Artist Arcana Mysteriosa

One of the great Oddities to emerge from the classic days of Heavy Metal magazine was the previously mentioned series, Tex Arcana, and its mysterious creator, John Findley.

I'd like to tell you a bit about Findley, but nobody seems to know anything. Tex Arcana is nearly his only known work (there was something in Canine/Feline Classics #25, but i've never seen it and the Grand Comics Database doesn't know it exists), but clearly the man has done some other drawing in his life. The detailed inks on (most of) Tex Arcana brought words like "insane" to the mind of my younger self when first viewing the work. A glorious, painstaking, and beautiful insane - the mind boggles at the thought of how much work went into some pages. But this work seems to have sprung fully formed from the aether. Even the "Official Tex Arcana Website" lists nothing but the books, only acknowledging Findley's existence with a copyright notice.

As to the odd nature of the story...

Quite happily, the first several episodes which i had been prepping were on one of the data sticks when the system erupted and died, and so they're easily accessible. Here's the first dozen pages (two 6 page chapters), including the previously seen page from last week's Friday Fun & Games. Now with context, my comments on the page might make a bit more sense:

Some would say we haven't gotten to the odd bits yet.

the works by "John Findley" for Heavy Metal (March, April 1981)

OXO, More On

Continuing from last night's post, here's another trio of OXO Liebig collectors cards:

European Cities & Costumes (circa 1887):

Parrots & Cocatiels (?):

The Rat's Daughter (1903):

artists unknown (1887, 1903, ?)

Beef With Cards

Since we're cut off from everything on which i had been working, let's go poke at some things that i hadn't gotten around to talking about. Like, Trading Cards. Say you like collecting trading cards, but you live in the later years of the 19th century and "Bubble Gum Cards" won't get started until the 1930s. What's a fanboy to do?

There's hope! Collector's cards were sometimes available with other candies. And, of course, you could get them with cigarettes (helps keep the pack from crushing to have that nice stiff cardboard in there, y'know). But some of my favorites came from ... meat extracts? Yup - the father/mother of modern bullion and the famous OXO tower in London. Beginning in 1872, Liebig started to distribute collector card series, and did so for over a century. (3 years over, i'm obsessed to report)

They were small series - typically only a half dozen cards, occasionally the full dozen. The subject matter was wide ranging, limited only by the editor's imagination and whim. Nature made for a common theme, as did travel and views of far-away lands. And history, famous landmarks, local culture, folklore...

As introduction, here are the art sides of three series. On later looks, we'll go to the text sides, but not today.

The Rodent Family (1954):

Naval Maneuvers (1901):

Modes Of Transportation In Japan (1905):

artists unknown (1901, 1905, 1954)

Blue Monday Calendar 2018 Week 27

Some readers may have noticed that yesterday was the 1st of July, yet no calendar pages were offered for this month. Alas, the files are all inaccessible with the current computer situation. Thankfully, the source archives for the Blue Monday Calendar are old enough to be located on an external drive small enough to be read by this ancient beast upon which the blog is maintained.

This week's Gil Elvgren painting comes from 1952, entitled Surprising Catch -

art by Gil Elvgren (1952)

Sunday Odd Funny

With the main system violently dead, the scanner inoperable and the archives inaccessible, we're operating in minimal mode currently. So just one Sunday Morning Funny, though morning is over here by the time this post goes live.
Only one comic, but, it is an Odd one.

One odd bit is the appearance of the artist. I've expressed a fondness for seeing artists appear in their comics before. This time, the artist features prominently, but the identity of the creator is lost to time and management's egos. I kind of want to hunt down photos of all the artists who worked for Harvey in the mid-40s to see if he can be identified.

Yeah. It would probably be easier to find an old pay stub.

Anyway - here's Nappie-Kin!

So...
I've been doing some digging since writing the bit above, and we may have an identity for our mystery artist. Can anyone find a photograph of Leon Jason, circa 1946? Original storyboards for this tale are marked with a Jason Comic Art Studios tag. Jason provided humour comics to a handful of publishers at the time. Beyond that, i know virtually nothing about them, or him.

But that would seem to be the answer to our query.

page art from Nutty Comics #5 (1946)

Saturday Solutions, Once Again

Quick answers to yesterday's Quick Quiz -

1>

From Larry Elmore, a name all old school D&D fans should recognize, comes Gidget Meets The Squirrel Dogs From Outer Space.

2>

The man tormented by the whispers is Doc Mason from John Findley's tolerably awesome Tex Arcana, a tale of which i've been a fan long enough that back in the '80s, before going full time into the artwork the electronics technicians with which i worked were called the Techs Arcana ("We're so good, we're magic").

3>

The might of Marveldom assembled was gathered to end the threat of...  the F.F.'s mailman...?

I told you there was something odd about Willie Lumpkin.

page art from Heavy Metal (April 1979, March 1981) and The Fantastic Four Roast (1982)