed Head

LINK ROUNDUP

Peng-Di Wikipedia entry, Google translation

Peng Di series on Amazon.cn

Translated Peng-Di Comics on wobumingbai.typepad.com:
The Real Shanghai, introductory post,
The Real Shanghai, subsequent pages
Make Your Fortune and Return Home

Ther was some controversy over characters in the seemingly pretty profitable Old Master Q series being plagiarized from Peng Di's comics (and they are obvious rip-offs). More info on this:
Old Master Q Wikipedia Entry
People.com.cn Article, Google Translation

That's it, have fun!

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Danny Dutch Weekly Strip #15

For the week of April 21-27.

This is the best comic strip I've ever done.

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Gluyaswilliams.com Update

I added a batch of ten gags/illustrations done for Rand McNally to gluyaswilliams.com. These were made from scans I found on an ebay auction ages ago, I did my best to fix them up. The one I've posted here was too far gone, so I didn't post it to gw.com, but nothing is too shitty looking to put on a blog.

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Danny Dutch Weekly Strip #14

For the week of Apr 7-13

It took me forever to get this done. I won't be drawing these guys again because it's too hard!

Also take a look at this raw scan, before I added the graytones. (very large size)

There's an RSS feed of my Flickr gallery of weekly strips here, if you are so inclined.

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Title Block

I have to put in some overtime at work this week (so my comic strip for this week is lagging), but a benefit, along with time-and-a-half, of course, is coming across stuff like this:

click for larger

Back in the old days big architects firms knew a good logo when they saw one. Nowadays I'm not so sure, they're a little too plain for me. This thing was handlettered by a professional! A couple more nice bits:

A graceful "of" can make even the ugliest stencilled numbers look nice.

Danny Dutch Weekly Strip #13

For the week of March 31 - April 6.

I was beginning to think I went overboard with the drawing on this, but it came out ok.

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