American Cornball: A Laffopedic Guide to the Formerly Funny, by Christopher Miller

We started the year dipping into a delightful surprise – American Cornball: A Laffopedic Guide to the Formerly Funny, by Christopher Miller.  Arranged alphabetically, Miller enumerates the countless tropes so frequent in American comedy circa 1900-1966, and why they were funny and what they tell us about Americans of old.

Miller creates an artificial cutoff of 1966, citing anecdotally that the upheavals of the 1960s resulted in a seismic change in what America meant and, consequently, what it meant to be an American.  One would think that this is an invitation for Miller – a professor at Bennington College in Vermont and the author of Sudden Noises from Inanimate Objects – to take potshots at the Great American Century.  However, such is not the case at all, as Miller rightly sees the downside of our social “progress.”  More often than not, it would seem to Miller that the America of the 1920s, 30s and 40s was a funnier, and perhaps, better place than the country we know today.  (A sentiment with which we here at the Jade Sphinx are in full agreement.)

The book has entries on a wide array of laugh-getters, including falling safes and anvils, pratfalls, milquetoasts, flappers, hash, hobos, outhouses, rolling pins, castor oil, dishwashing husbands, nosey neighbors and noise – and that is just scratching the surface.  Miller also talks about many of the formerly great venues for this humor, including full-page comic strips, radio comedy, silent movies, and of course, joke books. 

Coming in at 544 pages, one would think that American Cornball more than overstays its welcome; however, one wishes the book was longer and some of the entries more detailed.

Miller’s particular genius is not just in enumerating instances of a comedic trope, but wondering why they were (or are) funny in the first place.  Miller has keen insight into the human condition, and finds many of his observations in the arena of the ridiculous.  Though not a philosopher like G. K. Chesterton (quoted, incidentally, in this volume), Miller’s worldview is that of an expansive humanist with a predisposition to the comic rather than the tragic. 

The encyclopedia format keeps the observations loose and light, and this also proves to be one of the few flaws in the book: when Miller really has something to say (which is often), he is hamstrung by his format.  One hopes that he will follow-up American Cornball with a collection of essays of greater depth and fewer topics, as there is much more for him to say.

But what he does say here is terrific and to be savored.  I read through the volume with a goofy smile plastered on my face – and how could anyone resist a book that cites the Three Stooges, W. C. Fields and the Marx Brothers a source material?

Here is an example of Miller at his best, rifting on the subject of pain:  There is, as far as I know, not one scene in all of Henry James where a character of either sex sits on a thumbtack.  I haven’t read everything by Henry James, but I’ve read enough to know what the rest must be like, and nowhere do I see a thumbtack penetrating an unsuspecting buttock.  Stubbed toes are also few and far between, if they occur at all.  And unlike all those hapless dads on America’s Funniest Home Videos, the males in James’s arcadia never get it in the balls.

Good stuff, that, but better still, here he is midway on his discussion of morons:  In our culture, “That’s not funny” really means “It’s wrong to laugh at that,” which is why we sometimes say it even while laughing.  “That’s not funny” is only secondarily a report on the speaker’s true reactions, though it can be an effort to train those reactions.  If you strongly disapprove of something and therefore insist it isn’t funny, that isn’t quite as dishonest as insisting that O.J. Simpson was never a great running back because you hate the psychopathic asshole he later became.  No, it’s more like refusing to find an actress beautiful because you hate her personality.  Given the determination, you really can suppress your sense of humor, like your sense of beauty.  But if you say, “There’s nothing funny about mental retardation, and for the life of me I’ve never understood why anything thinks there is,” you must be either a hypocrite or a saint.  Either way, you’ve clearly forgotten the jokes of your childhood…..

