Comic Cuts - 13 February 2015

I've had a slightly under-the-weather week, suffering with a toothache that has been persistent rather than sharply painful. I'm not sure if it's the tooth or whether it's an infection in the gum. Whatever the case, it led to a dull ache in my jaw and a headache that could only be shifted by dosing myself up on paracetamol. Over the weekend I was running a temperature, so there was definitely something wrong.

Trying to raise any enthusiasm for work was an uphill struggle and even when I did manage it, there was a string of interruptions—although I'm not complaining because the interruptions were welcome as it meant I could concentrate of them rather than work. This included a couple of obituaries for Andy Hutton and Dick Millington, which were posted earlier this week (scroll down if you haven't seen them), and a variety of phone calls, including a couple of very interesting ones amongst the junk calls from robot voices.

These are my excuses for slow progress on the Don Lawrence book. The introduction is written, finally clocking in at 7,850 words—and even that's far from a comprehensive look at everything Lawrence drew. What it does is hopefully give some context to the bulk of the book, which reprints his contributions to Look and Learn, The Bible Story, Ranger, Once Upon a Time and World of Wonder.

Our random scans for this week are four covers by 'Paul'. 'Paul' seemed to be used exclusively for westerns published in the late 1950s and early 1960s: there were a handful of Badger Books and a few from Streamline Publications / Superior Books. The latter were still being reissued in the early 1970s.

I believe 'Paul' was Paul Rainer, an illustrator about whom I could find very little when I wrote briefly about him back in 2007. Thanks to some comments we know he was active in the 1950s in Everybody's Magazine, and in the 1960s contributed to both Bible Story and Look and Learn. The signature is not the same—Paul Rainer signed his illustrations with both christian and surname in upper/lower case, whilst 'Paul' is in upper only. But they might just be similar enough to equate the two artists... I look forward to hearing what other people think.

 

 

Over the weekend and into next week we should have a variety of goodies, including something on L. Ashwell Wood from Jeremy Briggs, another something on an artist called Rainey and maybe Gallery 100 of World of Wonder, which combines two of my favourites: science fiction and comics.