Created by Frank King back around 1920,
Gasoline Alley was famous for being one of the few strips where the characters aged more or less in real time. It began as a take-off on the automobile craze, with the main characters mostly talking about and fixing their cars and bragging about the trips they would take (hence the name). But when Walt Wallet found an abandoned baby on his doorstep, the little guy and Uncle Walt's efforts to raise him pretty much took over the storyline. I believe the strip still runs today, though it's been years since I've seen it in a newspaper; King was succeeded as the artist by the very capable Dick Moores and later Jim Scancarelli, who kept up the Wallet family chronicles in fine fashion.
But I wanted to cast a spotlight on the wonderful Sunday pages produced by King in the strip's heyday of the 1930s. He really stretched out and played around with the format (back in the days when each weekend strip occupied an entire page, this was much easier to do), and introduced elements of surrealism and fantasy which were nonetheless somehow consistent with the general tone of the strip even during its more straightforward plots during the week.
These reproductions don't do them justice. A few years back, the periodical
Drawn & Quarterly reprinted a whole bunch of these fabulous pages with excellent attention to making them appear as they originally did 70 or more years ago. They really made one appreciate just how artistic the funnies could be.
Every fall, Uncle Walt and Skeezix would take a stroll in the woods to check out the autumn foliage, and these were among the most stunning pieces King concocted, and I imagine regular readers looked forward to seeing how he might top himself each year. I can't think of anyone working in newspaper comics today who exhibits quite the same ambition (which might be more due to changes in format than individual initiative), but it sure is a treat to revisit these great examples of comic art from the past.
Created by Frank King back around 1920, Gasoline Alley was famous for being one of the few strips where the characters aged more or less in real time. It began as a take-off on the automobile craze, with the main characters mostly talking about and fixing their cars and bragging about the trips they would take (hence the name). But when Walt Wallet found an abandoned baby on his doorstep, the little guy and Uncle Walt's efforts to raise him pretty much took over the storyline. I believe the strip still runs today, though it's been years since I've seen it in a newspaper; King was succeeded as the artist by the very capable Dick Moores and later Jim Scancarelli, who kept up the Wallet family chronicles in fine fashion. 
But I wanted to cast a spotlight on the wonderful Sunday pages produced by King in the strip's heyday of the 1930s. He really stretched out and played around with the format (back in the days when each weekend strip occupied an entire page, this was much easier to do), and introduced elements of surrealism and fantasy which were nonetheless somehow consistent with the general tone of the strip even during its more straightforward plots during the week.
These reproductions don't do them justice. A few years back, the periodical Drawn & Quarterly reprinted a whole bunch of these fabulous pages with excellent attention to making them appear as they originally did 70 or more years ago. They really made one appreciate just how artistic the funnies could be.
Every fall, Uncle Walt and Skeezix would take a stroll in the woods to check out the autumn foliage, and these were among the most stunning pieces King concocted, and I imagine regular readers looked forward to seeing how he might top himself each year. I can't think of anyone working in newspaper comics today who exhibits quite the same ambition (which might be more due to changes in format than individual initiative), but it sure is a treat to revisit these great examples of comic art from the past.
2 comments:
I stumbled across your blog today, and had to leave a comment on this entry. I love comics (newspaper comics and comic books). Gasoline Alley was one of the strips I encountered as a kid, but didn't appreciate until I was a bit older. Classic stuff, funny and touching.
I remember as a child, laying on my stomach on the floor, with my brother Charles beside me, reading the comics. Gasoline ally was one of our favorites - probably because we had an uncle Walt of our very own.
Did you know that the comic strip was based on a true life story of a man finding a baby on his doorstep and his search for the mother? Mom
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