Due to their short supply of water and food, Kevin Marlin sets off, without even a fully-formed plan.
The pirates trust Kevin—some more than others!
Those filthy hippies probably needed a bath, anyway!
The story arc ends, but unfortunately, Kevin Marlin and his family haven’t seen the last of the pirate trio.
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For more information on the career of Kreigh Collins, visit his page on Facebook.
While Kreigh Collins never managed to sail Heather to the Bahamas, his Sunday comics counterpart Kevin Marlin did. While heading back to Florida, an unusual boat was spotted.
Many pieces of original artwork for UP ANCHOR! are found in a collection at the Grand Rapids Public Library, including those for two of the episodes in this installment.
In a case of “no good deed goes unpunished,” the Marlin family are ambushed.
The ersatz Manson Family members decide to maroon Heather‘s crew on a desert island, but not before the Marlins lay eyes on the hippies’ prisoner, Pedro.
While the reunion is nice, a plan to save themselves would be nicer!
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For more information on the career of Kreigh Collins, visit his page on Facebook.
Among some recently-acquired UP ANCHOR! half pages were most of the episodes of a story arc with an unusual plot element—murder. The choice of portraying hippies as villains was likely inspired by the tragic and ugly Manson family murders, which had occurred in the summer of 1969. In fact, the Tate-LaBIanca trial was under way when these episodes were published in late 1970.
The Marlin family, whose journey aboard Heather had led to a temporarily relocation in Florida, had just returned from Maine. Kevin Marlin had been hired to sail a cutter from Connecticut Down East. To return “home” and hear such terrible news would be very unsettling.
A couple things from the October 11, 1970 episode that caught me eye were the Manson Family lookalikes in the center panel and the second panel of WATER LORE. Occasionally, Kreigh Collins would directly reference his personal life, but I had never seen him mention his father. He was much closer to his mother.
As Heather is being provisioned, some Easter Eggs are revealed on the labels of the packages being brought aboard. In the first panel, Kevin caries a case of “Jesiek’s Oil.” Back home in Michigan on Lake Macatawa, Heather spent her winters “on the hard” at Jesiek Brothers Shipyard. Based on the box carried by his friend, I’d wager that “Schottenburg’s” was a nearby grocer the Collins family patronized. The second tier’s second panel shows Dave and Erik pestering their mother about dinner—here a box is simply labelled “Boy Food.”
The provisions were needed for an upcoming trip to the Bahamas. While many of the adventured that take place in UP ANCHOR! were based on real events, alas, a trip to the Bahamas was a dream that was never realized for Kreigh’s family. The Marlin family’s adventures in Florida were inspired by the journey the Collinses took in 1959–1960, but the Chicago Tribune’s sudden cancellation of KEVIN THE BOLD in December, 1959 necessitated a reappraisal of the family’s financial situation and resulted in the cancellation of the Bahamas leg of the trip.
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For more information on the career of Kreigh Collins, visit his page on Facebook.
Since rescuing two kids and their monkey from a drifting rubber raft, everything that could go wrong did go wrong. However, Heather’s crew is pretty good at problem solving.
A leeboard was improvised, and worked pretty well until the monkey dropped anchor.
Luckily, tying up the loose ends wasn’t too challenging.
Unfortunately, the chapter concludes with an episode I don’t have. And Murphy’s Law dictates that the original artwork isn’t among the 75 examples found in Collection 56 at the Grand Rapids Public Library, either. (All told, there are 174 episodes of UP ANCHOR!).
Nonetheless, it shows the family sailing into Boothbay Harbor, Maine, aboard the cutter they were delivering.
This ending was inspired by Collins and his family reaching Boothbay Harbor, Maine, aboard their schooner Heather in the summer of 1965. After a year of sailing, Boothbay Harbor was the furthest point east that they reached—over 1,000 miles from Lake Macatawa.
After wintering in Maine, Heather would start her return trip to west Michigan in the spring. By August she would be home.
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For more information on the career of Kreigh Collins, visit his page on Facebook.
Heather and her crew spend a short time in Mystic, then continue their journey eastward. An interesting parallel is found to a three-week sailing trip I took with my Brother aboard his Gulfstar 43.
In the spring of 1989, we sailed from South Amboy, New Jersey and made some of the same stops as UP ANCHOR’s Marlin family. After sailing through Long Island Sound, we visited Block Island (and hit Mystic on the return trip). We also spent a night at Cuttyhunk Island, but from there our courses diverged. Where Heather headed northeast toward the Cape Cod Canal (and Down East), Brett and I sailed east to Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. Also, we didn’t hit any whales. The only bit of trouble we ran into was getting pulled over by a Coat Guard Cutter in Buzzard’s Bay… but that’s another story.
The damage is assessed and while it could have been worse—losing the engine and centerboard is not good!
Introducing a monkey might seem like a bit of a stretch, but it is a nice call back to a KEVIN THE BOLD episode from a couple decades back.
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For more information on the career of Kreigh Collins, visit his page on Facebook.
