original comic art

Field of the Cloth of Gold

Last week I asked readers if their collections included any “Kevin the Bold” episodes that were missing in mine. This week a sequence starts using comic scans sent to me by my man in Rotterdam, Arnaud, with whom I traded a bunch of other “Kevin” scans (Nogmaals bedankt!). These tabloid comics were originally published starting in June, 1962, and were based on a historical event from 442 years earlier—the June, 1520 summit between England’s King Henry VIII and France’s King Francis I. 

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These first few episodes serve as a preamble to the main event, but the June 17 comic shown above is a favorite of mine because I have the original artwork in my collection. 

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In 2010, when I first found an image of the artwork online, it appeared as shown above. Sadly, by the time I saw it listed for sale four years later, the illustration had been cropped so it would fit in an 18″ x 24″ picture frame (below). It might have been damaged goods, but I bought it anyway (frame not included). One interesting detail is found in the panel in the lower left-hand corner, where Brett is holding Kevin’s sword. The sword is a photostat, pasted onto the original art—apparently as a time saver for the artist. 

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Another shameless plug!

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Featuring the complete run of Kreigh Collins’ first NEA comic, “Mitzi McCoy,” The Lost Art of Kreigh Collins, Vol. 1: The Complete Mitzi McCoy is still available! It can be ordered directly from me for $24.95 plus postage (contact me for shipping details at brianedwardcollins1[at]gmail.com).  

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

Baghdad on the Subway

The tale continues…

The action is very reminiscent of mid-period KEVIN THE BOLD, and is a welcome sight among comparatively more tepid UP ANCHOR! episodes.

The tale ends abruptly and the focus shifts back to “present-day” family life aboard a schooner.

The episode ends and would be a fitting finale for UP ANCHOR! But there were two more chapters to follow, told over the course of 22 weeks, before the strip ended, and Collins retired.

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

Flashing Back Further

In this 1971 episode, part of an UP ANCHOR! flashback to KEVIN THE BOLD, Kevin, Pedro, and Carmelita become trapped in a cave. To remedy the situation, Kreigh Collins flashes back even further, to the August 7, 1949 episode of MITZI McCOY.

It features an underwater cave in a very similar scene. The original took place in Lake Michigan, where sharks and barracuda weren’t a concern.

What results is a case of out of the frying pan and into the (line of) fire!

Kevin’s solution, muffling the oars, sounds fanciful but is a real thing. But will it be effective?

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

Some Days You Just Can’t Get Rid of a Bomb

The pirates’ mortar ball hits its target… but its fuse hasn’t yet detonated the bomb.

This episode has always reminded me of the Batman meme.

(Not the first time Collins’ artwork has reminded me of Batman).

Quick thinking by Balador, and the fortuitous location of a low stone wall, allow him to survive the explosion—and he takes several prisoners.

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

Carmelita

A tense moment is quickly diffused, and pretty Carmelita introduces herself. Her appearance is familiar, which seems appropriate for a story arc so close to UP ANCHOR!’s swan song. Carmelita has the svelte build of many of Collins’ female characters—characters whose poses were originally modeled by Kreigh’s wife, Theresa. At this point in his career, however, it’s doubtful the artist employed his 65-year-old wife as a model.

As this chapter set sail, there might have been some confusion as to what the sequence was called. The first two episodes carried the line “The Adventures of Pedro and Kevin” but the third one, from August 15, 1971, reversed the characters’ order—”The Adventures of Kevin and Pedro”. Most likely it was a mistake made by the NEA artist that handled the lettering.

Kevin’s resourcefulness with the old culverin goes to no avail, and the pirates return fire.

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

The Adventures of Pedro and Kevin

During his 25-year career as a cartoonist for NEA, Kreigh Collins was known to recycle certain ideas and elements of his work. As his early-1972 retirement approached, Collins went back to his most successful device, the flashback. 

Most notably, a 1949 flashback in a MITZI McCOY episode led to the creation of KEVIN THE BOLD. Here, a 1971 UP ANCHOR! episode flashes back to KEVIN THE BOLD. It seems Collins wasn’t quite ready to say goodbye to his most famous character.

For this, Collins’ 103th story arc (of 105 total), I only have one color original of its ten episodes. Eight others are represented by photographs of the original artwork, which is held in one of the Grand Rapids Public Library’s Special Collections. The sequence’s first episode comes is a BW image from Newspspers.com, and unfortunately, it is not accompanied by UP ANCHOR!’s topper strip, WATER LORE.

In UP ANCHOR, the protagonist is Kevin Marlin, and Marlin’s buddy is named Pedro. The action flashes back via a book compiled by Pedro’s ancestor (also named Pedro). OG Pedro was best friends with another (bolder) Kevin. (That’s the conceit of the flashback, anyway).

