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Showing posts with label Willie Woo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Willie Woo. Show all posts

Monday, November 25, 2019

Going For A Song

Monday Never Before Day.

One of the reasons I like the comic strip from the late fiftes and early sixties is the fact that any sort of crazy new things were started - including using talent out the the normal talnt pool. That's how characters like Al Jaffee, Arnold Roth, Virgil Partch, Stan Lee, joe Maneely, Dan DeCarlo, Jack Cole, Bob Powell, and many others from the comic book and New York cartoon scene were being considered when only five year before that they never would have.

One of the oddest of them all was the brainchild of illustrator Marvin Friedman and songwriter Marlon Abeson. They are known for little else and this may have been their only collaboration, but it lasted over two years as a Sunday only strip. Well, not actually a strip, more of an illustrated children's story that always ended with an especially written song. Over the years I scanned them here and there and these are the ones I have for the first year or so.

No that I have added the rest of the scans in my collection, you can also see hove the strip progressed through the years. The style gets more cartony as the artist gets more experienced and the format gets looser.




Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Marion Call

Tuesday Comic Strip Day.

In the early sixties the simple graphic qualities of the 'modern' style had paved the way for more simple, childlike styles. The first to benefit from that was Jack Mendelsohn with his faux child's comics Jacky's Diary, many of which I have shown here in color. I was surprised to find another similar strip from the same time. This time it was not done as a gag, but pretty serious, by an artist who mainly worked for children. I couldn't find much about Marion Abeson, except her obituary.

"Marion Abeson, a writer of songs for children, died of colon cancer Saturday at her home in Manhattan. She was 75 years old.

Burl Ives, the Weavers and others recorded 180 of Miss Abeson's songs. She wrote ''Playtime With Music,'' a children's songbook, and a series of short children's plays about health for the American Medical and Dental Associations. She also created a syndicated comic strip, ''Willie Woo.'"

These images are from the now defunct Google Newspaper Search and I would love to see some color samples, if anyone has any.