Chris Welkin Planeteer

Happy Ninth: NEA Daily and Sunday Comics (1960)

This spring, I visited Uncle Kevin, who lives in the Ada, Michigan home in which he grew up. Visits are always a treat—besides visiting family, and the memories of my grandparents that come from staying in their old house, there is also so much of my grandfather’s artwork hanging on the walls (or recently dug out of old boxes and bins).

One bin turned up a copy of “NEA Sunday and Daily Comics.” It’s a 32-page, black and white tabloid, with the cover printed on a nice, coated stock and the interior pages on a lesser-grade paper. It’s a collection of NEA’s comics that was published by the syndicate each week. I have many examples of KEVIN THE BOLD excised from these issues, but only two intact copies of the publication.

The really sweet collage of the NEA’s comic heroes found on my other copy was no longer seen on the cover, but it was replaced by a KEVIN THE BOLD episode (promoted from the inside front cover). Who could complain? Not me, anyway.

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Six-plus years ago, I posted the above copy of “NEA Sunday and Daily Comics.” I’m pretty sure it’ ha’s been my most-viewed post. Therefore, it seems appropriate to post this newly-acquired one in commemoration of this blog’s ninth (!) anniversary. 

But first, I have a question. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m very intrigued by foreign language versions of my grandfather’s comics. Since I had a near-immediate answer the last time I asked this sort of thing, I’ll try again—is anyone aware of a German version of KEVIN THE BOLD? If so, please comment below or send me an email (brianedwardcollins1[at]gmail.com). Thank you!

Although the supplement was dated July 18, the Sunday episode of KEVIN it featured ran on July 24, 1960. (The supplement contains NEA’s daily comics from July 18–23 plus their July 24 Sunday-only features). This episode came from the middle of the Dover Pirates chapter.

Kevin is followed on page 2 by a Sunday tabloid episode of Vic Flint (Dean Miller/Jay Heavilin). Page 3 includes half-tabloid versions of Boots and Her Buddies and Babe ‘n’ Horace/Boots Cutouts, with Boots and Her Buddies dailes the next page (all by Edgar Martin).

Pages 5 and 6 feature V.T. Hamlin’s Alley Oop Sunday and dailies, followed by Merrill Blosser’s Freckles and His Friends Sunday and dailies on pages 7 and 8.

Pages 9 and 10 feature Captain Easy, by Lesley Turner (Sunday and dailies), followed by two pages of Sundays and dailies for J.R. Williams’s Out Our Way with “The Willets”.

Next up is Al Vermeer’s Pricilla’s Pop (Sunday and dailies), followed by a new NEA title on pages 15–16, Dick Cavalli’s Morty Meekle. Outside of Kreigh Collins’ work, I’m not much of an authority on comics, but Morty’s cap looks mighty familiar. Sure enough, this title later evolved into a strip I remember as a kid—Winthrop. (I wasn’t much of a fan).

The second half of the publication brings us seven days of Bugs Bunny, Russ Winterbotham and Art Sansom’s Sunday-only Chris Welkin Planeteer, and a “fun page” with several small strips including Tom Trick Fun Detective (credited simply to Dale).

On page 21 are six days of single-panel Our Boarding House with Major Hoople dailies, and on page 22, the Sunday tabloid, which includes Bill Freyes’ topper strip The Nut Brothers. Pages 23 and 24 include the single-panel comics Side Glances (by Galbraith), Carnival (by Dick Turner), and Short Ribs (by Frank O’Neal).

Pages 25 and 26 feature more single-panels: Carnival (Dick Turner), Short Ribs, plus Turner’s Sunday topper strip Mr. Merryweather. These are followed by Rolfe’s Brenda Breeze Sunday (with Otis as a topper) and several panels of Kate Osann’s Tizzie and Little Liz.

Pages 29 and 30 continue with more of Tizzie and Little Liz plus some Nadine Seltzer Sweetie Pie dailies and a couple left-ver Short Ribs. Bringing up the rear is seven days of Wilson Scruggs’s The Story of Martha Wayne.

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The Perfect Ninth Anniversary Gift!

“The Lost Art of Kreigh Collins, the Complete Mitzi McCoy” features the entire run of Kreigh Collins’ first NEA feature.