Then there is this, on farting:  Before it became permissible to discuss farts openly, our forebears relied on all kinds of substitutes— from ducks to tubas, from foghorns to balloons. It may be that the fully lifelike simulation of farts became possible only with later improvements in sheet rubber, but in the pre-whoopee epoch it wasn’t necessary or even desirable for a noisemaker to sound exactly like the real thing; it just had to sound like something sometimes used to symbolize the real thing. Novelty makers are always boasting about how “realistic” their products are, but in this case, realism wasn’t wanted.  Instead, aspiring practical jokers were offered a range of metonymies and metaphors.  Even in our unembarrassed age, the whoopee cushion itself still claims to imitate a “Bronx cheer” or raspberry—not a fart but the imitation of one made by buzzing the lips in what linguists call a bilabial trill. (The reason that sound is called a “raspberry” is that it is or was cockney rhyming slang for “fart,” via “raspberry tart.”) The sound is the best simulation of a fart we can produce with our normal speech apparatus.  In the early 1930s, when whoopee cushions took the world by storm, raspberries too were in fashion, at least on the funny pages—both Dagwood and Popeye had recourse to them now and then.  A little later, Al Capp gave us Joe Btfsplk, the world’s biggest jinx, easily recognized by the small black cloud—a personal fart cloud? —hanging over him at all times. When asked how to pronounce Joe’s surname, Capp would respond with a raspberry, adding, “How else would you pronounce it?”

I loved American Cornball, and spent much of the past few weeks reading it aloud to all and sundry.  This is a treasure for anyone interested in humor – and a perfect gift for those without a sense of one.  Highly recommended – and Mr. Miller, more, please.

NY Comics and Picture-Story Symposium at The New School

Regular readers of The Jade Sphinx are well aware of our love of both illustrated books and comics, one of the few, great indigenous American art forms.  So, we are eagerly anticipating a symposium slated for tonight, March 18 -- the 79^th meeting of the NY Comics and Picture-Story Symposium at Parsons, the New School.  The presentation is Picture Stories/Stories with Pictures, and it will be hosted by scholar Patricia Mainardi. 

Few fans of the comics medium seem to be aware of Rodolphe Töpffer (1799 – 1846).  Töpffer was a Swiss-born teacher, author, painter and cartoonist.  He illustrated many books which are considered to be among the earliest examples of the comic form.

However, while Töpffer was creating his first comic books in the 1830s, book illustration was also undergoing a transformation.  Where books once had a few, sparse illustrations, new printing techniques encouraged hundreds of illustrations.  Artists were now faced with new questions: What to draw? How to draw? How to integrate text and image?  The lecture will survey the parallel history of illustrated books and comic books, mirror images of each other in their first flower of development.

Patricia Mainardi is an art historian, professor emerita in the doctoral program in art history at the City University of New York. A specialist in 19^th Century art, she has published numerous books and articles on topics from painting to comics and is currently completing  a book on nineteenth-century illustrated print culture, including comics, caricature, and illustrated books and periodicals.

The above illustration is by French illustrator, engraver and painter Tony Johannot (1803-1852), and reads:  And so, in the guise of friendship, the villain managed to steal my brain, which he took for himself, for, as my head shrunk in volume, his grew larger, published in Travel Where You Will, Book Written with Pen and Crayon, with Vignettes, Legends, Episodes, Commentaries, Incidents, Notes and Poetry, 1843.

The lecture will take place at 7:00 p.m. at Parsons The New School, 2 West 13th Street, in the Bark Room (off the lobby). It is free and open to the public.

Dave Gilbert and Buckles Interview, Part IV

Today we conclude our interview with cartoonist Dave Gilbert (born 1971),creator of the comic strip Buckles.  As someone dog-sitting for the past four months (and with two more months to go), I can say that if dogs had opposable thumbs, they would rule the world by now….

How do you work with King Features?

I e-mail all of my work.  I draw classically, using an ink brush and Bristol board, and then scan it into my computer and color it there.  American Color takes care of the reproduction.   Bud Grace, the guy who does Ernie, also e-mails it in.  I think Ernie is terrific, it kind of reminds me of early MAD Magazine.

What about your fans?  Do you get a lot of mail?  Do they suggest stories?

