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)

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)

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)

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) -

S'MoFun

For our Sunday Morning Funnies today, let's go to some comics from the middle of our previous century, ranging (in order) from 1949 to 1954, with a stop in 1950 -

Kinda changes the dynamic when the Cat & Mouse cartoon is played out with Dog & Cat instead, eh?

Meanwhile, almost one of the great pun names of all time in comics, the Owl detective, Whoo-Doodit (shoulda been Whoo-Dunnit to really ring that bell) -

And to make sure we've reached our minimum recommended level of odd this week...

I've mentioned in the past my fondness for seeing artists pop up in their work. The only pictures i've seen of Louis Ferstadt are older, with his hair shorter and a mustache - but the face and chin shape does seem to be him in those last two panels.

art by Dan Gordon, Bob Wickersham, and Louis Ferstadt from Funny Films #1 & #8 and Super Funnies #2 (1949, 1950, 1954)