April 8, 2012

'Thanks, We're All Yn...'

Before you sit down...

another few words 'around about' amiable













In looking for photos for the previous post, I happened onto 'net pics
of comic books from a '62-'63 TV show 'our friend' was in that I never
before knew existed, (and I have seen many by-now-obscure ones).


The first issue's cover jumped out instantly as by far the best of the three.
All likely publicity stills made for the show well before the comics occurred
to anyone.

I was bestirred enough to actually buy 'n' try that # from a deep sale at
Mile High Comics. (The cover scan and panel crops are mine, from that copy).

I don't know what I was expecting. Probably nothing. Just curious to see how
Allyn's likeness would fare, having tackled a few actors myself, either putting
them in actual comic stories, or grabbing someone for later by drawing directly
from the TV. It's a lot harder to capture the right (or any) 'soul' than you might think.

Usually it's the person's eyes that wind up dull ballpoint lumps and there's almost no hope of representing the unique, nuanced life in them without a still photo. Especially if theirs is a varied personality best seen in action.


Too young to be a fan of the show itself, and a smidge before my earliest
'buying' phase, I find it's not the sort of comic I would have bought as a kid.
Waayyyy too many humans, in wayyy too many uniforms, doing wayy too
much of 'the same' throughout. Give me an overwrought 'aminal' any day.

As usual then, for this and other companies, the artist is not credited. But, I'm
reminded first of Ric Estrada, who could crank out such serviceable pages by
the truckload, (whereas lazy, amateurish me would be tearing my soul's hair
out after only one page of lookalike miltary ciphers).

Whoever it is, they did an okay enough job on Joslyn's likeness. It's no worse than other TV tie-ins. Bear in mind such comic projects were seldom supplied with an abundance of morgue material from half-interested Hollywood p.r. departments. Often the artists had to cough up entire views of a person via one or two stills. And without even being fans of the shows or films involved.




Hmm. Crop two, Col. Blackwell 'fatigued' is not unlike my attempts at Robert Hutton. But, then those pencil mustaches can add a sameness to just about any dark haired white guy back then. As ubiquitous as frisky caterpillars--- (ub, the mustaches, not the white guys).


Happenstance and apropos of absolutely nothing but the thread of my previous post, Allyn Joslyn's character in the show is first named 'Harvey'.





It's hardly 'the same' as the real person of course. Such celebrity or media related representations are almost never as satisfying as whatever source the real live
actors are appearing in. And this comic is nothing to get thrilled over either.

The plot, probably supplied from a moot episode script, 'merely' involves the boy cadets of Westfield Military Academy in un-competition for team points 'cooking', 'acting', and in mock battle, that they don't really want, lest team leader friends Tubby and McKeever have to unfairly be declared victor over the other and expose their fake cadet 'Miller', whom they pose as, taking up the slack. (Hunh?). And I only spot read it.

Anyway, there's truly barely a scrap of kitschy irony to be had from the thing. It's all too mainstream for me, despite the baroque plot.


Evidently, also, the sort of television comedy ranking 'down there' in the lower
middle someplace, in sloppycat conception, with 'It's About Time', 'Mr. Terrific'
'The Chicago Teddy Bears' and 'Rango'. You know, whatever genre has been
a hit someplace gets the 'treatment'. The list of what they think America will
swallow is seemingly endless.

None of which is to put down the efforts of the actors and so on, anyone
who tried to make the thing work. It couldn't have been the worst show on
then, or certainly since. It must have had it's moments.


I don't recall the kid from anything, tho' I've since seen a blog comment that hipped me to his slightly more recognizable buddy, 'Tubby': Keith Taylor, 'Harry' on several post-'Larry Mondello' episodes of Leave It To Beaver; a couple of Lost in Spaces wearing a fringed leather jacket if memory serves; the 'Miri' episode of Star Trek; and so forth. He was the sort of a kid we all knew on the playground or the lunch line.

More notably, perhaps, as I recently viewed within the last year or two, Keith was 'Din-Din' (Oh, yeah, I get it, he was a bit chunky. Or, then again, maybe just a bit noisy at home?), in "The Young Animals" (1968), a school gang fracas before its time, convincingly panicked while strapped to the hood of a fast moving car.


Yet another unexpected aside, and proof (do we need it?), on cover #2, that Joslyn and Jackie 'Fester' Coogan had worked together before Addams Family.

From the two poses here, as the harried Colonel's beleaguered second banana, 'Sgt. Barnes'. (The black and white photo is not in issue #1; there are none inside as Dell sometimes did. And the character does not appear in the issue either).



Unlikely to ever be on tape or dvd, (I have not checked), it's all a sort of a side alley dead end in the Labyrinth of Nostalgia for me. Though some who saw the show may feel otherwise. It all depends on where you were, who you were or weren't with, and so on as to what marshals a nostalgic trip for you. God bless yas.

And, 'At ease. And hang up if my wife answers'.

3 comments:

  1. Wow. That old McKeever and The Colonel comic book cover is a strange one indeed. At first - prior to later reading your words - I thought the demented-looking kid was holding up some leprosy-plagued 'pig' hand puppet or such!


    On capturing an actor / celeb's 'soul', I do personally think you managed such suitably well in past with comics of your own. I particularly like your Jorge Luis Borges from 'The Request'. Your Dick Cavett from 'Clem', too, is a goodie.

    Is interesting you mention the eyes being the hardest thing to re-create, illustration wise. I hadn't quite thought of this particular aspect being an major issue - though, yeah, can now certainly see how such very much would be - the eyes being the apparent "windows of the soul" after all. Thus, I wonder how one handy with the pen as yourself goes about capturing the 'essence' of one who is blind? [the condition, that is]


    Have you any idea why the McKeever comic's artist was not credited as such, or why this was (still is?) the norm in its day? Estrada is one of those old comic book artists I couldn't offer up his name if you showed me any his stuff, if having seen his name countless times in past in print, online and so on.


    Will, myself, pass on the actual McKeever television series of mention. Don't know any of those other films your list [an asinine aside: 'Rango' - the Depp flick - did see the other night on telly. Astounding CGI in that one, must say. Noted film cinematographer, + Coen bros regular, Roger Deakins (The Man Who Wasn't There, Fargo etc.) being to thank for such*]


    ['Din-Din' is a great 'nick' for a 'chub chub'!]


    Jackie Coogan pics always raise on me a smile. The Addams Family, though, was never one we lot watched here back in the day [re-runs of, of course]. Was always "The Munsters". Shame...


    Your 'Labyrinth of Nostalgia' is quite the maze, indeed. Funny the things some of us flesh-and-bone anomalies happen to keep stored inside that equally byzantine (visually, speaking) ol' mess throbbing away inside a crazed cranium.

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  3. A leprous pig would probably make a better story.

    Thanks for the compliments. I don't know why, but Borges was actually fun to draw. Perhaps he was easier to 'nail' because he was so distinctive.
    The imposed directions of his eyes staying mostly the same from photo to photo, he might've been easier to 'objectify' as a drawing. Certainly not soulless tho, at that.

    'Rango' was also a goofy western with Tim Conway.

    Supposedly the comic company bosses, when there were a lot of them, didn't want other companies being able to contact any of their best artists and steal them away with promises of slightly less horrible paychecks. So, no signatures.

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