I get a fair amount of mail.  I try to answer all of it, although sometimes I miss a few.  And the ones I miss always write me back, and remind me that I haven’t answered!  I find I have a hard time sometimes answering letters, and e-mail is easier.  I haven’t gotten ideas from readers yet, but very often they write to tell me that Buckles is just like their own dog.  And I like that, it’s what I’m setting out to do.

How long does it take you to draw an individual strip?

Depends on the action, on my mood, everything.  Some days I could crank a strip out, even when starting with no ideas, from beginning to end, in less than an hour.  And other days, it could take upwards of six hours.  It really depends.

I understand that Buckles has been optioned for an animated series.

Yes, through Hearst Entertainment, the same people who did the Bloom County special and The Tick.  I thought The Tick was brilliantly funny. 

Being a former animator, would you be working on the animation yourself?

No.  They asked if I wanted to, but I think I’ll focus my energies on the strip.  But I’ll put my hands into the show as much as I can.

Would you write it?

No, but I wouldn’t mind writing a few episodes, and I’m supposed to see everything before it goes through.  As the creator, I’m want to make sure it turns out as well as it can.  But, I haven’t talked to them in  while, and I don’t know the current status of the project.

And in your dreams, who’s the ideal voice for Buckles?

I don’t know!   I guess it’s mine, only a little faster.  I thought about that when Hearst brought it up. I know the voices have to fit the characters and the way they’re drawn.  I think Buckles needs to sound... eager, and kind of on the edge.

Have you been getting a lot of reader response?

When Buckles first came out, a lot of papers were doing reader polls on their favorite strips.  Happily, Buckles won a whole bunch of them, nearly five across the nation.  One in Burlington, Vermont, and one in Oklahoma, and a couple of others I can’t remember.  It was a good beginning for the strip.

Any plans for Buckles merchandising?

I would love it.  I always felt that I would know I had made it in the industry when I had a stuffed animal.  When I could hold one up and say here’s a 3-D, solid character.  Or a Buckles cup, that would be fun.  I might worry about over-merchandising.   I agree with Bill Watterson about purism, but I don’t know how far I would take it.  I’ve already done the poor thing, and it’s vastly overrated.  I do care about my characters though, and I’m very cautious about what could happen to them.  After something like Buckles underwear, I don’t know where it would go.  I think I would need a Buckles book, first.

Are there plans for a book?

Not anything solid, now.

Do you have plans for branching out into other strips? 

I don’t know.  I’m really happy with Buckles, and that takes up all of my time.  I don’t know how I could break up my time to do a different strip.  Maybe one day I would add a different part to Buckles, that would sometimes make it feel like another strip.  When Watterson did Spaceman Spiff in Calvin and Hobbes, he got to do a whole different strip.  Or Snoopy and the Red Baron.  And these things bring a whole new dimension to the characters. 

Any thoughts on a cartoonist’s life?

Yeah.  Even when I’m away from my desk, I’m still working.  The best part, though, is that I can roll out of bed and into my desk.  It’s not a long commute.  I don’t know what I would be if I weren’t a cartoonist.

Dave Gilbert and Buckles Interview, Part III

This week, we are running an interview I conducted some 18 years ago with celebrated cartoonist Dave Gilbert (born 1971), creator of Buckles.  We open with him talking about his first trip about a bird named Abercrombie, which never really went anywhere, and how it was later worked into Buckles…

How far did Abercrombie ever go?  Was it actually ever syndicated?

No.  I sent it off to the syndicates, and King Features was the only one that sent me any real feedback on it.  Jaye Kennedy sent my stuff back saying that it's a strong bird strip, but not strong enough to be syndicated.  He recommended making the old couple young, and I did that, and took some other suggestions, and it eventually evolved into Buckles.

Do you think dogs are funnier than birds?

I don't know.  I think Buckles has more personality than Abercrombie.  But birds are funny ... look at Shoe. 

I never think of him as a bird!  With his rumpled sports clothes and cigar, I always think of him as a person.

