Saturday, October 31, 2015

Hearts And Finds

Thirsday Story Strip Day.

I first read The Heart of Juliet Jones in a Dutch newspaper weekly that reprinted several American comic strips (inlcuding Steve Canyon, Rip Kirby, Boner's Ark, Tiger and Hagar). Listing them just now makes me suspect that all or most pf those strips were from King Features. Anyway, all we done from their start and all included Sundays in color. When Juliet Jones was reprinted by Classic Comic Press (and you should get them all) my biggest disappointment was the fact that they could not include the color Sundays. The Sundays had a seperate storyline, so they were not missed. But they were also beautiful and a book of those would work form me. Possibly even in the tabloid format recently used by IDW for their exemplary Beyond Mars reprint. Anyway, I do not have the Sunday Juliet Jones complete and infact the majority of y samples are from the late fifties and early sixties. But here are some of the earlier ones I do have (and check the link for more and nmore complete runs in black and white). Onlt two three tier versions here, which seem to indicate that at that period the middle panel was dropped for the tabloid version (as with Pogo).


4 comments:

Diego Cordoba said...

I have never seen this strip in a tabloid format. I always thought it was a half-page, or thirds, as in most of the cases we see here (though probably done as halves first).

And yes, I agree that the Sundays should've been printed in color, as Charles Pelto was mostly removing the color from the pages, which is tougher than color-correcting them. And I don't think printing in black and white is still that much cheaper.

BTW, the Beyond Mars book is simply beautiful, and I highly recommend it!! Some of the strips have been featured here. Pity for the missing page though…

Ger Apeldoorn said...

I have shown a couple of Juliet Jones tabloid pages here, from the early sixties. I think they were from a Canadian paper.

Diego Cordoba said...

You're right. I saw the tabloid format you mentioned, though by then most Sundays were done in a three-tier format that could be re-arranged into a tabloid, half or, eliminating some panels, into thirds.

By the way, most of the coloring was done seperately according to the format, which might explain diffrences in color according to the format. Though they were all following the same color guides from the artist. Go figure!

Neil A. Hansen said...

Hi, you mentioned Classic Comics Press and The Heart of Juliet Jones. I just wanted to let you know that Classic Comics Press has reprinted the Kelly Green graphic novel series written by Leonard Starr and drawn by Stan Drake, all in black and white. Absolutely stunning stuff. Hope you don't mind me passing that along.