There isn't a lot of information available online about artist Edmond Good. He was born in 1910 (no death date listed; is he still alive at age 102?) Worked in Canadian comic books during WWII, then came to the U.S. to work on the comic strip, Scorchy Smith, and then comic books. He was the first artist on "Tomahawk," which began in Star Spangled Comics in 1947.
Tomahawk's first appearance was shown in Pappy's #985. Good worked for Fox, doing Dagar, Desert Hawk, and also at ACG in the 1960s, doing supernatural stories for editor Richard E. Hughes. He had a very pleasing style, which once identified, becomes immediately apparent when spotted.
In the answer to a question in Adventures Into the Unknown, Hughes further identified Good as a member of the Woodstock, N.Y. art colony.
Joe Samachson wrote this tale, the second-ever Tomahawk story, in Star Spangled Comics #70 (1947):
TOMAHAWK was always one of my lEAST faborite strips but I have to say I love that splash page. looks like Tomahawk and Dan are teaming up with Kay Kyser!
ReplyDeleteHey, Steve...that's right, you're right! Kay Kyser's College of Musical Knowledge was very popular at the time, now mostly forgotten. I hadn't made the connection, but I'm sure readers of the time thought the same as you.
ReplyDeleteKay Kyser
Uggh.. this type of comic cries out for historical revisionism
ReplyDeleteI was going to ignore the heavy irony of this constant "land of freedom" talk versus the "varmint" Indians, but honestly, that last panel. Ouch!
ReplyDeleteI don't think the author meant anything and I don't think it was done out of spite, but it's still hard to wrangle the "finally, the land of freedom" with the Indian demon-ization and slaughter!
Gumba and Keir, I agree that there is a lot of hypocrisy in, on the one hand touting freedom for all, and on the other hand discriminating against Indians. When we see this nowadays we think of it in our 2012 terms but obviously the editors and writers in 1948 didn't think that way. White people enjoyed the benefits of freedom, but everybody else, no such luck.
ReplyDeleteI think a good way to examine our attitudes today is to compare them to attitudes of the past. There's no changing that past, but we can show it and hopefully learn something.
Edmond Good is certainly one of my favourite artists of the Canadian golden age comics, and he also did covers for some of the pulps in the Great White North. There's probably very few examples left of this but a couple of his Thrilling Detective(Canadian edition) covers are available to view here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.philsp.com/homeville/fmi/t2611.htm#A63964
Sadly he's no longer with us. According to his listing in the Who's Who of American comic books he passed on in 1991.
http://www.bailsprojects.com/bio.aspx?Name=GOOD%2c+EDMOND
I think his work on the Dagar comics is just marvelous.
~jim b.
Actually, Pappy, I was looking at it more from the mid 18th century when traitors like Washington et al rebelled out of selfish aggrandizement against the just and benign rule of the Crown which ensured religious tolerance, common law and respect for native lands. Growing up in Canada, we never entertained any naive notions of American exceptionalism.
ReplyDeleteJim B., thanks for the information on Good. He's an artist with a very distinctive style, and I'm surprised he's not better known.
ReplyDeleteKeir, your note reminds me of an acquaintance of mine who described himself as an anarchist, who once asked me, "How much worse would it be had we stayed a British colony and not gotten our independence?"
ReplyDeleteI'm sure someone has written an alternative history based on just that premise. My personal feeling is that we probably would have ended up just about where we are right now. We just wouldn't be able to get off for a three-day weekend come July 4th.
Poor Kier. What happened to the original peoples of Canada? I don't believe Anglos or the French were the first to settle North of the 49th. But no worries, we are quickly becoming less exceptional. With less revenue pouring into the government from the lack of hard working people paying taxes, I'm sure our exceptional billions of dollars going out to the world (Pakistan, Nigeria, Kenya, Mexico, Jordan, Haiti.....) will dwindle just as our national pride has. What will happen when a country that is more than a quarter of global GDP stops being exceptional? You, our sweet pale cousins to the north, just may be the first to find out.
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