Here's another strip where the writer's style is so distinctive his
identity just leaped out at me. Ken Fitch uses "Aiy-y-y-y" in any number
of the
stories in Brown Shoe Company's 7-issue Adventures of Robin
Hood giveaway. This page is from the first story in #5, "How
Will Stutely Walked into the Hands of the Sheriff's Men." Another clue
to Fitch, seen on other pages, is his putting dialog in the captions
every so often, in addition to balloons.
I entered the Robin Hood stories' artists because I've seen the attributions reversed: Ray Willner pencils and Reed Crandall inks (Willner signed most of these, with Crandall ghosting). You may recall years ago how Crandall and George Evans art (at Dell and Gilberton, for instance) was IDed as Evans pencils and Crandall inks; but the inker isn't the one who lays out the panels and the characters' poses (and the way Crandall has people pose is, in a word, distinctive).
A few Robin Hood stories at Brown are attributed to Crandall only, pencils and inks, but he has a story in a 1955 issue of the publisher's Buster Brown Comic Book, #41, for comparison--and there his inks look just like his inks at EC, Warren, and so on. I find the inking on these Robin Hood stories consistent throughout, which is to say Willner's.
The inside front cover featurettes in #2 and 3 and all the covers are, I think, Wilner's pencils as well as inks; or at least I don't see Crandall's pencils on them.
Adventures of Robin Hood
| c. 1956 | 1-7 | Robin Hood stories | w: Ken Fitch p: Reed Crandall i: Ray Willner |
| Little John stories | w: Fitch |
I suspect that the Evans pencils Crandall inks in those Dell credits came from an interview with Evans. Been a long time since I read that interview, but seem to recall Evans saying the assignments were his. And he got Crandall to help him out. I also recall Evans saying that he penciled some of this, which Crandall inked - and vice versa. Did he say he laid out pages for both of them? I have very vague memory of that. But finding this interview with Evans would be better than my memory of it. And even if so, layouts are not pencils.
ReplyDeleteThere are stories in consecutive issues of TWILIGHT ZONE, some Crandall and Evan, some Evans solo, that illustrate your point and mine nicely, that layouts ar not pencils--the latter ones, that Evans certainly had to have laid out, show no figures in Crandall-like poses.
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