23 February 2018

Fine Ferstadt

We've been looking a bit at the comic book work of Louis Goodman Ferstadt over the last couple weeks. Ferstadt was also known as a muralist, painting for the WPA and for the World's Fair, most notably. He also painted in watercolours and oils, and his works can still occasionally be found for sale in galleries.

Some paintings:

Night Life

Park Pond

Seated Figure

Untitled (Protection Of The Child By The Child Protection Act)

Untitled Watercolour

Untitled Watercolour

Painting Of A Drag Queen

Fanciful Landscape

...and some murals...

Greatest Show On Earth



You probably knew we were going to get to an odd bit along the way, and we have arrived at the Lost Murals. The large panel we see Ferstadt painting in the 3 images below, and the smaller panel that follows, were intended to hang in the WPA Director's office. That never happened, and the murals disappeared and were lost. It has been speculated that this was due to Louis's work in the 1930s, doing cartoons for the Daily Worker. Political backlash being the likely culprit for whatever happened to the lost paintings.



Radio Service To The Public


Unfortunately, i've been unable to find any of those Daily Worker comics.
But i'll keep looking...

EDIT: Oops - forgot the colour mural image:

Farm Tragedy

all art by Louis Goodman Ferstadt

Fake Fun

As has been most obvious in recent weeks, my focus just isn't up to participating in the thrill of Friday Night Fights, so around these parts, of course, it's time for


We're going home grown for the quiz today - a simple little thing. Back in the '70s, there were two big words used in underground comic titles - Comix and Funnies. There was lots of Funnies, and some of 'em were right oddly  named. So here we are.
Your job - spot the fakes. A useful skill these days, to be sure, so let's help train the brain to weed out the flimflammery.
Yes, that's a word. Now.

We have here 33 titles from comix from the '70s (give or take a year). More than half of these are real titles. Decide if each of the following titles is REAL or FAKE:

REAL___   FAKE___   01) 50s Funnies 
REAL___   FAKE___   02) Air Pirates Funnies 
REAL___   FAKE___   03) Barbarian Killer Funnies
REAL___   FAKE___   04) Bijou Funnies
REAL___   FAKE___   05) Biochemical Warfare Funnies
REAL___   FAKE___   06) Bouncing Broadway Funnies
REAL___   FAKE___   07) Brainwreck Funnies
REAL___   FAKE___   08) Corporate Lizard Funnies
REAL___   FAKE___   09) Deviant Slice Funnies
REAL___   FAKE___   10) Dope Fiend Funnies
REAL___   FAKE___   11) Downtown Friday Funnies
REAL___   FAKE___   12) Facts O' Life Sex Education Funnies
REAL___   FAKE___   13) Farm-Out Freak Funnies
REAL___   FAKE___   14) Feelgood Funnies
REAL___   FAKE___   15) Flamed Out Funnies
REAL___   FAKE___   16) Flying F! Funnies
REAL___   FAKE___   17) Folk Funnies
REAL___   FAKE___   18) Fuktup Funnies
REAL___   FAKE___   19) Groin Kick Funnies
REAL___   FAKE___   20) Half Assed Funnies
REAL___   FAKE___   21) High Flyin' Funnies
REAL___   FAKE___   22) Home Grown Funnies
REAL___   FAKE___   23) Hydrogen Bomb Funnies
REAL___   FAKE___   24) Infamous Funnies
REAL___   FAKE___   25) Leaking Brain Funnies
REAL___   FAKE___   26) Left Field Funnies
REAL___   FAKE___   27) Lets Not 'n Say We Did Funnies
REAL___   FAKE___   28) Like Nobody's Bizness Funnies
REAL___   FAKE___   29) Nixon Ate My Mom Funnies
REAL___   FAKE___   30) Ratfukk Funnies
REAL___   FAKE___   31) Rock 'n Roll Madness Funnies
REAL___   FAKE___   32) Roxy Funnies
REAL___   FAKE___   33) Why Don't We Do It In The Road Funnies

answers (and covers to real titles) tomorrow

22 February 2018

Looking For Lou

Louis Ferstadt is not the easiest artist to follow. Not only did artists often go uncredited in his day, but he also worked under a variety of names, or even just letters. When credited, he can be found as Louis Ferstadt, Ferstadt, or just Lou or Looey, or even just LF or L. He can also be found under the name Lew Howe, or a couple of names completely unrelated to his own.

Ferstadt can be found drawing Blue Beetle as Otis -


More famously, you can find him working as E.E. Hibbard on The Flash (apologies for the grainy microfiche source) -


As one might surmise, finding Ferstadt can be a bit of a quest.

pages by Louis Ferstadt from Blue Beetle #44 and Flash Comics #44 (1946, 1943)

21 February 2018

73 Year Old Quickie

 Most of the work we've seen here recently from Louis Ferstadt has been from overtly cartoon-y humour comics. But he was also known for a variety of action/adventure strips, working under a variety of names. Here's another quickie post sample, the now long-forgotten The Deacon and Mickey series appearing in Cat-Man back in the 40s -


As mentioned, however, he worked under a variety of names, and his work was seen on some big name heroes, too...

pages by Louis Ferstadt from Cat-Man #27 (1945)

20 February 2018

Louis Getting Looney

Having a bit of trouble getting outside of my head. Just a short post to keep a hole in the wall.

Louis Ferstadt wasn't always the greatest story teller - by which i mean his layouts sometimes lacked a natural flow for the eye of the reader. Of course, a lot of the visual language and common tricks to keep the page easy to follow were still being developed back then.

On the up side of that aspect of his work, his pages were rarely dull and sometimes imaginatively energetic.



pages by Louis Ferstadt from Doll Man #7 (1943)

19 February 2018

Doc Wirtham's Greatest Hit


Hey! Remember Oisif Egaux?

NOTE: As intended by the creators, pretty much every image from this post
has been moved to our back room for adult content following the site restructuring.
The text remains that you may make a fair guess as to whether or not you wish to look at the pics.
Please follow this link to The Other Voice Of ODD! archive of the original post to view the artwork.


Odds are, most folks don't. But most likely never saw his work...



It's definitely distinctively different than most...




Okay - how about Clifford Neal? Is that name any more familiar?

Back when the underground comix market had dropped off to almost nothing, and before the independent market opened up, Cliff Neal stepped up to provide a unique open forum comic. Starting in 1976, he published a confusing number of issues (let's call it 10) of Dr. Wirtham's Comix & Stories -




As you might have already deduced, that's Oisif Egeaux's work on the cover of #2 (and #1, but i like #2 better). The first issue of Dr. Wirtham's C&S was completely the work of Egaux (pronounced Ego, appropriately enough in that case). This might not be too surprising, given that Clifford Neal and Oisif Egeaux are the same person.

Having produced the first issue solo, he ran this editorial at the opening of the first issue:


And how did that call for folks to join him work out?
Well - take a look at the Table Of Contents from the following issue:




I'd say it worked out Not Damned Bad. And i think that's the earliest work i've seen from Will Muegniot.

By a few issues later...




I used this one so you could see the Editorial Statement that ran with it.
Other contributors over the run of the book included Gene Day, Peter Bagge, Terry Beatty, and Joe Zabel. It's an oddly unique title, and we'll come back and look at some of their work another day. Today, let's look more at Cliff/Oisif's art and stories from the book.




all art by Oisif Egaux/Clifford Neal for Dr. Wirtham's Comix & Stories (1976-1987)










Blue Monday Calendar 2018 Week 08

This week's Gil Elvgren goodness comes from 1962 - Just Right (The Eyeds Of March) -