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MITZI McCOY ran from 1948 to 1950 and showcased Kreigh Collins’ skill as an illustrator and storyteller. His picturesque landscapes, lovely character designs, and thrilling action sequences brimmed with detail and charm, and the strip’s ensemble cast rotated in and out of the spotlight taking turns as protagonists in the dozen story arcs collected in this volume. The last story collected in “The Complete Mitzi McCoy” is the narrative bridge that set Collins and his characters off on a new journey, beautifully told for the next couple of decades in the much-lauded adventure strip Kevin the Bold.

The collection includes an introduction by Eisner Award-winning author Frank M. Young, an Afterward by Ithaca College’s Ed Catto, and previously unpublished artwork and photos. Longtime comics artist Butch Guice also provides a new pin-up of the character Mitzi McCoy.

The book is available for $30. For domestic shipping, add $4; for international orders, please add $25 to cover first class shipping. To place an order, leave a comment below or email me at BrianEdwardCollins1[at]gmail.com, and I will give you PayPal or Venmo information. Thank you!

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For more information on the career of Kreigh Collins, visit his page on Facebook.

Mas El Diario

To commemorate today’s National Puerto Rican Day Parade in Manhattan, here are some more examples from El DIario. I don’t have much information about the newspaper (originally published in San Juan, Puerto Rico), but I learned its NYC edition originated in the late 1940s.

June 15, 1952

Based on the logo at the top of the page, this must be issue No. 126. I assume that El Diario was a daily, but if so, the “126” is confusing—June 15 is not the 126th day of the year, but the 152nd. “126” also doesn’t make sense if the paper was published six times a week—then it would be issue No. 141. in KEVIN EL AUDAZ, “–126–” is inscribed in the final panel, to the right of the usual NEA date identifier “6-15”. I don’t recall where I got this image, but I do have a hard copy of the 8-page comic section from El Diario No. 127, which follows. It is comprised of three NEA strips and five from United Features.

June 22, 1952

The action in KEVIN EL AUDAZ continues from the previous episode, and El Diario’s identification number is again inscribed in the final panel along with NEA’s “6-22”.

The second page has the United Features Syndicate’s title FERD’NAND (by Mik, AKA Henning Dahl Mikkelsen).

I don’t see a “–127–” label, but the final panel does have “7–13,” which seems to indicate a date (July 13, 1952 was a Sunday). Being unfamiliar with FERD’NAND, I wonder if this episode ran early?

Page 3 featured another United Features Syndicate title, DORITA, originally Ernie Bushmiller’s FRITZI RITZ.

DORITA is labelled with both a “127” and “July 13.” Next up, page 4 has NEA’s Spanish version of CHRIS WELKIN, PLANETEER (written by Russ Winterbotham and drawn by Art Sansom). CRISTOBAL TROTAMUNDOS DEL ESPACIO is labelled “6-22” and “–127–”.

VIC FLINT (Michal O’Malley and Dean Miller), on the fifth page, has the labels “6-29” (?) and “–127–”.

This is followed by the Spanish version of Raeburn Van Buren’s ABBIE AN’ SLATS (“7-13” and “–127–”).

That’s an interesting episode—I wish I could read Spanish! It is followed by EL CHIQUITO ABNER (Al Capp), also labelled “7-13” and “–127–”.

Running on the back page of the section was Warren Tufts’ CASEY RUGGLES, another United Features Syndicate title, also labelled “7-13” and “–127–”.

With all the 7-13 labels, I wonder if the section was actually from July, since only the NEA strips had June dates either 6-22 or 6-29). If any readers have better information on El DIario, please leave a comment. As I like to mention, I am no comics expert, and please accept my apologies for any mistakes I make.

While the publication dates are confusing, I think the publisher of El DIario clearly made the right call on which comic strip to feature on the front page of its comic section.

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For more information on the career of Kreigh Collins, visit his page on Facebook.

El Diario

May 11, 1952

Over the summer, I came across a new outlet for KEVIN THE BOLD—El DIario, a newspaper that featured a Spanish translation called KEVIN EL AUDAZ. I wasn’t immediately able to find any publishing information for El DIario, and I wondered if it could be from Mexico City.

