This message is mostly directed towards JVJ, but I figured others could play too...
I'm indexing Yellowjacket #9 for the GCD and including Jim's art IDs that narfstar and rez put into the scanned copy (thanks guys!).
It has Tales of Terror as signed by GAM (which it is), noted as by George Mandel. Jerry Bails' Who's Who has GAM as George Marko. Neither of them are listed as working on a strip called Tales of Terror, though Mandel is listed as working at Charleton.
It's a very good question, Peter, and I'm not certain that I have a definitive answer. I'll tell you what I THINK, though.
There were two brothers: George Mandel and Alan Mandel. According to the WW, George Mandel switched to writing from drawing after WWII due to "severe injuries". Alan Mandel continued drawing and has credits in ALL the places that "GAM" has credits: Charlton, Holyoke, Croydon, etc. And all of these GAM stories LOOK like Alan Mandel. What I think is that Hames and I were too eager to say that GAM is George Mandel. What we SHOULD have considered is that GAM was George AND Alan Mandel.
I have never heard of George A. Marko and, of course, the WW may be correct in attributing all the GAM stories to him, BUT in some of these books, the stores are signed with "GA Mandel" and the style appears to be the same (IMHO). I'd have to do some research to dig up specific examples, but you might ask narfstar if he recall any such - as he's looked at the books more recently than I.
My other question is on the Yellowjacket story. JVJ has Ken Battefield/Leo Bachle for both the cover and the first story. I've seen a fair amount of Leo Bachle's work in Canadian comics and the inside looks a lot like them. I don't have any clue what Ken Battefield's work looks like. But to me the cover and the inside look like they have different inkers. Maybe Ken Battefield inking himself or another inker for the cover and Battefield/Bachle for the interior? (Take a look at Yellowjacket's knee on the cover and on the first page... they look very different... the cover is detailed and hatchy, the interior is blocky and shadowy).
Opinions?
Peter
Ken Battefield was a prolific GA artist. He was actually the first artist that Everett Raymond Kinstler inked when he got his first job with Richard Hughes in 1943 at "Cinema Comics" (the 'shop' that supplied the art for Standard/Nedor/Better). For some completely unfathomable reason, when Leo Bachle began to work in American comic books, he "adopted" the style of Battefield. For the longest time (this was back in the early 70s), we were uncertain if there even WAS a Leo Bachle. We speculated that somehow the "Ba" of Bachle was Battefield combined with someone with a "chle" in their name.
As we learned more about Canadian comics and discovered that he was a real artist, it became more mysterious as to WHY anyone would want to pattern his work after a prolific but generally mediocre artist like KB. To this day, we don't know. Perhaps LB worked in the Jacquet Shop and was given KB art to ink? Perhaps even the stories signed Leo Bachle were laid out by Battefield. LB was in his early twenties when he worked in US comics, so he might have simply continued on with the Battefield style as it was rather simple and easy to mimic.
Who knows? The YJ art looks MUCH like Battefield, but has the softness that KB tended to bring to the style. I don't see that much difference in the inking styles on the cover as you do. You may be right. I certainly don't feel that certain that Bachle inked that cover, but when we saw something that looks like Battefield, but isn't, LB is who came immediately to mind. Perhaps it's LB inked by someone else. I simply can't say. I CAN say that it's unlikely that KB inked himself as I've seen only one or two signed examples of KB and, assuming that if he signed the stories, he inked them, then he didn't ink anything in YJ #9.
Covers are generally more carefully and painstakingly inked than stories and I am hesitant to focus on something as mundane as a knee to help ID an inker. It's so weird to think of Bachle as actually having a style OTHER than KB's, though I've seen enough of his Canadian work to know that he did. Still, the stories that he signed in US comics are strangely different for unfathomable reasons.
(as a weird aside, KB was one of the guys who, along with Leo Morey and Edvard Moritz, did the vast majority of the Nedor stories towards the end of WWII. After the war, Graham Ingels and then Rafael Astarita (or perhaps vice versa - I can't recall) were hired as "art directors" for Nedor and their primary job was to retouch the stockpiled stories by these prolific (if mundane) artists so that they were printable and acceptable by post-war standards. That's why the Nedor art of that period is some of the most bizarre you're likely to encounter.)
I hope you can figure out what KB looks like. As I said, he is VERY prolific and learning his style will even help you sort out some of the later Iger Shop work, since that's where he ended his career.
Good questions. Probably my answers will do nothing beyond muddying the waters. For that I apologize. I wish I could be more helpful.
Peace, Jim (|:{>
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Topic: Yellowjacket #9 - Art IDs (Read 1806 times)
