The Smarter-than-average Art of Diving

Courtesy of the excellent Mark Kausler's CatBlog, here's a Yogi Bear Sunday page from 18th of February 1962. This is probably the work of Gene Hazelton and/or Harvey Eisenberg although the strip was credited to Hanna and Barbera. This is the full version of the strip but notice how the story still works without the first three panels. A lot of papers would have only printed the bottom two tiers to save space (click for larger image).

 

The Edible Art of Diving.

Crumbs! Here's something a little different - some scuba themed cakes.

This marvellous example was recently presented to the staff at Wraysbury dive centre by one of their students.

Unknown.

This one is by Home May'de Cakes

Cake Central

Sophieisticakes

Pink Cake Box

 

Two of a Kind - Nick Carter, Killmaster!

Nick Carter, Killmaster appeared in more than 250 books published from 1964-1990. Carter, Agent N3 of AXE, was based on a pulp detective character of the same name. The name also served as a pseudonym for the various ghost-writers who wrote the books.

Number 44, first published 1969. Artist unknown.

Number 55, first published 1970, art by Gray Morrow. (Thanks to Chris for the scan - click for larger version).       

Gray Morrow (1934-2001) had a long career in comics, newspaper strips and books but is probably best known for his magazine work for the likes of Warren, Marvel and Heavy Metal.

Two of a Kind - Bas Banning and the Spanish Galleon

Work has been really hectic so I haven't had a chance to update the blog as much as I'd like. Here's a quick Two of a Kind featuring two editions of Bas Banning and the Spanish Galleon. Dutch schoolboy Bas, an aspiring journalist, originally appeared in 12 novels published between 1956 and 1962. Billed as the "Exciting adventures of an ordinary boy", this was the fifth in the series. A. Van Aadernburg was the pseudonym of publisher and author Herman Pijfers.

The first cover is a hardback from 1957. The book contained illustrations by J Giling but I don't know if he was responsible for this cover with a rather scared-looking shark!

 This 1973 paperback edition has a cover by Herson.

As a bonus, here's one of Herson's interior illustrations.

As an additional bonus, here's a cover from an omnibus edition that also contained The Car Smugglers and The Tour de France.

Earl Norem 1924 - 2015

The Art of Diving is sad to report the passing of artist Earl Norem on the 19th of June. He was 91.

His work featured in a couple of earlier posts on this blog, this one in particular.

This interior spread, which appeared in Action Life in 1963, bears the wonderful title, U.S. Frogmen Who Raided Mussolini's Underwater Call-Girl Barracks.

Here's a couple more illustrations from the Fantastic Four story book, The Island of Danger.

RIP Earl.

 

The Archie of Diving - Fool$ Gold!

This story was originally published in Jughead #147 from 1967.

I've studied it closely but I can't quite work out what exactly Jughead's kit configuration is! I doubt that artist Bill Vigoda expected it to come under particularly close scrutiny and why would he?! GCD lists George Gladir as a possible writer for this story.

 

Perhaps unusually given the subject matter, the story doesn't feature any scenes set under the water.

Samm Schwartz was working for Tower Comics when this was published and art duties during this period were largely handled by Bill Vigoda (1920-1973), brother of actor Abe (The Godfather, Barney Miller) Vigoda. Bill was a writer as well as an artist and spent most of his career at Archie Comics although he also worked in advertising.

 

Two of a Kind - Death Dives Deep

A title links the items in this post.

D.C. Thomson's Commando issue 75 from 1963 features a dramatic fight between two figures in submarine escape gear. I'm assuming the chap on the right is the hero and he appears to be wearing a D.S.E.A. (Davis Submarine Escape Apparatus).

This cover appears to have been the inspiration for a more recent issue of Commando which I'm including as a bonus.

In 1954, Standard Comics had issue 15 of Adventures into Darkness ready to publish but, fearing the attention of the newly-formed Comics Code authority, they suddenly cancelled their entire line of horror titles. One of the stories was Gene Fawcett's Death Dives Deep and it remained unpublished until 1985 when it appeared in 3-D in Eclipse Comics' Three-Dimensional Seduction of the Innocent! (Seduction of the Innocent was the book by Dr Frederic Wertham that led to the crackdown on horror comics and the formation of the CCA). These scans are from the original artwork.

Gene Fawcette (d1988) began his career with the Eisner/Iger studio. He worked for the likes of Fiction House, Better Publications, Avon Comics, Atlas (Marvel) and Ziff-Davis. In addition to horror and westerns, he worked on characters as diverse as Captain Wings, Princess Pantha and Dennis the Menace! He worked for magazines such as Famous Fantastic Mysteries and Amazing Stories and in 1961 began drawing the Sunday page of the educational strip Our New Age by the wonderfully named Dr. Athelstan Spilhaus. He later took over the daily strip until it finished in 1975. In the late '70s he provided covers for various comics from Western Publishing (Gold Key).