15 December 2019

E.C. With E.C. & C.C.

Making good progress with getting set up to work again. Everything looks good and ready to go - with one slight snag.
I have no clue what my son's password is to access the system, and he's off on long haul trucking runs. No telling when messages will catch up to him. And so we wait...

But, while we wait, let's get an early start. 

Xmas is coming, only ten days away. And only a week until the first night of Hanukkah this year. Maybe it's still a bit early to start doing holiday comics, but these guys got started in July!


Further fuel to the legend that Pat Adams was Ellis Chambers.

I'm gimping the prep work on this little laptop with the tiny screen - so that's all for now. 
My eyes hurt.

page art by Ellis Chambers(?) from Wotalife #11 (1947)

6 comments:

  1. It’s a shame that likely no information will be found about Chambers personal life. I have seen someone say they’ve been trying to find any biographical information for years but found nothing. I know he lived in a time where there was minuscule information flow and records but it’s still odd that NOTHING is available about him. Maybe somewhere there’s an original drawing or journal but as the years go by that’s becoming increasingly unlikely. I think the only way new information can become uncovered is if someone who’s family member or relative tells the story of that handsome cartoonist on drugs they once met comes out.

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  2. A shame, and terribly frustrating. Pretty much all we've got is that one interview with Howie Post (Comic Book Artist #5 (1999)), and that's just a little peek at one brief time.

    At this point, the best hope i've had for new info is to try to quiz Mark Evanier and hope he can stumble across something with all his connections.

    But i'm not holding high expectations.

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    Replies
    1. Hmm, contacting Mark Evanier might be able to get a connection but I still doubt it. Ellis Chambers is like one of those mythical people of the Old West who suddenly disappear and their fate remains unknown. Does Chambers have any living descendants of potential brothers or sisters or cousins? I still speculate that there could be family or relatives or friends who probably talk about “that crazy cartoon artist” every Christmas but seeing how comics and the vintage cartoon style have a relatively small fanbase people who potentially know about him aren’t posting it online, perhaps completely unaware of his fanbase or maybe they don’t even know his name or misremember it so they can’t find anything because his name has been misremembered or something.

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    2. I’d love to know what happened to Chambers in the early 50s. Did he just start a new life or did his drug connections cost him his life? I’m also curious about his drug habits over time like did he get off heroin but do something else or what? Heroin tends to kill people but Chambers, based on Howie’s account, sounded very energetic and lively and not the person that would just overdose and die, seeing how he survived slicing his arm with a razor blade he seems like his body adapted to hard drugs and mentally he wouldn’t let himself die easily, but that’s my speculation. He sounds like the person that would walk down the street at night to get drugs but then a lady would get abused by some drunk and it’d piss him off so he’d calmly approach them and then abruptly break the guys arm and knock him out and tell the woman sorry you had to see that whilst sounding like he like a merry good time breaking an abusive drunk’s arm. He sounds very energetic and just not the person who would himself die easily.

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    3. I think that may well be the problem. Anyone who knows much of anything likely has no idea that people are interested. It's a common phenomenon that the creators of old comics are absolutely stunned that there's any awareness of them, much less devoted fans.
      And that's another place that Evanier has an advantage. If he takes an interest in the subject, he's got a lot of readers, many connected to the old creators and their families.
      So, we can hold some minor hopes, eh?

      BTW - great job on timing your notes for when i'm about to check on things!

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  3. My apologies, Doctor. I seem to have missed one of your comments from the 16th and only today authorized publication. I'll blame the system, but it was probably me simply not noticing there were two posts in the stack.

    This moderation to filter trolls thing is new, so i stumble.

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