Given that The 1940s Funny Animalphabet is off on its own now, we'll avoid his '40s funny animal works today. We'll look instead at work from the '50s and strips starring human rather than animal characters.
Let's start with one i mentioned very recently while talking about Wonderland Comics. Here's The Boy Pirate -
When speculating upon what might have happened to Ellis Chambers, i sometimes wonder if the drug use sometimes caused problems with his editors, possibly leading to hiring him less and less over time. While they seemed to like his work, the same might not necessarily be said for him. The tale above stands mute witness to this possibility. Twice more it ran in the same title, once the following year and again three years later. In both cases, his signature had been removed from the lower right corner of the title panel...
...and extra shame given the more interesting colour schemes used in the reprints.
Bonus Ellis Oddness:
I don't often post memes/image-macros here, but we've got a worthy exception here today. However, it will only fully make sense to those who are familiar with Howie Post's recollections of Ellis Chambers. (See Comic Book Artist #5 or this post for details.)
As often as i've seen this one out there, i don't think i've seen it better used. Certainly not for our purposes.
Thanks to Nick for sending his creation my way!
page art by Ellis Chambers for Wonderland Comics #8, Buster Bunny # 3, Sands Of The South Pacific #1, and Marmaduke Mouse #s 23, 33 & 56 (1946-7, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1955)
image macro by Nick (2018)
Your suggestion that Chambers personality as described by Howie Post scared off the editors is an interesting suggestion. I also suspect maybe the Hi Ho Comics #1 style was quickly toned down because the artwork gave itself away that Chambers was on SOMETHING-I get high just looking at that the drawings in that funnybook! That's a good theory that also has some good evidence-Howie Post described Chambers as who I interpret as a down-to-earth yet far-away guy. I wish Howie would've said more about him, his description of Chambers is very surreal and Milton Knight said the late Howie Post described Chambers as: "a handsome, charismatic "psychotic" who could walk out with a bar stool and stare down the bartender with a "what are you going to do about it?"". Did Milton Knight mean "psychotic" as psychopathic or mental? I'd love for Milton Knight to describe those "vivid tales" Howie Post had about Chambers he mentioned.
ReplyDeleteAs much as I love Chambers' 50s work, your theory could also go and say that Chambers purposefully tried to make a more "illustrated" and cute style so the editors wouldn't get too suspicious, especially as the comic book panic was occurring. If this is the case I'd love to see what he could've drew in his free time as you can definitely tell that by the 50s he got better at drawing, but that mixed with the Hi Ho Comics #1 style he could've withheld from using in print because editors would quickly wonder what's up with this Chambers guy. Could that be why Hi Ho Comics had only 3 issues and Chambers barely did anything in the third issue?
I do wonder what was it about Chambers that scared off the editors. Was it his drug use, or his personality? Did he perhaps get aggressive with them so he could afford his drug habits or was he just a little too eccentric for some people? Maybe he himself wasn't happy about them potentially wanting him to censor his artwork and make it more kid-friendly as the comic panic increasingly raged on so he quit comics in frustration? I can't find the source but one time while looking up about him I found something about women in comics (obviously someone mistook his name for a woman) who quit because of the comic panic in the 50s and Ellis Holly Chambers was on there. Maybe for him it had more to do with not being fond about the censorship he faced? I think over time we can create increasingly supported theories about him as we dig through his works.
Actually, it was the Hi-Ho Comics situation that first sparked that theory about Chambers and his editors. As you noted, he suddenly disappeared from the book - and he was the one who convinced them to publish it in the first place. Seems like something behind the scenes was likely going on.
ReplyDeleteOf course, it's impossible to say with the information currently available. I'd like to think he moved away from the artwork and associated habits of his addict days and he lived a quiet life somewhere in peace.
We can only hope that some day his diaries and a massive stash of unseen artwork is discovered, revealing his fate in a glorious way.
Some artwork or diaries being discovered somewhere would be a jackpot, would be really interesting if he had diaries he jotted his thoughts in. If he did have diaries and if they survived and are waiting to be discovered somewhere, well that would be something. Seeing how in the 50s he gradually did less work makes me suspect too that instead of getting "rubbed out" he just began a new life, most likely a quiet one as well. Editor problems may have also had a factor of Chambers' potential political and religious views (whatever they were, if there were any) as drugs do have a tendency to make people be outside of whatever culture they're in.
Delete