He's a person who happens to have feathers.  I have no problem with that, though, and don't mind it if it works for the overall premise of the strip.  I had tried another strip called The Back Alley, which had a whole bunch of talking animals and took place in a back alley.  It was about animals, but really they were just little people with fur on their faces.

So tell us about Buckles.  We know he's a dog, with real dog limitations...  What else about him?

He's a mutt, and the biggest thing about him is his insecurity.  And he takes his insecurity to the max.  He's very emotional.  I don't know if he's pretty much like every dog, or mostly like me. 

Do you think that tapping into that insecurity is something that's very ‘90s, and that helped the strip?  Is there something about Buckles that says something about us in the ‘90s?

Buckles, having a lot of my personality, is easy for me to write.  I have a pretty good idea of how I would react to most situations, and I guess I’m a pretty ‘90s guy.  I don’t know ... I guess my personality was marketable.  I hope it stays that way.

What about the other characters in the strip?  What about the couple?

They’re Paul and Jill.  Paul is pretty much the owner, and he sees Buckles as a dog. Because Buckles is a dog, Paul thinks Buckles should sit when he’s told and stay off the couch, that kind of stuff.  He’s kind of hard, but in a dog-owner kind of way.  And Jill, who is the softer, kinder one, treats Buckles like a kid and let’s him on the couch, things like that.  It drives Paul crazy.  There is a bird, too, named Arden, who used to be named Abercrombie.  He’s the backyard friend.  There’s also a flea, who you never see.  He’s very intelligent, and whenever Buckles is in trouble, or needs someone to talk to, he turns to the flea.  The flea’s the smartest of the two... he can read, and Buckles can find things out that way.

Hopefully that’s not based on you!  How far ahead are you on Buckles?

About at the deadline. 

Do you find that you’re composing the gag, and then drawing the strip?  Or drawing the strip and then coming up with the gag?  How do you work out your ideas?

There’s so many different ways to do it.  Sometimes an idea just pops into my head and it’ll be there.  Lately I struggle and struggle.  Mostly I get the idea or the gag first, and then I work around how I’m going to draw it.  The drawing is really important:  I like to put a lot emotion into Buckles’ visuals as well as the writing.

Do you keep a notebook of things to develop into ideas?

Oh yeah.  I’ve got several, and I always go back to them.

Are you always working on it?

I’m always thinking about it.  I have yet to figure out a way to stop thinking about it.  I set up a schedule that I tried to work by, but sometimes I’m at the drawing board at midnight after I’ve come up with a particularly good idea.  Even when I’m at the mall, or just trying to relax, I think that I should be working. 

Is there any one particular venue that’s good for ideas?  Do you get most of them from the newspaper, or television, or while sitting in the bathtub?

That changed a lot.  I would flip through books, like Bloom County or Calvin and Hobbes, and they would inspire me.  Or I’d flip through Newsweek, and for a long while I used to get ideas while taking a shower.  Now, I don’t know, it really switches.  I don’t know where they’re coming from, lately, I just sit down to think and hope they come!

More Dave Gilbert and Buckles tomorrow!

Dave Gilbert and Buckles Interview, Part II

Thanks to the thunderous response to our recent interview with comics legend Lee Falk (1911-1999), we pulled this interview with Buckles cartoonist Dave Gilbert (born 1971) from the archive.  I have also been dog-sitting for the past four months, and my temporary pet, Orpheo, hopes that you enjoy this insight into a dog’s life….

So you started cartooning in school? 

Yes.

Did you have any formal art training?

No, not really.  Just the usual stuff in high school.  I tried taking art classes, but with mixed success.  I took a cartooning class and practically failed it. 

Really!

Yeah.  The teacher told me not to pursue cartooning:  I had no talent and no future. 

What kept you from listening?

I liked cartooning too much. 

So what made you think of Buckles?

