Monthly Archives: November 2024

Poison Ivy – The Mighty Mite in “Feature Comics #47” (Aug 1941) p 11

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Poison Ivy – The Mighty Mite in “Feature Comics #47” (Aug 1941) p 11
by Gilbert Theodore (Gill) Fox (1915-2004)
13 x 18 in, ink on board
Coppola Collection

Second page from the 2-page story “The 100-Mile Water Race,” written, penciled and inked by Gill Fox.

Fox began his career in animation at Max Fleischer’s studio, but left due to labor unrest. He entered the comic book industry, working for a number of studios and companies, including DC Comics. During 1940-43, he was an editor and a cover artist for Quality Comics, with his work gracing the covers of such titles as Torchy and Plastic Man. In 1941, he wrote several weeks of continuity for the Spirit daily newspaper strip.

This page is from August 1941, which is a noteworthy time in Fox’s comic book history. A few months later, in November, a comic written by Gill Fox, describing a German attack on Pearl Harbor, was published one month before the real-life Japanese attack on that U.S. naval base.

He left his editorial position at Quality in 1943 to serve in World War II, where he worked for Stars and Stripes. Once discharged from military service, Fox freelanced for Quality Comics until the early 1950s.

Quality published “Feature Comics” for 144 issues (1937-1950), featuring Doll Man as its lead superhero. Fox’s Poison Ivy – The Mighty Mite, appeared through issue 132, and was also a daily strip. In an interview with Jim Amash (Alter Ego 3(12)):

FOX: Crandall, of course, was one of our top artists, but he kept to himself as far as I could see. His work was just terrific, and he helped make Blackhawk one of our best books.

JA: When did Quality move back to New York?

FOX: I was drafted while in Stamford and helped set the New York office up before I left. I commuted from Stamford. I started doing a two-page filler called “Poison Ivy.” It began to get hot. I remember Henry Martin [an associate of Busy Arnold] leaning on a doorjamb and saying to me, “Can you do some dailies so we can syndicate it?” It was a dream! But then I was classified 1-A for military service and had to give it up. We’d even talked about it being a comic book. The breaks in this business are very strange.

Because comics weren’t considered an “essential” job, like some others were, I knew I was going to go when a national “Work or Fight” order was announced. I didn’t want to go. I quit being editor in the middle of 1943 and started working on farms in Connecticut. I did that for about six months and got in great shape. But it didn’t make any difference. I went into the Army anyway.

1944.12.07 “War Birthday Cake”

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1944.12.07 “War Birthday Cake”
by Cyrus Cotton “Cy” Hungerford (1889-1983)
13 x 16 in., ink on paper
Coppola Collection

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cy_Hungerford

Hungerford worked for the Wheeling (West VA) Register before becoming editorial cartoonist for the Pittsburgh Sun for fifteen years from 1912. He joined the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 1927 and stayed there until his retirement in 1977.

On the second anniversary of the US entry into WW2, things had been moving in favor of the Allies. On June 6, the D-Day invasion ultimately led to the liberation of Paris in late August.

Hitler’s June troubles were compounded by a Russian counterattack, which drove 300 miles west to Warsaw, and killed, wounded or captured 350,000 German soldiers. By the end of August, the Russians had taken Bucharest. Estonia was taken within months, and Budapest was under siege by the end of the year.

One glimmer of light for Germany came in the Ardennes, in France, where the December 16 German counteroffensive – the Battle of the Bulge – killed 19,000 Americans and delayed the Allies’ march into Germany.

“Fashion Show” (Among Us Mortals, 7/30/1950)

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“Fashion Show” (Among Us Mortals, 7/30/1950)
by W.E. (William Ely) Hill (1887-1962)
26 x 19 in., ink on board
Coppola Collection

W.E. (William Ely) Hill (1887-1962) was known for his masterful black and white Sunday page, “Among Us Mortals,” sometimes referred to as the Hill Page. Please see the Gallery description for more about Hill.

In this July 30, 1950 edition, titled “Fashion Show”

“For showing off an evening gown, the model agency sends a special type of model who has that haughty, hard-to-make look, as though she smells something burning on the stove but is too polite to mention it. On the other hand, for beach wear, a model is picked for all out cuteness bordering on the simple.”

“Army Induction Center” (Among Us Mortals, 1/28/1942)

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“Army Induction Center” (Among Us Mortals, 1/28/1942)
by W.E. (William Ely) Hill (1887-1962)
26 x 19 in., ink on board
Coppola Collection

W.E. (William Ely) Hill (1887-1962) was known for his masterful black and white Sunday page, “Among Us Mortals,” sometimes referred to as the Hill Page. Please see the Gallery description for more about Hill.

In this January 28, 1942 edition, titled “Army Induction Center”

“Accepted, and wondering what’s ahead. Talking direly about K. P., twenty-mile hikes and scrubbing out latrines. (The uncle of one soldier told him he had to do that all during the last war, so he knows.) The cheerful guy on the right has all the dope on injections for this and that, and how one of their arms will be stiff for weeks to come.”

“The Gay Picknickers” (Among Us Mortals, 8/3/1952)

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“The Gay Picknickers” (Among Us Mortals, 8/3/1952)
by W.E. (William Ely) Hill (1887-1962)
26 x 19 in., ink on board
Coppola Collection

W.E. (William Ely) Hill (1887-1962) was known for his masterful black and white Sunday page, “Among Us Mortals,” sometimes referred to as the Hill Page. Please see the Gallery description for more about Hill.

