11 July 2019

The What If Fairy Hears The Magic Words

Sometimes you get an idea that just doesn't quite work. One such case comes from early on in Treasure Chest Of Fun & Fact, premiering in the first issue - The What If Fairy. Who the creators are is unknown to modern man. (I've seen some speculation that the artist signed the next to the last panel, but it seems clear to me that it's another figure working the field, like those to the right) Here's the first strip...


Naturally enough, they followed Salt with Pepper...


While cute, the gimmick was clumsy and wasted too much of the available panel space on the framing sequences. It lasted only four episodes. Issue #5 featured the first of the more direct approach - The Story Of    Tin   ...


The simple and direct approach worked better. And we even got to see that it was done by Iris Vinton and Addison Burbank, so - bonus! It's always so nice to have those credits when looking back across the decades.

page art by ??? and Addison Burbank from Treasure Chest Of Fun & Fact #s 1, 2, & 5 (1946)


(And, yes - we'll be back this afternoon with the continuation of The Enchanted Flivver.)

2 comments:

  1. There's a charming quaintness to those "What If" stories--They're reminiscent of newspaper comic strips from the 1910-20s era. Looks like someone was aping Winsor McCay in particular.

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  2. I agree (if belatedly)
    The etchings give the strip a fairy tale charm that worked quite well.
    Perhaps not aping McCay, though - might be going to the old book and magazine illustrations that informed Windsor's work, such as might be seen in old collections of children's stories. (among many other things)

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