A recently-acquired batch of UP ANCHOR! half pages included most of the episodes of a story arc which ran 53 years ago, in the summer of 1970. The action begins in Florida, but the Marlin family soon land in New England, in order to handle the delivery of a sailboat.
UP ANCHOR! was based on the Collins’s experiences cruising and living aboard their boat. In May, 1964, Kreigh, Theresa, and 13-year-old twins Kevin and Glen left West Michigan and journeyed to New York City to take part in the first Operation Sail, which was a tie-in to the 1964 New York World’s Fair.
Coinciding with this trip was the imminent birth Of Kreigh and Teddy’s second grandchild (Ahoy! That’s me!). In order to simplify things for my parents (Judy and Erik), the decision was made for my older brother Brett (not quite three years old), to accompany his grandparents and the “Uncle Boys” on the first leg of Heather’s trip. My family was living in Ann Arbor, Michigan at the time, so my dad drove Brett to Ada, dropped him off, with plans to pick him up in the Detroit area, after Heather had made the trip up and around Michigan’s “mitten.” (It must have made an impression on Brett, who has owned numerous sailboats during his adult life). In a letter, Kreigh described his youngest crew member as “not too much trouble,” which I always thought was pretty funny.
After dropping Brett off, the journey continued down the Detroit River, through Lake Erie and the Erie Barge Canal, and down the Hudson River. From there they sailed through Long Island Sound and made port at Mystic, Connecticut.
Theresa kept as diary during the voyage, and much of the material was eventually used as raw material for UP ANCHOR! Before turning into the comic strip’s storylines, it was edited, illustrated by Kreigh, and published as “In the Wake of the Heather.”
To be continued…
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For more information on the career of Kreigh Collins, visit his page on Facebook.
With summer here, it seems appropriate to feature a sequence from Kreigh Collins’ sailing-themed comic strip UP ANCHOR!. In this chapter, Kevin Marlin and his family are making plans for an extended journey south aboard Heather. Of the 19 episodes, only half are in color, but they will be supplemented in the coming weeks with some interesting articles on the real-life events that inspired the action in UP ANCHOR!.
The voyage was begin in the fall, and the story picks up on a late summer shakedown cruise.
As Jane learned to sail, so did the readers, with help from the topper strip WATER LORE.
Written with help from his wife, Theresa, no doubt some license was taken, but I’d be inclined to believe that this incident actually happened.
A point of pride for me are the capable actions of Erik. My father, eldest of my grandparents four sons, was actually the only one who was not aboard Heather during this period. Ironically, relations between him and my grandfather were somewhat strained, so this is something of an idealized version of events.
To be continued…
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For more information on the career of Kreigh Collins, visit his page on Facebook.
After too many black and white episodes—eleven out of twelve, in case you lost count—the sequence wraps up with a couple of splashes of color.
Ponce and Snake, weakened by seasickness, can only watch as their nefarious plan unravels.
The story comes to a happy ending, with the messier details of the bad guys’ detainment left to the reader’s imagination. As the sequence transitions to a new chapter, my eye is caught by the action in the background of the second panel.
Young Dave is playing leapfrog (jumping over Heather’s boom?). The pose—used by Collins numerous times over the years—always makes me wonder of the whereabouts of the original illustration used as its source.
It first appeared in an episode of BIBLE STORIES COMICS (far right, c. 1944) and then twice in KEVIN THE BOLD (October 30, 1955 and December 15 1963). Collins used it another time in UP ANCHOR!’s seventh episode (December 15, 1968), when it popped up in the topper strip, “Water Lore.”
It’s a shame Dick Dixon never busted the move in MITZI McCOY!
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For more information on the career of Kreigh Collins, visit his page on Facebook.
Six episodes in, and so far two of Heather‘s crew have fallen into the drink. I wonder who’s next?
Somewhere in Kreigh Collins’ morgue file, he had an image of a boy playing leapfrog. It was never referenced in “Mitzi McCoy,” but it appeared in Collins’ pre-NEA “Bible Picture Story Comics,” twice in “Kevin the Bold.” and at least once in “Water Lore,” above. Now that’s thrifty!
From left: December 15, 1963; October 30, 1955; and c. 1946.
With the eighth episode of “Up Anchor!”, another recurring character was introduced—Kevin’s friend, Pedro. Pedro had been a mainstay in “Kevin the Bold,” he first appeared in 1958 and continued on and off until the very last episode, a decade later. While Kevin definitely changed when he transitioned between the two strips, Pedro remained essentially the same.
Oho! It was Erik that somehow fell in—luckily Pedro was there to lend a hand. He also lets loose with what will become the big fella’s catchphrase.
Waiting until late December to button up a boat for the winter would be ill-advised in Michigan, but if you factor in the three-month lead time that the production process of these episodes required, doing it in late September (when the artwork was inked) seems appropriate.
Collins also had the advantage of being able to photograph his sailboat in order to create reference images for use in his strip, and it looks like the photo below could have been used for the episode above. I’d guess the younger guy is my uncle Kevin.
For more information on the career of Kreigh Collins, visit his page on Facebook.
Kreigh’s Comics 
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