Harry Haenigsen became known as the artist of Our Bill and Penny, two teenage strips from the forties that went on until the sixties. It was one of the few successes of the New York Herald Tribune Syndicate, where it also originated. Before that Haenigson had a checkered career as a cartoonist and other stuff. In the twenties he did a series of satirical cartoons, usually four panels in a square. The format was similar to that of Gluyas Williams' panels, which may in fact have been the inspiration for Haenigsen's version. I was aware of them, because of their similarity ti some of Mad magazine's later features. But it was only when I got back to them doing an article on Haenigsen that I found how very good they actually were. Haenigson's cartoon style here is a lot more exciting than what he used in Our Bill and Penny. A cartoonist of his quality must ultimately have felt trapped by the bland style of his biggest success.
Showing posts with label Penny. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Penny. Show all posts
Saturday, January 11, 2020
Cartoon Roots
Saturday Leftover Day.
Harry Haenigsen became known as the artist of Our Bill and Penny, two teenage strips from the forties that went on until the sixties. It was one of the few successes of the New York Herald Tribune Syndicate, where it also originated. Before that Haenigson had a checkered career as a cartoonist and other stuff. In the twenties he did a series of satirical cartoons, usually four panels in a square. The format was similar to that of Gluyas Williams' panels, which may in fact have been the inspiration for Haenigsen's version. I was aware of them, because of their similarity ti some of Mad magazine's later features. But it was only when I got back to them doing an article on Haenigsen that I found how very good they actually were. Haenigson's cartoon style here is a lot more exciting than what he used in Our Bill and Penny. A cartoonist of his quality must ultimately have felt trapped by the bland style of his biggest success.
Harry Haenigsen became known as the artist of Our Bill and Penny, two teenage strips from the forties that went on until the sixties. It was one of the few successes of the New York Herald Tribune Syndicate, where it also originated. Before that Haenigson had a checkered career as a cartoonist and other stuff. In the twenties he did a series of satirical cartoons, usually four panels in a square. The format was similar to that of Gluyas Williams' panels, which may in fact have been the inspiration for Haenigsen's version. I was aware of them, because of their similarity ti some of Mad magazine's later features. But it was only when I got back to them doing an article on Haenigsen that I found how very good they actually were. Haenigson's cartoon style here is a lot more exciting than what he used in Our Bill and Penny. A cartoonist of his quality must ultimately have felt trapped by the bland style of his biggest success.
Saturday, June 22, 2019
Hawaian Saturdays
Saturday Leftover Day.
I have been looking forward to posting this. I have been sold a lot of Sunday newspaper sections from the Honolulu Star Bulletin form the fifties. It wasn;t actually a Sunday, but came with the Saturday paper. In 1956 thye had a period where the Saturday daily strips were included in the Sunday section and I scanned all four of them. To make them readable here I cut them into four parts. Lots of interesting strips. Why they chose to have the title in the bottom of the first panel, when almost every strip leaves some room for that in te top, I don't understand.What are your favorites?
I have been looking forward to posting this. I have been sold a lot of Sunday newspaper sections from the Honolulu Star Bulletin form the fifties. It wasn;t actually a Sunday, but came with the Saturday paper. In 1956 thye had a period where the Saturday daily strips were included in the Sunday section and I scanned all four of them. To make them readable here I cut them into four parts. Lots of interesting strips. Why they chose to have the title in the bottom of the first panel, when almost every strip leaves some room for that in te top, I don't understand.What are your favorites?
Tuesday, December 03, 2013
Penny! Penny! Penny!
Tuesday Comic Strip Day.
Harry Haenigsen was a very influentual artist. His comic strip Penny was one of the early 'modern' strips, with clear lines and a graphic rather than illustrative approach. Like the work of cartoonist Otto Soglow and a few others, it was no longer the intention to make your art a realistic representation of nature. Instead, the graphic approach tried to create pictures and composition that were pleasing to the eye. In the world of moving pictures this approach was represented by the so-called (after the fact) UPA-movement. Forced in the war to produced instructive cartoons in a hurry, a less illustrative style was developed. While the Nine Old Men at Disney started seing their pictures more and more as a believable rtepresentation of life, the UPA guys went the other way. Out of that grew the whole limited movement approach that made television cartoons a possibillity.
