Hank was an interesting strip which appeared only in an equally-interesting New York daily newspaper called
PM (1940-1948). Perhaps its most unusual feature was that it didn't take advertising. It was financed by millionaire Marshall Field III, but the paper never reached its break-even circulation and eventually folded. Wikipedia has a short essay about it. Here's an excerpt relating to
Hank:
Coulton Waugh created his short-lived strip, Hank, which began April 30, 1945 in PM. The story of a disabled G.I. returning to civilian life, Hank had a unique look due to Waugh's decorative art style, combined with dialogue lettered in upper and lower case rather than the accepted convention of all uppercase lettering in balloons and captions. Some dialogue was displayed with white lettering reversed into black balloons. Hank sought to raise questions about the reasons for war, and how it might be prevented by the next generation. Waugh discontinued it at the very end of 1945 because of eyestrain.[6] Cartoonist Jack Sparling created the short-lived comic strip Claire Voyant, which ran from 1943 to 1948 in PM, and which was subsequently syndicated by the Chicago Sun-Times. Waugh began his newspaper strip career as the writer/artist who replaced Milton Caniff on
In 1947 he wrote the first(?) serious book about comic strips,
The Comics, in which he also trashed comic books.
Link to the book:
Hank
