The timing of this current chapter of KEVIN THE BOLD is a bit awkward, with Indigenous Peoples’ Day being celebrated tomorrow (October 14). Some of the dialog is rather offensive, and while Kreigh Collins didn’t write too many episodes during this late period of his comic strip, going along with it made him complicit. When these episodes ran in 1966, the discovery of ancient Norse sites in Canada’s Maritme provinces was a recent development, and inclusion of this plot point was likely a suggestion of my grandfather. So despite being a product of a more insensitive time, I give him points for sharing this progressive idea.
The ancient Norse had a put down for the indigenous people they met, calling them Skraelings, and it’s notable that here, even the friendly “Viking-like Indians” use the condescending term against their enemy, the Potawatas.
Looking beyond any awkwardness, let’s try to enjoy a rather unique chase scene.
Given the givens, of course Chief Swen took Kevin’s advice and circled around the island. And let’s just try to ignore the ridiculous red skin tones given to the warring tribes’ members.
From their hiding place, Kevin and Erik keep a close eye on Captain Spur and his men.
Erik recognizes the language used by the “Indians”.
As Erik and Chief Swen bond over the possibility of their shared ancestry, Captain Spur quickly cozies up to the Potawata. The third tier of panels gives readers of the half-page episode a clearer idea of what’s to come…
They have seen a lot. After canoeing the length of Lake Ontario and witnessing the majesty of Niagara Falls, they continue on, through Lakes Erie, St. Clair, Huron, and Superior, finally reaching what would become Duluth, Minnesota. But not only are they seeing wondrous new things, so is the young lady who spies upon them.
Even more surprising, Captain Spur and his men have kept pace on the 1,500-mile cross-continental trek!
This next chapter of Kreigh Collins’ comics comes from the mid-1966 run of KEVIN THE BOLD. Kevin is aboard a ship making a voyage to the New World. These early crossings were extremely challenging.
A detail that piques my personal interest is the name of Kevin’s companion, Erik. My father’s name was Erik, and while he and my grandfather didn’t always get along so well, it’s wonderful to see a virtuous character named for him.
From the Maritime Provences all the way to Montreal, Kevin and Erik have really covered some ground.
“Throwaway Panels” — such an unfortunate term for these wonderful little illustrations. Deleted in order to squeeze and rearrange a half-page comic into a tabloid format, they were usually incidental to the action. In “Kevin,” they often showed damsels — in distress, or otherwise.
Other options included villains, exclamations, or random bits of scenery. Kevin himself also made frequent appearances in this panel.
After seeing enough of these, I couldn’t help but be reminded of Lotería, a Mexican game of chance similar to Bingo. With the strip having a presence in Mexico (“Kevin el Denodado”), I think the NEA missed a marketing opportunity!
(From the Mexican monthly magazine “Revista Ferronales” magazine)
With a sudden storm having wrecked their sailboat, Kevin and Bunny desperately cling to its swamped hull.
With word of her husband’s rescue coming via radio and newspaper, Jane betrays a bit of jealousy toward her husband’s co-star. However, her fears are assauged with the arrival of a telegram, which reveals Bunny’s true colors.
On reflection, it’s interesting to note the “modern” touches of these late-period comics of Collins (e.g., the pasted up photostat of the Western Union Telegram); I guess everything is relative, even the groovy dialog.
The sequence immediately following this one ran previously, and can be viewed here.
As he’s escorted around Hollywood by his co-star and director, Kevin learns how the movie game is played. As the action in the comic intensifies, the mood of the topper strip “Water Lore” darkens.
Jane trusts her husband Kevin enough to ignore the rumors propagated by the Hollywood hype machine — or is she just putting on a brave face? Meanwhile, Kevin and Bunny are lost at sea without ship-to-shore communication. Rescue efforts get under way, and Pedro manages to press the spineless movie star Cecil Dunn into service.
Of note: movie director Rex Fox bears a certain resemblance to one of Collins’ old “Mitzi McCoy” characters, publisher Stub Goodman. Stub was based on the character Frank from the 1947 novel by Thomas W. Duncan, “Gus the Great.” Like Stub, Frank was a newspaperman, and a very richly developed character. Midway through the book, he retires to California (and to my disappointment, isn’t heard from again). It’s nice to see one possible outcome was Frank’s reinvention as a Hollywood director.
Eager to get his friend involved in the movie business, Pedro’s idea is to have Kevin’s wife Jane talk him into it. Jane is leery of the possibility of losing her man to a famous Hollywood starlet, but seems to go along with the plan — she and Kevin are eventually persuaded by the easy money.
As the sequence gets off the ground, the action is very light, but there are some interesting details to be noticed. The WATER LORE topper strips have some nice illustrations of various watercraft to accompany Collins’ observations, technical diagrams, and historical tid-bits. The March 7 topper references the artist’s home port of Holland, Michigan, which was located a short drive from the tiny village of Ada, where Kreigh lived with his family. Another notable from Ada was Amway founder Richard DeVos. DeVos went into business about the same time as Collins started cartooning, and one part of the Amway empire included an air charter service. Collins name-checked his friend in the March 14 comic.
It’s been a smooth sail through the first few episodes, but how long will it last?
Counting the pre-Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA) weekly BIBLE STORIES COMICS, Kreigh Collins’ comics career lasted three decades. UP ANCHOR! was his final comic feature, it ran for about three and a half years, until Collins retired.
As summer ended in 1959, Collins and his family packed up his sailboat and headed south. They ended up spending a year on the boat, traveling down the Mississippi, and wintering in Florida. He continued with his work while aboard Heather, producing artwork for the comic strip as the journey progressed.
With help from the NEA, Collins was happy to do promotion for his work, and given his unique situation as a sailing snowbird, this was sometimes front-page news. In an interview with the Panama City News-Herald that appeared in the daily’s November 1, 1959 edition, Collins explained how he was able to do it: “Maintaining a comic strip is a high-pressure sort of thing. You’re dealing with it every day, meeting deadlines, writing scripts, doing the artwork, and so on. To stay normal, you just about have to have your mental balance.” The article continued, Collins maintains his balance by writing children’s books, adventure stories, and travel articles. He also considers his 45-foot yacht a mental life saver.
A syndicate proof of the comic that appeared in Panama City News-Herald, above
After KEVIN THE BOLD had run its course, Collins launched his next comic strip, UP ANCHOR!, in 1968. Although he used many of his family’s experiences aboard Heather as fodder for his scripts, much of the material came from his imagination. While there was talk in 1966 of spinning off KEVIN into a television show, movies weren’t in the conversation. Nonetheless, Hollywood did come into focus in one of the final sequences of UP ANCHOR!
The original illustrations for the comics that will follow in the next several weeks are all in the collection of the Grand Rapids Public Library.
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.
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.
“The Lost Art of Kreigh Collins, the Complete Mitzi McCoy” features the entire run of Kreigh Collins’ first NEA feature.
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!
Kreigh’s Comics 