Now of course, this movement has it opponents. The trouble with a grpaphic representatio of life if that it codifies evry easily and before you know it, what was once exciting an new soon becomes tired and repetative. In cartoons you have the added provblem of stories being carried by believable beings. The graphic approach gets you only so far. All in all, my guess it that it works best in magazine cartoons, although there are quite a few samples of it working in comics as well. I never tired of the work of Johnny Hart, even in his later years. Or Virgil Partch. Or Don Martin for that matter. Although it must be said that all three did codify their work toward the end of their career to such an extend that there seems to be less life in it.
This certainly was true of Haenigson. Penny was a huge influence on a whole generation of artists, which can be seen in the advertising work of Dik Browne and Gill Fox, for instance, and everything that grew out of that. But where he once was new and exciting, he very soon started repeating himself, often in one Sunday page. From the early fifties to the end of the strip in, what, the seventies, it almost hurts to look at.
Which made it all the more surprising when I found some of Haenigson's earliest cartoon work from 1928. What a lively, energetic, funny and inspiring cartoonist he was. Too bad he buried it once he found a steady job. Coincidentally, I came across a later Penny Sunday where he showed a flash of his earlier brilliance. I scanned it as a sample of his stilted work at that time (in the first panel) and of how he was apparently still capable of surprising himself.
Harry Haenigsen was a very influentual artist. His comic strip Penny was one of the early 'modern' strips, with clear lines and a graphic rather than illustrative approach. Like the work of cartoonist Otto Soglow and a few others, it was no longer the intention to make your art a realistic representation of nature. Instead, the graphic approach tried to create pictures and composition that were pleasing to the eye. In the world of moving pictures this approach was represented by the so-called (after the fact) UPA-movement. Forced in the war to produced instructive cartoons in a hurry, a less illustrative style was developed. While the Nine Old Men at Disney started seing their pictures more and more as a believable rtepresentation of life, the UPA guys went the other way. Out of that grew the whole limited movement approach that made television cartoons a possibillity.
Now of course, this movement has it opponents. The trouble with a grpaphic representatio of life if that it codifies evry easily and before you know it, what was once exciting an new soon becomes tired and repetative. In cartoons you have the added provblem of stories being carried by believable beings. The graphic approach gets you only so far. All in all, my guess it that it works best in magazine cartoons, although there are quite a few samples of it working in comics as well. I never tired of the work of Johnny Hart, even in his later years. Or Virgil Partch. Or Don Martin for that matter. Although it must be said that all three did codify their work toward the end of their career to such an extend that there seems to be less life in it.
This certainly was true of Haenigson. Penny was a huge influence on a whole generation of artists, which can be seen in the advertising work of Dik Browne and Gill Fox, for instance, and everything that grew out of that. But where he once was new and exciting, he very soon started repeating himself, often in one Sunday page. From the early fifties to the end of the strip in, what, the seventies, it almost hurts to look at.
Which made it all the more surprising when I found some of Haenigson's earliest cartoon work from 1928. What a lively, energetic, funny and inspiring cartoonist he was. Too bad he buried it once he found a steady job. Coincidentally, I came across a later Penny Sunday where he showed a flash of his earlier brilliance. I scanned it as a sample of his stilted work at that time (in the first panel) and of how he was apparently still capable of surprising himself.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
We Pause For A Brief Message
Wednesday Advertising Day.
I have been doing some scanning today and gathered a couple of interesting early comic strip ads from the thirties. First of all, I have another of the Postum ads Milt Caniff and Noel Sickles produced under the Paul Arthur pseudonymn in 1936. I think I have already shown the black and white version of this ad, but her it is in all it's glory.
Next up is an ad that is all the more impressive if you look at it's date. It is in the same style as the Fireball Twigg series of ads that were probably done by Chic Young's assistent and later successor on Blondie Paul Fung Jr. But is is dated ten years earlier than those ads. I am not even sure if Fung Jr. was drawing at that point, or if he hae to look at his dad, Paul Fung Sr for these ads. Fung Sr. had died when the Fireball Twigg ads appeared, so he was out of the picture for those. The fluent style of this add is all the more remarkable if you compare it to the style of the concurrent Blondie strips. It's almost as if this ad (and it's artist) was pointing the way for the swinging style of Blondie in the forties.
