Gramatky and Moreno, L.A. Times Junior Cartoonists!


jr-times-gramatky-cover-7-13-24.jpgjr-times-gramatky-capt-kidd-strip-9-7-24.jpg

jr-times-moreno-strip-7-20-24.jpgjr-times-moreno-strip-7-27-24.jpgjr-times-moreno-strip-tuttlems-8-3-24.jpgjr-times-moreno-tuttlems-strip-8-10-24.jpgjr-times-moreno-strip-8-17-24.jpgjr-times-frenchy-strip-8-31-24.jpg We lead off again this time with more strips from the 1924 L.A. Junior Times. Hardie Gramatky and Manuel Moreno produced more work than any of the other kids and managed to get something in almost every issue of the Junior Times. They were paid the whopping sum of $2.50 for every drawing published. Hardie started a feature called “Captain Kidd” in the 9/7/24 issue. From the outset, Hardie has a lot of maturity in his cartoon style, the way he arranges panels reminds me of Roy Crane’s “Wash Tubbs”. Hardie also drew the cover of the 7-13-24 issue, which starts our post this time. Manuel Moreno continued with two comic strip series, The Boy with the Answers, and “The Tuttlems”, which seems to be his version of “The Bungle Family”. I love the characters ‘plopping’ out of the panels on the punch lines. The dates of Moreno’s strips are, respectively, 7/20, 7/27, 8/3, 8/10 and 8/17/1924. As a coda, I’ve included an early strip by Gilles de Tremandan, an Aesop Fable gag featuring the Fox and Crow, published 8/31/1924. Gilles was 15 when he drew this, by the early 1930s he was animating at Disney under the name “Frenchy” (on the drafts, anyway). The old timers always said that they “drew better” than the young whippersnappers, but if you study the childhood drawings of the first wave of old master animators, their drawings look mostly untrained and immature. They learned a great deal in a short time, thanks to the intensive atmosphere of the Disney studio.

barker-bill-2-21-55.jpgbarker-bill-2-22-55.jpgbarker-bill-2-23-55.jpgbarker-bill-2-24-55.jpgbarker-bill-2-25-55.jpgbarker-bill-2-26-55.jpgbarker-bill-sunday-2-27-55.jpgbarker-bill-2-28-55.jpgbarker-bill-3-1-55.jpgbarker-bill-3-2-55.jpgbarker-bill-3-3-55.jpgbarker-bill-3-4-55.jpgbarker-bill-3-5-55.jpgbarker-bill-sunday-3-6-55.jpgBarker Bill is from 2-21 to 3-6-1955 this time. Dog Biscuit the horse gets a new pair of glasses and gets circus ambitions almost right away. They discourage the stage struck horse by encouraging the fat lady to ride Dog Biscuit bareback! The Gelt re-enters the story line as a Treasury Man shows up to question Bill about the expense of feeding the money-eating critter. In the Sundays, Gertie the Hippo in the 2-27, resembles the proud lineage of Terrytoons hippopotami, especially in her egg-hatching pose in the last panel. Little May is in the 3-6, as the Circus Problem Child once more. The strips here come from Winnipeg and Boston, hope you enjoy them.

felix-6-17-35.jpgfelix-6-18-35.jpgfelix-6-19-35.jpgfelix-6-20-35.jpgfelix-6-21-35.jpgfelix-6-22-35.jpgfelix-6-23-35-sunday.jpg Felix is from 6-17 to 6-23-1935, and continues the mad adventures of Danny Dooit and the crew on the Ape’s Island. The giant Duck from last week is here again, still with the walky-talky in his tummy. The island parrots pick up his repeated “Hellos” and broadcast them all over the place, frustrating the old explorer. About this time, Laura is replaced as the top feature on the Sunday page by “Bobby Dazzler”, a ‘Skippy’ like small boy, designed by Otto Messmer. The parrot gag in the dailies almost seems like a farewell to Laura parrot jokes, but it’s probably just a coincidence.

krazy_vintage4-28-41.gifkrazy_vintage4-29-41.gifkrazy_vintage4-30-41.gifkrazy_vintage5-1-41.gifkrazy_vintage5-2-41.gifkrazy_vintage5-3-41.gif Krazy, from 4-28 to 5-3-1941, is quite shocking! All the gags deal with cats’ fur being a good conductor of electricity, until Offissa Pupp figures out how to electrify Ignatz’s brick to discourage him from throwing it. I love Pupp’s understatement in the 5-2, “I expect him to drop it.”

patrick-2-27-to-3-4-67.jpgPatrick, from 2-27 to 3-4-1967, features gags with Godfrey, Elsa and Nathan. Nathan has half the strips, from 3-2 to 3-4, in which he is slowly going mad. Poor Nathan thinks there is a time bomb inside of him, and you can see the result of his hallucination in the 3-4. The strip is slowly starting to shift it’s focus to Nathan, perhaps Hancock found a baby confined in a playpen to be stimulating to his imagination. By the way, I’ll run out of Patrick strips in two more posts, but I have something rare to take his place. The next post should pop up on the 27th, the fifth anniversary of this foolish enterprise called a blog. We started March 27th, 2007. See you then!

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