Growing
up in the 60’s as I did, I came upon my love for comic books
during the height of the Silver Age Superhero boom. Despite this, I
still made time for other genres too. Horror, humor, war, classics,
Movie & TV tie ins were all consumed in my voracious comics
reading habit. However, in my maleness, there was one milieu that I
didn’t dare explore; Romance comics. Besides them not being “butch”
enough, a quick scan through them found nothing of any particular
interest by me. It’s only as an adult that I’ve come to have any
appreciation for the genre. Looking at them now, I realize the fatal
error in my logic. Nothing of interest? How about beautiful
depictions of women done by some of the best cartoonists of the
comics industry? So I’ll be posting a series to explore this
‘forbidden fruit’.
For
the initial entry, our subject is Ogden Whitney. He was born in 1918
and was another member of the group of artists inventing the comic
book during the medium’s infancy. His earliest cited job was
published in ADVENTURE COMICS #42 in 1939. The following year he took
over the Sandman strip for Craig Flessel and he co-created the
character Skyman with Gardner Fox.
To
folks of my generation he is best remembered for the ACG character
Herbie. This unique and bizarre strip about a obese child found an
audience and survived to be published for 23 issues between 1964 and
1967.
In
1954 Whitney drew “Jailbird Romance” in an issue of ROMANTIC
ADVENTURES. The story managed to combine both the Love and Crime
genres that were popular then. His draftsmanship on this job is
remarkable and is as fine as anything that I’ve ever seen by him.
Sadly
Ogden Whitney’s life did not end well. He was an alcoholic and in
his later years extremely dependent upon his wife Anne. When she
passed away he could no longer function and was eventually forcibly
evicted from the apartment the couple had resided in for many years.
Pat
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