[flaz]

  Hi... Just a quick question... I am looking for the name an artist who was known for his sports features. You can see his work on the inside cover of Joe Louis and Jackie Robinson comics. He also drew boxing features in Ring magazine.

  Does anyone know his name and perhaps where I can find more of his work?

  Thanks!

  Curtis in Canada.

[jimmm kelly]

Stanley Weston painted the covers for THE RING, but I would guess that the black and white illustrations could have been by Jack Burnley. Burnley did those kind of illustrated sports features in the '30s for the newspapers and again, after he left comic books, from the late '40s through the mid-'70s.

Back in the '50s and '60s, my older brother collected sports publications in the bedroom we shared when we were growing up and I remember often seeing these images--which look to me like the work of Jack Burnley.

[flaz]

  Thanks Jim....your suggestions got me searching in the right direction and I found some great stuff online. I never realized this style of drawing was done by many artists. I believe the guy I was looking for is Frank Leonard who went by Lank Leonard, but it is hard to tell. I know I loved the cartoon page in Ring magazine as a kid.... the realistic portrait and the 'toons.

  I wish I had a collection of these pages to enjoy. I absolutely love them!

  Thanks again for your help. 

[jimmm kelly]

In the mail this morning, I just got MISS BEVERLY HILLS OF HOLLYWOOD No. 5 (November-December '49) and this has a Wheaties ad which is done in a similar manner--one large, photo-realistic image in the foreground (Hal Newhouser); several small, caricature images in the background. The distinctive difference isn't really in the photo-realistic image but in the small cartoons, where the individual styles of the aritsts come through. But I have no idea who did the Wheaties ad.