Looking at this funny story from The Kilroys #28 (1950) I was struck by Solid Jackson's dog, Boris. He looks like Scooby-Doo to me, drawn almost twenty years before Scooby-Doo made his debut in 1969. Wickersham, who sometimes signed his name Wick, was a moonlighting animator who drew their teenage comic, The Kilroys, which had a nice run from 1947 to 1955. I've shown a couple of Kilroys stories at various times, including New Year's Day of this year, in Pappy's #1080 and a couple of music-themed stories in Pappy's #831.
Wickersham, born in 1911, worked for most of the major animation studios. I'm a comic book fan, so I don't know a lot about animation, but I do know comic books. To me it's enough that he did such a wonderful job for years on this funny comic. Wickersham died in 1962 at the age of fifty.
Thanks for this one, Pappy! The farther I get, the more I think Wick was the best there was at this wort of thing. The cartooning is great, the pacing is peppy, and I think Kilroy's sister Katie is the best, most realistic golden age teen in any comic ever.
ReplyDeleteJust because I heard you say you didn't delve so deeply into cartoons, I thought I might link you to this, a segment of Walt Disney's Make Mine Music called "All the Cats Join In. If this ain't Bob Wickersham it was certainly either an influence on, or was maybe even influenced by, the man's other work.
Thank you, Mr. Cavin, for pointing out Make Mine Music. I don't believe I have ever seen it, and I'd be interested to see the resemblance you bring up. Wickersham was definitely a major cartooning talent. I really like these Kilroys strips, which I believe were written by yet another animation guy, Hubie Karp.
ReplyDeleteAmazing resemblance to Scooby there. I'll have to check out more Kilroys comics ...
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