The next ad is an early one, as well. It's signed K. Gunnor, which means it is by K. Gunnor Peterson, who did ads for soap products all through the forties and fifties and became famous as magazine illustrator. This early ad (and it's quality) show how important Peterson was for the so-called advertising realism style. This ad is a unicum as well, because it is one of the first full page comic strip ads, I have ever seen.
Finally, I am sharing a great ad by a surprise artist. I have never been a fan of Harry Haenigson's work. His strip, Penny, was well distibuted and I have a lot of samples. I have never been tempted to scan them, though. The humor of the strip was flat and the art stylisticly rigid. The characters and the ink line seem to have no life to them, even while Haenigson seems to stick them in a repetative set of poses. That was already bad when it was at the top of it's fame in the late forties, but it became even worse when the strip wound down towards the late fifties and early sixties.
Haenigson did seem to have his fans, though and some of them may have been among my favorite advertising strip ads. While Dik Browne and Gill Fox were building their own style for their ad strip work, I noticed that theyseemed to have pciked up some trick from Haenigson. I even came across a couple of ads, that seemed to have been drawn either by Haenigson or by someone aping his style (and putting it to better use).
Here we have a signed ad by Haenigson, that shows a totally different side to his talent. No stiff poses here and the inkline is positively alive. I will be on the look-out for more by this previously hidden talent. To compare this 1939 ad with his later style, I have added two Penny strips from 1951 and 1953. Interesting note about those strips. Haenigson seems to have been the first artist who found a new way to transform his three tier version of the gag to a smaller one - either in two tiers or, as we can see here, in three shorter tiers.
Wednesday Advertising Day.
I have been doing some scanning today and gathered a couple of interesting early comic strip ads from the thirties. First of all, I have another of the Postum ads Milt Caniff and Noel Sickles produced under the Paul Arthur pseudonymn in 1936. I think I have already shown the black and white version of this ad, but her it is in all it's glory.
Next up is an ad that is all the more impressive if you look at it's date. It is in the same style as the Fireball Twigg series of ads that were probably done by Chic Young's assistent and later successor on Blondie Paul Fung Jr. But is is dated ten years earlier than those ads. I am not even sure if Fung Jr. was drawing at that point, or if he hae to look at his dad, Paul Fung Sr for these ads. Fung Sr. had died when the Fireball Twigg ads appeared, so he was out of the picture for those. The fluent style of this add is all the more remarkable if you compare it to the style of the concurrent Blondie strips. It's almost as if this ad (and it's artist) was pointing the way for the swinging style of Blondie in the forties.
The next ad is an early one, as well. It's signed K. Gunnor, which means it is by K. Gunnor Peterson, who did ads for soap products all through the forties and fifties and became famous as magazine illustrator. This early ad (and it's quality) show how important Peterson was for the so-called advertising realism style. This ad is a unicum as well, because it is one of the first full page comic strip ads, I have ever seen.
Finally, I am sharing a great ad by a surprise artist. I have never been a fan of Harry Haenigson's work. His strip, Penny, was well distibuted and I have a lot of samples. I have never been tempted to scan them, though. The humor of the strip was flat and the art stylisticly rigid. The characters and the ink line seem to have no life to them, even while Haenigson seems to stick them in a repetative set of poses. That was already bad when it was at the top of it's fame in the late forties, but it became even worse when the strip wound down towards the late fifties and early sixties.
Haenigson did seem to have his fans, though and some of them may have been among my favorite advertising strip ads. While Dik Browne and Gill Fox were building their own style for their ad strip work, I noticed that theyseemed to have pciked up some trick from Haenigson. I even came across a couple of ads, that seemed to have been drawn either by Haenigson or by someone aping his style (and putting it to better use).
Here we have a signed ad by Haenigson, that shows a totally different side to his talent. No stiff poses here and the inkline is positively alive. I will be on the look-out for more by this previously hidden talent. To compare this 1939 ad with his later style, I have added two Penny strips from 1951 and 1953. Interesting note about those strips. Haenigson seems to have been the first artist who found a new way to transform his three tier version of the gag to a smaller one - either in two tiers or, as we can see here, in three shorter tiers.
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