PART 2

PG 94:

DS: "revascularize poorly" -- that is, blood flowing properly through the veins after surgery. I got this information from a plastic surgeon I was visiting. Ears reattached in 1956 he didn't think was plausible and then checked his medical school textbooks to be sure of his facts which I've related here.

EK: A couple of notable sources mentioning Drake’s ear injury from the Sep 6 crash are found in:

1) The immediate aftermath of the crash in The National Cartoonist Society newsletter for 27 October 1956, edited by McGowan (“Mac”) Miller, which stated, “…a deep bow to Bob (Long Sam) Lubbers, for jumping to the rescue in helping Stan Drake out with “The Heart of Juliet Jones”, while Stan was having an ear sewed back on (emphasis mine)……. It’s good to see you around Stan, in one handsome piece.” (Box MAC.P107/Folder 17, Milton Caniff Collection, The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum.)

and

2) Leonard Starr’s interview for ALTER EGO #113 October 2012 page 36 (TwoMorrows Publishing): “Stan was thrown clear; his ear was almost torn off (emphasis mine) and his shoulder was dislocated. They managed to sew the ear back on and put his arm in a sling.”

Leonard Starr also related another anecdote involving Stan Drake and a near injury to his ear while talking about Drake being stationed in the Pacific on Tinian, an island formerly held by the Japanese during WWII:

“Stan was sitting on the ground having a cigarette, his back against a jeep, when a bullet pinged into the metal an inch from his ear. There were still some die-hard Japanese soldiers in the caves serving the Emperor after Tinian had been taken. Stan took the bullet personally and joined the squads swinging Bangalore torpedoes into the caves.” (THE HEART OF JULIET JONES, Vol 1. page 7, Classic Comics Press, 2014)

PG 103:

DS: "The Crushed Gardenia" splash panel is traced from TOTH:BLACK & WHITE (Auad Publishing 1999) where it is credited as being copyright 1953 Standard Comics Inc.

EK: The story is available to read at https://pangolinbasement.blogspot.com/, along with a wealth of Alex Toth material (the original post was from a link to "the Annotated Toth" at tothfans.com, but the link for “The Crushed Gardenia” appears broken). From Toth's commentary about his work on the story at the blog:

“I’d filed down a ‘speedball B-6’ flicker lettering pen nib, to not only letter - but ink - all of this storyset. I wanted a clean monotonous line - a dip pen nib gave it to me - it was only later after delivery of it that Herb Field ‘Standard Comics’ letterer, intro’d me to the newly arrived from Germany ‘rapidograph’ pen series - monotonous line and all - and I, at once, adopted it for years in its many linewidths. Did some filing-down of them, too, to get a nice calligraphic line - my restless experimentations were a learning experience. It was the early / mid 1950’s, Japan was marketing new varigated (sp.) felt/fibre/ballpoint/tipped disposable pens that I sampled all of to stay on top of the game. Delightful testing of them all - leaks / dogbombs and other -skipping faults in them - soon corrected by the mfrs - made inking with ‘em fun. Serious bizniz too! So, this job was a one-off gig via speedball. My drawing/ storytelling / characterizations/ took a new road in this story - attitudinal sea change. I’d found other ways to approach the script- get the feel of it. Lowkey, really - till action demanded hotting up - and design was used more agressively (sp.) - so the work wasn’t newsreel - literal - but has an abstract element in and of its strung together continuity. It just felt different, in the doing to final inks! No big thing - yet to me, marked something new and off beat / other minded - I realized, in time - my searchings led to little surprises.”

Interestingly, Toth goes on to talk about some of the influences for different aspects the story, including drawing the pictures of literal “highbrowed types, “with big high foreheads, full squarish profiled heads, small ears” like Mike Sekowsky and Dan Barry and “maybe Milt Caniff, too?” before mentioning that George Tuska was an influence as well: “His attention to clothes - style - himself a natty sharp dresser, his ‘crime comics’ good / bad guys were made more so via the cut of their suits / jackets / shirt collars / ties - hats - he made me notice - added to my awareness - tho I’d clipped countless newspaper / mag ads for men’s clothing, simple li’l gray wash tones and snappy simple linework, ‘London Fog’ raincoats, etc. - through the 40’s and 50’s, etc. - and had to be alert to female fashions, too.”

Nowhere does he mention Alex Raymond or RIP KIRBY in the above, even though it sounds exactly like he’s describing Alex Raymond’s style on RIP KIRBY.

However, in Toth’s 1968 interview in SETTING THE STANDARD (Fantagraphics, 2011, edited by Greg Sadowski, page 19-20), Toth gives his opinion on Raymond:

“I was never a great Raymond fan. I loved Flash Gordon when I was a kid, but what always bothered me later on was that everything was a little too neat, a little too slick, too pretty and effeminate. In Raymond’s later Rip Kirby, I saw the same old clichés that I’d seen before in Flash Gordon. I question carrying on the Raymond Style to the point where practically any new illustrative strip of King’s must take on that same gloss. It’s all à la Raymond. They tried that on me too, when I sought taking over the Perry Mason strip in the late ’40’s. Hearing they were looking for another artist, I showed [King Features editor[ Sylvan Byck my work. He seemed pleased, and gave me three days of script, saying “Let’s see how you’d set these up,” then added, “but in the Raymond technique, of course.” I handed back the script. “The name is Toth, not Raymond. You’ve got Raymond and all the others who imitate him, willingly or not. Sorry, but I won’t.” And that capped my entree* to King’s court. I never did Perry Mason. Were Raymond here to witness the absurd lengths to whIch Sylvan Byck has gone in imposing his style on other talents, he would be Byck’s most vociferous detractor, I’m sure. Just like Publisher-Hall Syndicate, with the Mary Worth impress everywhere.”

DS: I had to laugh when Eddie forwarded me this quote. It seems to me that the more talented the artist, the more they were likely to have had a profound negative response to RIP KIRBY. I attribute this to the high watermark Raymond had -- twice! -- set for comics illustration. Hal Foster could be rationalized away because PRINCE VALIANT wasn't a comic strip, per se, it was illustrated fiction. That is, those who aspired to be (and secretly needed to believe) that they were the best in the field -- Toth being a good example -- hadn't even gotten over FLASH GORDON as stylistic game-changer when they were forced, in 1946, to contemplate RIP KIRBY as the commercial illustration/comics fusion tour de force that it was. Their egos got the better of them and they invented rationalizations to explain why RIP KIRBY wasn't worth looking at…so they wouldn't have to look at it and be forced to recognize how many quantum levels above them Raymond was. Al Williamson and Frank Frazetta are the lone exceptions to this, I think. In one of the more extreme instances, I remember asking Gene Colan -- the fish-eye photorealist -- what he had thought of RIP KIRBY when it had debuted. He had no idea what I was talking about. 'I know JACK Kirby,' he said. 'I've never heard of RIP Kirby.'

My assessment is that Alex Toth adopted many of Raymond's RIP KIRBY illustration tropes in early 1946 and, when he realized he would never be able to draw consistently at that level, that his drawing talent was extremely limited when compared with his designing talents, he retreated to a modified Noel Sickles cartoon realism and spent the rest of his life deprecating Raymond and his work. Artistic sour grapes. "EVERYBODY LOVES FLASH GORDON; EVERYBODY HATES RAYMOND."

Bernie Krigstein panel traced from "Suppressed Desire" SPELLBOUND #17, (Atlas Comics, 1953); JOHNNY COMET daily 22 January 1952 traced from page 62 of Russ Cochran's GRAPHIC GALLERY 10