He's a dog that I would draw as a warm-up exercise, something I would doodle when I sat down at the drawing table.  Before I draw I always have to doodle first.  Originally, he used to have his ears up.  Then, one day I just put the ears down, instead of upwards, and somehow his personality just kind of came out.  He was this insecure little dog with big eyes, and slightly neurotic.  And he started taking on a life of his own.

And when was this?  While you were still in school, or when you worked as an animator?

It was just after my first year of college, and when I worked in animation.

Was Buckles based on a dog of yours?

Actually, he's based on me, and my whole personality.

So you're Buckles?

Yeah, pretty much.  My friends say that.  They go as far as saying I look like Buckles, but I don't get that.

Do people think you’re funny?

(Thoughtfully)  Gee, I hope so.  At least, I haven’t had any complaints.

Was Buckles your first shot at a strip?

No, I had another strip called Abercrombie, which was about a bird.  There was a dog in it that was just like Buckles, but the bird was the main character  Buckles, who was called Scruffy in this strip, lived with the bird in an old couple’s backyard.  All the characters were there, I just kind of rearranged them for Buckles.  I made the couple younger, and I made the dog the main character because I always thought he was funniest one in it anyhow.  But I was hesitant to do a dog strip because there are so many of them out there already.  Having my own, syndicated strip was something I wanted my whole life.  I just turned 26 this year, and I was syndicated at 24, which made me the youngest syndicated cartoonist at the time.

I think there's something about dogs ... because they are so human, or because they have so many human traits.

I know what you mean, so I've tried to make Buckles different.  He's a dog, but I try to write him as a human.

You do things in your strip to keep him dog-like, rather than making him a human in a collar and leash.

He still has limitations.  He's still a dog.  The fact that he “talks” is that his owners know him so well they know what he means without his saying a word.  But he can't open doors, and he can't read. And there are other limitations that he's aware of, that he can't stand about himself, which is also an insecurity about him. 

What made you consciously set out thinking about his limitations as a dog when most other cartoonists treat their canine characters differently?  Was this your way of distancing Buckles from the rest of the pack?

When I first conceived Buckles, I did some strips and sent them to the syndicates, never thinking that it would go anywhere.  I thought a dog strip would be too limiting.  And I guess that's where the notion of keeping him more like a dog came from, of taking his imitations and turning them into an advantage.  It really works for him not to be able to do certain things, even though it's harder to write.  When he's walking down the street, for example, he can't read a STOP sign.  And since he can't read things, he has to find out information in other ways. 

But it also underscores that he's really a dog. 

Right.  You don't lose sight of the fact that he's an animal.  In most animal strips, they really don't look or behave like animals, just like funny-looking people. 

More Dave Gilbert and Buckles tomorrow!

Dave Gilbert and Buckles Interview, Part I

We here at The Jade Sphinx have been dog-sitting since November for the world’s greatest canine, a Lab-Chow mix named Orpheo.  He is 16 years old, sweet tempered, and the best canine companion a man could have.

This is bound to amuse longtime friends of yours truly, as my hatred of pets of all kind has been the stuff of legend.  For years my immediate response upon touching (let alone petting) an animal was to wash my hands and control my breathing until a sense of cleanliness returned.  So when the notion of Orpheo staying with us for six months first came up, I balked.  But after several months of walking Orpheo, bathing Orpheo, playing with Orpheo and feeding Orpeho … I simply can’t imagine not having him nearby. 

Thinking about Orpheo inspired me to pull another story from the archives – and since we had such a positive reaction last week when we ran our interview with legendary comic strip creator Lee Falk (1911-1999), we decided to resurrect another interview with a celebrated pen-and-ink man.  The following is an interview we conducted in 1996 with cartoonist Dave Gilbert (born 1971), creator of the popular King Features comic strip, Buckles.

Orpheo and I hope you enjoy it.

Dave Gilbert made history when he was only 24 years-old.

It was then, in March, 1996, that King Features Syndicate first distributed his comic-strip Buckles, and Gilbert became the youngest cartoonist ever to write and draw a national strip.

