It is appropriate that Reed Crandall’s inspiration for Captain Daring should have been movie star Erroll Flynn. Flynn had a reputation as quite a swordsman...in more ways than one, heh-heh.
Captain Daring has an eye for a lovely lass like Quilla, the sexy savage of this tale. Even Lady Dolores, who is his lady love, is jealous of such beauty. Especially when Captain D. piles it on with comments like, "I find it hard to believe such beauties dwell in jungle huts!” In the last panel Dolores makes sure that Captain Daring knows she is available when she tells him, “And you know what welcome awaits your return!” Flog me if that isn’t an invitation to tussle with the lady’s bustle.
From Buccaneers #21 (1950):
Buccaneers had only an eight issue run. Here is the first Captain Daring story from Buccaneers #19, and the last from #27. Just click on the thumbnails, buckos.
Reed Crandall demonstrates once again how illustrative comic art was done. I'm not saying other artists didn't share the gift of how to draw, and draw comic books, but Crandall had some sort of special mojo. He could draw anything in the Quality Comics line, and with his Captain Daring feature the headliner of Buccaneers, showed that historicals were also well within his considerable artistic abilities.
Despite that, Buccaneers, where this story appeared in #22 (1950) didn't last for long. No comic book featuring pirates ever did, although attempts were made. Buccaneers, Pirates from Hillman, and Piracy from EC, for all their exotic trappings, just didn't have staying power. And it's kind of odd, too, because pirates have been a popular subject in other media, especially movies. Captain Daring himself is taken from Erroll Flynn in Captain Blood. Buccaneers should've had easy sailin' in the crowded comic book waters, but instead was scuttled and sunk.
Sunday, April 04, 2010
Number 713
Reed Crandall and the speed lines
I've been looking at Reed Crandall's artwork for over five decades, and for me it's instantly recognizable by the action poses he drew. Sometimes the characters look to be in suspended animation or a diorama. Comparing any other artist to Jack Kirby is unfair, because hardly anyone ever rose to his level of action art, but while Kirby's characters seem to be in a blur of motion, frozen at an instant as if by a high speed camera, Crandall's characters often appear as if they have just struck a pose for the artist.
I'm not knocking Crandall...it's his artistic style, and as evidenced by this excellent 1951 Captain Daring strip from Quality's Buccaneers #27, he drew everything very well. Taking on a strip about pirates would involve researching clothing styles, ships, cities and places of the early 18th Century, and would be a lot more work than drawing a routine private eye strip like Ken Shannon, and probably for the same page rate.
Crandall didn't use the comic artist's conventional speed lines. When most artists showed a punch being thrown, pen lines would be drawn to show where the fist started its arc, with a big starburst at the point of impact.*
Artists drew that way for so long that they and their readers accepted it as part of comics' visual shorthand. Crandall reserved the speed lines for panels where he had no other way to explain the action. Page 6 of this story has a couple of examples, where Crandall used the lines to show the arcs of the sabers in order to explain the results of their swings.
Action poses are a great tell when looking for a particular artist's style.
This was the last of the Captain Daring strips. As good as it was, pirates just didn't last long in comic books. The first Captain Daring story I showed in Pappy's #595.
*In early Kirby Captain America strips the head would sometimes be replaced by that starburst, to show an especially brutal impact.
