Comments |
|
Clearly, this book (minus the cover, and new advertising pages), was the insides of the second issue of Fox's Animal Crackers, which was due to be issued in early 1951, but was never issued due to Fox's cash flow problems and Victor Fox's dealing with his legal issues. I don't know if he had already shut down ALL of his comic book operations, by that time, or if the sales of Animal Crackers' first issue, # 31, warranted release of its second issue. For some reason, the cover of this second issue, when released by Israel Waldman's IW Comics, had #9 on it. But that was likely a number chosen by Waldman, rather than having been Fox's number, already on the artwork. The Waldman issue with that cover had insides from a book from a completely different publisher in the issue. But the cover was clearly drawn by the same artist who drew more than half the stories in THIS book. The two artists who drew this book and Animal Crackers 31 were new to Fox(produced in 1950), not having worked on Fox's 1940s funny animal books. The artwork of Rufus The Dog's and Flunky the Monkey's stories looks like Louis Ferstadt's work, while I have no idea who drew Drooley Lion and Satchel Crocodile, but it looks like the style of some of the artists from the New York studios. Ferstadt closed his own studio down in 1946, so he may have been hired by Fox, as a single artist, along with the other artist, exclusively to work on this one series. |
|
Not every background sign is a sneaked signature, of course, but I couldn't help noticing how often the artist works a "Take Ganz's Pills" advertisement into his BGs. It doesn't seem to be a takeoff on a real product name like "Blomo Seltzer" is. Could it be the artist's name? Does anyone named Ganz appear in your list of New York animators? Whoever did the art, it isn't very good. |
|
Hi, is Leo Lion public domain? |
|
Isabell, welccome!
This book was published by IW comics, who put new covers and new names on covers. Inside they were entirely different comics, So a non-kosher outfit.
Read Robb's post above who explains much of this.
So the name Leo the Lion was made up just for this book. Note that the first page of the story - which would have had the character's name, is missing.
It seems, from Robb's post, that the character's name was 'Drooley Lion'.
If were you I would run a Google or DuckDuckGo or YouTube search for 'Leon the Lion' and if you don't get a hit, the character is yours to with what you will!
Cheers! |
|
Crash, that reference to "Ganz's Pills" probably refers to animator/comic book artist, Dave Gantz, who worked, at least, for Sangor Studios for a while, and, I think, also for Jason Comic Art, and for Avon and Nation-Wide Comics, and, apparently, also for Hero Books, and Fox Features. |
|
| |
Additional Information |
|
Publication | [1958] | Price: 0.10 USD | Pages: 1 |
|
|
Featuring | Leo the Lion |
Notes | Missing first page (which would have appeared on the inside front cover of the original). |
|
Comic Story | Photo Finish (7 pages) |
Featuring | Flunky the Monkey |
|
Text Story | A Fool for Gold! (2 pages) |
Credits | Letters: typeset |
|
Comic Story | Satchel Wins the Pennant (5 pages) |
Featuring | Satchel |
Notes | In the first panel of the story there is a sign reading "Read Hoot Gibson Comics," which was a Fox title. |
|
Comic Story | Keep Smiling! (7 pages) |
Featuring | Rufus |
|
The data in the additional content section is courtesy of the Grand Comics Database under a
Creative Commons Attribution License.
More details about this comic may be available in their page here |