Early success is something Buckles shares with his creator.  The plucky pooch quickly found national distribution in more than 100 newspapers, and went on to win reader polls in Oklahoma City and Salt Lake City (where he garnered a higher percentage of the vote than did Gov. Mike Leavitt in that year’s gubernatorial election).

Blond and blue-eyed, Gilbert looks more like a college kid than a nationally syndicated cartoonist.  Much of the Gilbert’s thoughts on life creep into his strip, and his fresh and sometimes quirky philosophy has been embraced by readers of all ages.  A recurring motif of the strip chronicles Buckles’ “romance” with a fireplug.  Because the fireplug is an inanimate object, Buckles projects all kinds of qualities and charms into it.  “Which I guess,” Gilbert says, “Is just my way of saying relationships are what you make of them.”

We caught up with Dave Gilbert at his home and studio in Syracuse, New York.

    

You were born and raised in Syracuse, New York?

Yep, I’ve been here all my life.  I don’t know if I want to stay.  The best thing about being a cartoonist is that I can work anywhere.  I could just pack up my computer system and go anywhere I wanted to.  But I think I’ll just stay here until I figure it out.

What first got you interested in comics and cartooning?

I guess I was always interested in them.  Disney animation was a big thing for me when I was a little kid.

Are there, or were there, any particular Disney movies that really did it for you?

No, I pretty much like them all.  I wanted to be an animator for the longest time.  In fact, I worked for an animation company here in Syracuse before I was syndicated.

What kind of work were you doing at the animation studio?

I was everything from a cleanup artist to an assistant animator.  I was also an animator, too, but not quite a full-blown one.  Then I discovered syndication, which I like much more.  Doing a syndicated strip, I have no boss...

Were there particular comic strips, or artists, that in some way inspired you?

Oh yeah.  Obviously Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes, Berkeley Breathed’s Bloom County, and Fox Trot.  They were my three major inspirations.

And what about that work lit your fire?  Was it just the medium, or the art, or what?

I think it was the characterization, and the way these guys wrote and drew.  I don’t think Fox Trot was as well drawn as the others, but the writing on that strip was just incredible.  There was something about all three strips that made them come alive.  Especially the characterizations of Calvin and Opus, they power both of their strips and make them fun.  They have a lot of life to them, and that's what I wanted to recreate in my own work.  I’d love to meet Berkeley Breathed, I hear he’s terrific.

I think Calvin goes back to a long tradition going back to Little Nemo in Slumberland, actually, with the sort of thing that a kids sees but other people don't.

Yeah.  That’s even in Walt Kelly’s Pogo to a degree, and he was another one of my major influences.

More Dave Gilbert and Buckles tomorrow!

Master Magicians and Phantoms: An Interview with Lee Falk, Part I

We dig once again into the archives for an interview I did with comic book legend Lee Falk (1911-1999), originally conducted in 1996.

Back in those days, your correspondent worked for several magazines as an interviewer and critic.  I had the great pleasure to interview some of the most significant figures of Pop Culture, but few were as enjoyable as my talk with Lee Falk.

The following interview appeared around the time the film adaptation of his comic strip The Phantom appeared, and was later, in 2011, translated into Swedish (!) for a book celebrating Falk’s centennial.  I hope you enjoy it.

Some men are touched in profound ways by the magic stuff of their boyhood.

A case in point is comic strip legend Lee Falk. He read the stuff of boys, and it stayed. He was touched by Burroughs' Tarzan and Kipling's Mowgli, and with a little world myth thrown in, created The Phantom, The Ghost Who Walks, The Man Who Cannot Die. And now, at 83, he still does it, turning out the adventures of the Phantom three generations of boys later. In fact, 1996 is the 60th Anniversary of The Phantom, and Falk still writes his daily adventures.

That is not all. In 1934, Falk, then a college student with dreams of being a writer, created the elegant Mandrake the Magician, an avenger in evening clothes and suave mustache, one of the ultimate icons of 1930s heroism. Mandrake's adventures are still widely read, and still scripted by the energetic Falk.