I’ve been collecting my grandfather’s comics for quite some time, and the related digital files on my computer are fairly organized, yet with all their different sources, sometimes things get… well not quite lost, but it’s a great feeling when they’re rediscovered (“so that’s where I saved it!”). That was how I felt when I came across a couple images from El Mundo (Havana, Cuba), also featuring KEVIN EL AUDAZ. OK, so these newspapers both ran the Spanish version of KEVIN.

Episode 2 — October 8, 1950

While doing further research on El Diario, I learned it was originally published in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and a New York City edition appeared sometime after the end of World War II. A tip from a colleague led to my acquisition of a couple El Diario comic sections.

June 8, 1952

Because of the Spanish, It brought to mind KEVIN EL DENODADO (from Argentina’s Tit-Bits magazine), but I soon noticed differences between the two. For one thing, Tit-Bits ran KEVIN episodes about 15 months after their original publication date, whereas El Diario’s episodes appeared in a newspaper and were current. Not only that, but the translations differed, as the corresponding Tit-Bits version (below) shows.

A spread from Tit-Bits issue No. 2311, published on October 6, 1953
The original version of the June 8, 1952 episode.

The rest of the June 8, 1952 comic section follows. While I don’t have the entire section from Havana’s El Mundo, it also features the United Features Syndicate’s title FERD’NAND on the second page, behind KEVIN. Silent comics such as this were an obvious choice for markets with different languages, and it’s interesting to note that the window advertisement in the first panel wasn’t translated (especially since the strip originated in Denmark, and was created by Mik, AKA Henning Dahl Mikkelsen).

Page 3 featured another United Features Syndicate title, DORITA, originally Ernie Bushmiller’s FRITZI RITZ.

On Page 4 was NEA’s Spanish version of CHRIS WELKIN, PLANETEER (written by Russ Winterbotham and drawn by Art Sansom), and more NEA material followed, with Vic Flint on page 5.

Two more features from Unite Features were up next, the Spanish version of ABBIE AN’ SLATS (Raeburn Van Buren) and Al Capp’s EL CHIQUITO ABNER.

Running on the back page of the section was Warren Tufts’ CASEY RUGGLES, another United Features Syndicate title.

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For more information on the career of Kreigh Collins, visit his page on Facebook.

January 17, 1960

This 60-year-old comic section was a souvenir from my grandparents’ southern journey aboard their schooner, Heather. In late 1959, they left their west Michigan home port on Lake Macatawa and set sail for Chicago. The Illinois River led to the Mississippi, and eventually to Florida’s west coast—a favorite wintertime destination (In the ’40s, the Collins clan often rented on Anna Maria Island). Besides his wife, Teddy, Kreigh’s only crew was his eight-year old twins, Kevin and Glen. Heather and her crew wouldn’t return to Michigan until August, 1960.

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The Fort Meyers News-Press‘ Sunday edition included an eight-page comic section, led off by Milt Caniff’s popular strip Terry and the Pirates, handled since 1946 by George Wunder. Joining Terry on page one was Mary Worth, written by Allen Saunders and illustrated by Ken Ernst.

Scanning the outside pages of an old comic section is relatively easy with a tabloid scanner, but getting the inside pages presents more of a challenge. Despite having already shrunk from their enormous dimensions from earlier in the 20th century, these pages still measure 29″ x 21.5″ when unfolded. Pages 2-3 feature largely feature run-of-the-mill NEA titles: Boots, by Edgar Martin; Dick Turner’s Carnival; Roy Crane’s Captain Easy (handled on Sundays by Leslie Turner); Vic Flint (written by Jay Heavilin and drawn by Dean Miller); and Our Boarding House, likely illustrated by Bill Freyse. The only non-NEA comic on this first inside spread was Warner Bros.’ Bugs Bunny.

From my perspective, things improve on page 4. There are two contrasting half-page features, Chris Welkin, Planeteer, by Art Sansom and Russ Winterbotham, and Kreigh Collins’ Kevin the Bold. (This episode is one midway through a tale of buried treasure and tyranny, with the villain being Count Stabb). Page 5 has two King Features Syndicate titles (Chic Young’s Blondie and Mort Walker’s Beetle Bailey) and another by McNaught (Joe Palooka, likely handled at this point by Tony DiPreta and Morris Weiss). 