In this August 3, 1952 edition, titled “The Gay Picknickers”

“Meet the girl who always loses an earring or a pin at a picnic. This time it’s a little oak leaf pin with a seed pearl in the center, which she values for ‘sentimental reasons.’ Has all the male picnickers hunting in the grass. (Tomorrow she’ll find it in her apartment.)”

“When Old Friends Meet” (Among Us Mortals, 2/28/1943)

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“When Old Friends Meet” (Among Us Mortals, 2/28/1943)
by W.E. (William Ely) Hill (1887-1962)
26 x 19 in., ink on board
Coppola Collection

W.E. (William Ely) Hill (1887-1962) was known for his masterful black and white Sunday page, “Among Us Mortals,” sometimes referred to as the Hill Page. Please see the Gallery description for more about Hill.

In this February 28, 1943 edition, titled “When Old Friends Meet”

“The old friend of the family who loves to reminisce at just the wrong moment. She’s telling Emily what a cute little thing she was at the age of 2, always running and tripping on her little panties when they came down!”

“Rainy Arrival” (1890s)

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“Rainy Arrival” (1890s)
by Charles Jay “CJ” Taylor (1855-1929)
10 x 6 inches, ink on board
Coppola Collection

Taylor originally studied law at Columbia University, then moved to art at the Art Students League, the National Academy of Design (with Eastman Johnson) and City College of New York, as well as in London and Paris. Taylor painted hundreds of landscape pictures in oil, which he sold to dealers and at auction. He started contributing illustrations to the New York’s Daily Graphic in 1873, and also to magazines such as Harpers, Puck and Punch.

His book ‘Taylor Girls’ gained him international acclaim. He returned to painting in the later part of his life, and spent 18 years as the head of the Painting and Decoration Department in the College of Fine Arts at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (the Carnegie Alma Mater song is his composition).

“Pardon Me Chap” (1890s)

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“Pardon Me Chap” (1890s)
by Charles Jay “CJ” Taylor (1855-1929)
11 x 12 inches, ink on board
Coppola Collection

Taylor originally studied law at Columbia University, then moved to art at the Art Students League, the National Academy of Design (with Eastman Johnson) and City College of New York, as well as in London and Paris. Taylor painted hundreds of landscape pictures in oil, which he sold to dealers and at auction. He started contributing illustrations to the New York’s Daily Graphic in 1873, and also to magazines such as Harpers, Puck and Punch.

His book ‘Taylor Girls’ gained him international acclaim. He returned to painting in the later part of his life, and spent 18 years as the head of the Painting and Decoration Department in the College of Fine Arts at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (the Carnegie Alma Mater song is his composition).

1961.06.21 “David and Goliath” (June 21, 1961)

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1961.06.21 “David and Goliath” (June 21, 1961)
by Vaughn Richard Shoemaker (1902-1991)
13 x 16, ink and wash on board
Coppola Collection

Shoemaker was an American editorial cartoonist. He won the 1938 and 1947 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning and created the character John Q. Public. He spent 22 years at the Chicago Daily, and subsequently worked for the New York Herald Tribune, the Chicago American, and Chicago Today. He retired in 1972.

The 1950s were a time of increasing youthful offender crime and delinquency, causing stakeholders to begin to address the problems beyond just local and state efforts in the 1960s. Successful but local youth organizations, including Little Leagues (and YMCAs, YWCAs, scouting, etc), were under the shadow of the growing threat of juvenile crimes, where rates had doubled in a decade’s time. By 1960, Congress had not passed a single act dealing specifically with juvenile delinquency prevention.

In 1961, JFK established the Committee on Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Crime. The committee recommended enacting the Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Offenses Control Act of 1961.

This act included a preventative focus for those children and adolescents most at risk; identification that delinquency was linked to urban decay, poverty, school failure, and family instability; and establishing diversion alternatives away from delinquency adjudication for adolescents.

Although federal funding was made available during the 1960s for delinquency prevention and diversion programs, the first established federal grant-making law was the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974.

1962.12.15 “Crowding His Luck” (December 15, 1962)

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1962.12.15 “Crowding His Luck” (December 15, 1962)
by Vaughn Richard Shoemaker (1902-1991)
14 x 16, ink and wash on board
Coppola Collection

Shoemaker was an American editorial cartoonist. He won the 1938 and 1947 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning and created the character John Q. Public. He spent 22 years at the Chicago Daily, and subsequently worked for the New York Herald Tribune, the Chicago American, and Chicago Today. He retired in 1972.

James Hoffa was president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. In 1957, televised hearings on possible criminal activity in the unions were held in Washington, famously featuring interrogations of Hoffa by Robert Kennedy of Hoffa. Video clips are easy to find.

The 1960 election of JFK as president placed the younger Kennedy as attorney general, causing Hoffa to joke that he would “have to hire two hundred more lawyers to keep out of jail.” The Test Fleet trial, in which Hoffa was the sole individual defendant, was in progress between October 22 and December 23, 1962, in Nashville, Tennessee.

Hoffa was indicted for violating the Taft-Hartley Act when after he took money from a Detroit transportation in return for settling a labor dispute. Before this case, the Teamsters boss had beaten federal government raps on three successive occasions. On December 5th a man interrupted the judicial proceedings, rushing through a gate and into the court, shooting Hoffa with an air pistol.

Hoffa vanished from a Michigan restaurant in 1975.