Lee Falk is a working legend. He has holds the world's record for writing the continuing adventures of any comic strip character, and with The Phantom, created the costumed superhero. The Phantom's 60th Anniversary will be marked with a new Phantom film from Paramount, starring Billy Zane as the masked avenger, and Treat Williams as the villain. Based on several stories penned by Falk, and set in the 1930s, this promises to be a treat comic strip lovers will not want to miss.

I caught up with the busy Mr. Falk at his home in Manhattan's Upper West Side in June 1995.

Could you give us some background on yourself?

Well, I was born in Missouri, many years ago. I started Mandrake in 1934, when I was still in University of Illinois, and started The Phantom two years later. I'm very proud that this is the 60th Anniversary of The Phantom, and Mandrake is still going strong at 62. I still write them both, always did, daily strips and Sunday papers. I haven't drawn them in many years, many, many years. It takes more than two or three men to do that much work!

When I first started, I first drew Mandrake for fun for myself. I drew up two weeks of daily strips, and took my time with it, very slow, and made changes. I had some help from an older artist. Then I sent these two weeks of daily strips for Mandrake to King Features, and, to my amazement, they optioned them! And they wanted a Sunday page, too.

So I suddenly realized that these are not cartoons, these are illustrations. Whereas old friends of mine like Al Parker and Bud Briggs, well known magazine illustrators at the time, could do one or two illustrations in one week, here I had two comic strips with about 18 panels a week, with another eight panels or so for Sunday. Each panel is an illustration. A lot of work. Eventually I got Phil Davis to take over Mandrake when I started The Phantom.

What comic strips at this time were big influences on you, or inspiration?

That's a good question. What really influenced me more were not comic strips, but novels like Tarzan, or the Jungle Book of Kipling.  As a boy, my reading was the great adventurers and detectives like Arscene Lupin. Mandrake comes out of all that. He was a crime fighter. Remember that Mandrake, started as a stage magician, but I turned him into a hypnotist, an illusionist. He creates illusion, things don't really happen, you just think they do. Incidentally, in the very first story I had introduced this African Prince, bodyguard, Lothar. The idea was teaming a big, powerful physical man and the mental giant Mandrake. And then gradually Lothar, who used to wear a leopard skin and so forth, was modernized, to sports shirts and boots, and his Pidgin English was turned to proper speech, and he became Mandrake's friend, rather than bodyguard. And these two actually were the first black and white crime fighters, as far as I know, anywhere. This was long before Cosby and Culp's I Spy; there weren't any black and white crime fighters. It wasn't my intention to do something in that area, it just happened. And then, as years passed, it became very commonplace to have a black and white team. As you know, it is a common theme in movies to this day.

What was the genesis or inspiration for Princess Narda?

Princess Narda just a beautiful, ideal young woman. There was no special influence for her.

Could you tell us a bit about your relations with Phil Davis, and does he remain your favorite Mandrake artist?

Phil was an older artist that I knew. I was about 22; he was in his early 30. He had a lot of success with his illustrations in magazines like Liberty and Colliers. He did very well, but he got tired of it. He welcomed a chance to get out of the rat race of a freelance illustrator, where he had to submit stuff to agencies and get it backed changed, and so forth. With Mandrake, he could just sit down and draw. He worked with me very early on Mandrake, and then I turned over all the drawing to him. He did very tight pencil work on it. We got Ray Moore, another artist. These guys were all older than me: Ray Moore was kind of a Bohemian artist, very interesting man. He did the inking on the strip. I continued to do some of the layout. But when The Phantom came along, I had no time. I got Ray Moore to come off of Mandrake and onto The Phantom.

Two or three years later, I stopped drawing The Phantom layouts completely. I stopped drawing over a half century ago!  But I continued, without a break, until as we speak, to write the stories.

These are adventure strips, and I think of them as illustrated stories which appear in the newspapers.

More Lee Falk tomorrow!