The final inside spread has a raft of third-page NEA comics, (Pricilla’s Pop by Al Vermeer, Tom Trick by Dale, Out Our Way by J.R. Williams, Rolfe’s Brenda Breeze, Merrill Blossar’s Freckles and His Friends and Walt Scott’s The Little People.

The back page of the comic section had two more McNaught titles (Lank Leonard’s Mickey Finn and McEvoy and Stribel’s Dixie Dugan), as well as the the NEA’s popular feature Alley Oop, by V.T. Hamlin.

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By far, most of my comics are single sheets cut from sections, but I’m glad that my grandparents kept this section intact. (Maybe they forgot to bring scissors when they went south).

Happy New Year! (January 1 was Kreigh Collins’ 112th birthday).

KTC New Year 200

For more information on the career of Kreigh Collins, visit his page on Facebook.

NEA Daily and Sunday Comics

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Among my collection of Kreigh Collins’s comics is a sampler of NEA comics from mid-1955. It looks likel the entire NEA comic package for the week of May 23–29, 1955 — but I’m not sure because it’s the only one of its kind I’ve ever seen.

It’s a 32-page, self cover, black and white tabloid, printed on a coated stock. Curiously, it isn’t bound in any way, so the eight individual sheets that it consists of can be pulled apart and put back together with ease. Because of its lack of staples, nice reproduction quality, and decent paper stock, I wonder if it wasn’t intended for newspapers to use for printing their comic sections.

If not, it apparently made for a nice keepsake for the NEA artists whose work was contained inside. As a young boy, I remember stacks of these things piled in Grandpa Collins’ studio. And of course I noticed the comic that appeared inside the front cover!

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Beyond that, I’m not sure how far I read. I might’ve skipped the Sunday and daily Boots and Her Buddies comics (by Edgar Martin), but who could resist V.T. Hamlin’s Alley Oop?

It’s interesting to see which strips had daily versions, and which were Sunday-only. Although the topic of Kevin the Bold becoming a daily came up between Collins and his NEA boss, Ernest Lynn, it never happened.

I’m not too well-acquainted with many of the other comics that follow, but I am familiar with others (mostly due to seeing them on the backs of my Kevins). I recognize the name Walt Scott, since he drew the charming illustration that the NEA staff gave my grandfather on the occasion of his twin sons’ birth (in February, 1951).

Besides Walt Scott (whose The Little People, below, ran on page 7), I’m familiar with Red Braucher (quite a character himself), Herbert W. Walker (Newspaper Enterprise Association president), Dean Miller (he illustrated the Vic Flint Sunday on page 15), and… that’s about it.

from NEA

Here’s Walt Scott’s take on Kreigh Collins serenading his newborn baby sons Kevin and Glen (while older sons David and Eric crack wise).

Next up in the NEA tabloid are a Sunday and dailies for Freckles and His Friends (Merrill Blosser), Walt Scott’s The Little People (accompanied by its topper strip, Huckleberry Hollow), and seven days of Captain Easy, by Lesley Turner.

Then, Sundays and dailies for Out Our Way with “The Willets” (J.R. Williams) and Pricilla’s Pop (Al Vermeer).

Continuing to show the variety the NEA package offered, Sundays and dailies for Vic Flint (Dean Miller/Jay Heavilin) and Bugs Bunny (uncredited) follow.

Next up: Chris Welkin Planeteer (Russ Winterbotham), a “fun page” with several small strips including Tom Trick Fun Detective (credited simply to Dale), and seven days of Our Boarding House with Major Hoople (six daily one-panels and a Sunday tabloid).

The single-panel comics Side Glances (by Galbraith), and Carnival (by Dick Turner) follow.

Bringing up the rear are several comics featuring women (Brenda Breeze by Rolfe) or drawn by them (Sweetie Pie by Nadine Seltzer). Continuing in a domestic vein, there is Hershberger’s Funny Business, and apparently to fill extremely tiny spaces, Little Liz, a tiny daily single-panel, that is essentially an illustrated fortune cookie message.

Finally, it’s The Story of Martha Wayne by Wilson Scruggs.

If anyone has further information about any of these comics or the NEA, I’d love to hear from you in the comments section, below.

For more information on the career of Kreigh Collins, visit his page on Facebook.