Aside from the great Roy Crane, I can think of only one other artist responsible for creating two classic strips, and that's Milton Caniff. No doubt I'm forgetting several others, but that in no way changes the fact that Crane was responsible for launching two of the greatest adventure strips of all time:
Captain Easy and
Buz Sawyer. The former actually started out as
Wash Tubbs, which many identify as the first great adventure strip; the original titular character was eventually supplanted by his more heroically inclined chum, Captain Easy. Crane's work on this strip no doubt influenced others like Caniff (
Terry & the Pirates,
Steve Canyon), Hal Foster (
Prince Valiant), Noel Sickles (
Scorchy Smith), Alex Raymond (
Flash Gordon), and so many others.
Although the character of Captain Easy was originally added in a supporting role to Wash Tubbs, he eventually took over the Sunday version of the strip, and the adventures grew even more exciting. Back in the 1970s, there were several anthologies of Crane's work published by Dragon Lady Press up in Canada, and it was in those collections that I first encountered these early expoits (Buz Sawyer was at that time a mainstay in the
Buffalo Evening News, so I was already well aware of the later creation).
Crane turned Easy over to other hands sometime in the early 1940s (I assume from a dispute over ownership of the characters), and introduced
Buz Sawyer around that same time, initially as a World War II pilot. He had the crispest, cleanest style I think I've ever seen in an adventure strip (unlike the inky shadows employed by Caniff, for instance), and though it retained a humorous, cartoony quality (especially in relation to Sawyer's sidekick, Roscoe Sweeney), Crane knew how to ratchet up the drama and thrills when necessary.
Much like Captain Easy had earlier assumed the lead role in Wash Tubbs' Sunday adventures, at some point Sweeney became the featured character in the Buz Sawyer strip on the weekends too. The version of those strips I remember best involved Sweeney as a slow-burning suburban squire dealing with the trials and tribulations of dealing with neighborhood kids, door-to-door salesmen and other assorted middle-class travails.
Roy Crane definitely deserves to be in the pantheon of great comic strip artists, but then I'm not saying anything that hasn't been common knowledge among strip fans for decades.
Aside from the great Roy Crane, I can think of only one other artist responsible for creating two classic strips, and that's Milton Caniff. No doubt I'm forgetting several others, but that in no way changes the fact that Crane was responsible for launching two of the greatest adventure strips of all time: Captain Easy and Buz Sawyer. The former actually started out as Wash Tubbs, which many identify as the first great adventure strip; the original titular character was eventually supplanted by his more heroically inclined chum, Captain Easy. Crane's work on this strip no doubt influenced others like Caniff (Terry & the Pirates, Steve Canyon), Hal Foster (Prince Valiant), Noel Sickles (Scorchy Smith), Alex Raymond (Flash Gordon), and so many others.
Although the character of Captain Easy was originally added in a supporting role to Wash Tubbs, he eventually took over the Sunday version of the strip, and the adventures grew even more exciting. Back in the 1970s, there were several anthologies of Crane's work published by Dragon Lady Press up in Canada, and it was in those collections that I first encountered these early expoits (Buz Sawyer was at that time a mainstay in the Buffalo Evening News, so I was already well aware of the later creation).
Crane turned Easy over to other hands sometime in the early 1940s (I assume from a dispute over ownership of the characters), and introduced Buz Sawyer around that same time, initially as a World War II pilot. He had the crispest, cleanest style I think I've ever seen in an adventure strip (unlike the inky shadows employed by Caniff, for instance), and though it retained a humorous, cartoony quality (especially in relation to Sawyer's sidekick, Roscoe Sweeney), Crane knew how to ratchet up the drama and thrills when necessary.
Much like Captain Easy had earlier assumed the lead role in Wash Tubbs' Sunday adventures, at some point Sweeney became the featured character in the Buz Sawyer strip on the weekends too. The version of those strips I remember best involved Sweeney as a slow-burning suburban squire dealing with the trials and tribulations of dealing with neighborhood kids, door-to-door salesmen and other assorted middle-class travails.
Roy Crane definitely deserves to be in the pantheon of great comic strip artists, but then I'm not saying anything that hasn't been common knowledge among strip fans for decades.
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