Saturday, August 6, 2011

The end of the tour!

Yes, it's the last entry in my studio tour series, and as the sun sets in the west, we bid farewell... Oh, wait! We have to look at the stuff first!

Here's an overview of the corner of the studio we'll be looking at today -- detail pics and descriptions follow.

That's a framed Dick Tracy daily from the Model story -- signed to me by Chet Gould. A souvenir of my visit to his Woodstock, IL home. Caniff fans -- don't get too excited over the Dragon Lady -- that's just a print out of an image I found on the web -- the other Caniff art you'll see later are prints, too. My pin-up collection is represented here by a set of George Petty waterslide decal tumblers, reissue Marx Campus Cuties and an original set of Marx Beauties. Assorted pin-up matchbook covers and figures fill out the shelf. Yes, that's an Ideal Wonder Woman in the middle of it all.

A shelf full of comic strip character toys and assorted "smalls." Skippy is a bisque toothbrush holder. The Pogo figures and cups are premiums from the '60s -- joined by the Yoe Studios/Dark Horse Albert and Pogo. The Barney Google game is a recent find from SpringCon in St. Paul -- wonderful Billy DeBeck art all over the box and board. The photo of Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head in their cars was taken on my front porch in the early '60s -- something I begged my dad to photograph -- hey, I was a weird kid....

Here's a better look at all the small items. You can click on this (or any of the pics in my blog) to get a larger, better view. Too many items to list -- though I will note the "see no evil" monkeys were an item rescued from the ashes of my father's boyhood farm home which burned down -- hence the scorch mark!

More vintage comic character items. The Terry board game art is not by Caniff, but rather Henry Vallely, artist of the Huck Finn art shown in an earlier entry of this tour.

A better view of the items lying flat on the shelf. The Tarzan book has a sticker on it from a shoestore in my hometown of Muscatine, IA. The coin-like item is a Johnny Weismuller Tarzan premium -- and quite a good likeness of him. The little "Dad" plaque was a gift from my daughter when she was a youngster -- the #1 item here as far as I'm concerned.

Vintage comic strip books, puzzles and more -- plus a stack of movie star arcade cards. John Garfield, upon whom Pete Morisi based Johnny Dynamite tops the stack for that very reason.

What won't fit on a shelf, hides away in a drawer -- and this drawer is full of pin-up cards, matchbook covers, notepads, etc.

A drawer full of Edgar Rice Burroughs paperbacks. I'd like to find the time to read (or re-read) these someday -- perhaps they'll be bedtime reading for my son when he's a little older...?

I've already shown you this Shelly Moldoff Batman art -- but you haven't seen the True magazine George Petty print that hangs next to it.

A Silent Invasion cover by my friend and fellow Renegade Press cartoonist Mike Cherkas can be seen next to some Caniff prints and a signed print from old pal Mitch O'Connell.

Lone Ranger arcade cards.

Original art for a British western pulp. I'd love to find the print version of this! Has anyone out there ever read any "Zed Montana" books...? I hear "Trailbusters" is a corker....

Just a hint at how much stuff I've packed into the storage closet. You don't want to know how many long boxes filled with back issues of my own books are stuffed into this little space!

And, since I haven't shown the work spaces yet -- here they are. Yes, Mr. Taxman, this really is my work room!
I've had this drawing board since I was a teenager. Several thousand comic book pages have been drawn on it in the decades since I first brought it home.

This '30s vintage pin-up tie rack hangs on the door that leads to the back room that contains... well... something I just might share with you in another post sometime....

And that's it, folks! That's my reference library, my toy collection and various sources of inspiration -- and the scanner and drawing board where a lot of my work gets done. You might get a kick out of seeing what I started with -- here's the room just after we moved in -- bookshelves in place -- but otherwise empty....


And here's all the stuff waiting to go on those shelves, filling our family room to the brim. Unpacking all this was a chore -- but a fun one. Flattening and running all the boxes to the recycling center (multiple trips) was a pain, though!

I hope you enjoyed the tour. I didn't post this to show off my collections -- but rather to share them. I've enjoyed the hunt for all these items -- and there is a story behind almost every one. I love giving the tour in person to friends who are interested -- but only a limited number of folks are ever going to actually get to do that. Here on the web, I can share it with everybody -- and that's a fun thing. I'll never understand those who build collections only to hide them away -- what's the point of hunting for, tracking down and, in some cases, rescuing, all this cool stuff, if you can't share it?

So, I didn't show you everything -- as some stuff is packed away, etc. -- so there may be future posts in which I dig out more cool stuff to share -- so if you did enjoy this, please come back -- and, as always, please leave a comment or two, as that helps make this worthwhile for me. Thanks!

2 comments:

stephen borer said...

Many, many thanx for the tour!

Charles R. Rutledge said...

I truly enjoyed it. Thanks for sharing all the neat stuff!