The second panel of the opening episode shows Pedro at a Parisian book stall, with the Cathedral of Notre Dame looming in the background. As a 21-year-old, Kreigh Collins first visited Paris, and among other subjects, he sketched book stalls, and has used these elements in other instances of his career.

To be continued…

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

The Original

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Original pieces of Kreigh Collins’s comic strip illustrations are quite amazing. They are large (drawn on 20 x 30″  illustration board), rich in detail, and interesting in other ways — corrected areas are readily apparent, stock elements are revealed to be pasted in, and instructions or notes are sometimes written in the margins. In the example shown above, Kreigh (my grandfather) personalized the illustration and gifted it to my other grandpa (“For Walt Palmer, May his trials be less than Kevin’s!”). Unfortunately, the art has a bit of wear and tear due to hanging on my brother’s bedroom wall through high school and college. He gets a pass as he shared a name with Kevin’s young ward — Brett accompanied Kevin on many of his adventures.

Another feather in Brett’s cap is being Kreigh Collins’ first grandchild. I was his second—barely—having been born three days before my cousin Josh. I don’t recall any characters named Joshua, and there was only one minor character named Brian that I’m aware of.

Originals can occasionally be found at auctions for a couple hundred dollars or so, depending on their condition. Another original I own was in quite nice shape when it was offered for sale about ten years ago. But by the time I won it on ebay in a later sale, its edges had been hacked down to fit into a cheap 18 x 24″ picture frame. I suppose its value has taken a hit, but I didn’t buy it as an investment. For me, it’s all about the family connection.

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

The Field of the Cloth of Gold

Last week I asked readers if their collections included any “Kevin the Bold” episodes that were missing in mine. This week a sequence starts using comic scans sent to me by my man in Rotterdam, Arnaud, with whom I traded a bunch of other “Kevin” scans (Nogmaals bedankt!). These tabloid comics were originally published starting in June, 1962, and were based on a historical event from 442 years earlier—the June, 1520 summit between England’s King Henry VIII and France’s King Francis I. 

KTB 061062 TA 150 qcc.jpg
KTB 061762 TA 150 qcc.jpg

These first few episodes serve as a preamble to the main event, but the June 17 comic shown above is a favorite of mine because I have the original artwork in my collection. 

KTB 061762

In 2010, when I first found an image of the artwork online, it appeared as shown above. Sadly, by the time I saw it listed for sale four years later, the illustration had been cropped so it would fit in an 18″ x 24″ picture frame (below). It might have been damaged goods, but I bought it anyway (frame not included). One interesting detail is found in the panel in the lower left-hand corner, where Brett is holding Kevin’s sword. The sword is a photostat, pasted onto the original art—apparently as a time saver for the artist. 

IMG_1598.JPG

Another shameless plug!

Mitzi cover final

Featuring the complete run of Kreigh Collins’ first NEA comic, “Mitzi McCoy,” The Lost Art of Kreigh Collins, Vol. 1: The Complete Mitzi McCoy can be found here; it’s still available at its pre-order price of $24.95.  

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

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

Surviving the Squall

Heather and crew managed to survive “a notorious Lake Erie black squall,” and despite the trauma, Jane Marlin has an idea for Heather’s next journey, which comes as quite a surprise. It seems her trip to the beauty parlor was quite rejuvenating.

Below are the comics that ran from October 24 until November 7, 1971. They are all silver prints, which Kreigh would receive from the NEA as a last chance for proofing before the comics were published. Some of the proofs he received were of better quality than others, but the nicer ones are almost as crisp as images of the original artwork. When “Up Anchor” appeared in print, it was almost always as a one-third page; the proofs have the bonus of including the topper strip “Water Lore.”

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With the storm behind them, skipper Kevin Marlin remembers an incident when a “lunatic gunman” tried to hijack Heather the last time they plied Lake Huron’s waters. That sequence is unfamiliar to me, but while surfing online I did come across the episode (August 10, 1969) from that chapter of “Up Anchor.”

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Metamorphosis 1 — By Popular Demand

Editor & Publisher, a newspaper industry trade magazine, announced in its August 26, 1950 issue that “Mitzi McCoy” was about to be taken over by a new character. According to NEA feature director Ernest “East” Lynn, jumping back nearly five centuries to this new lead character was without precedent in the comic business. With the comic strip’s new setting, Collins returned to the field in which he made an international reputation — the field of costume illustration.

E&P quoted Lynn, “It was the outgrowth of popular approval of two episodes in Mitzi McCoy, each of which gave the artist an opportunity to display his great flair for period art. The first was a story dealing with the history of the Irish wolfhound. The second, ‘The Christmas Story,’ told the story of the birth of Christ. In each instance Mr. Collins used the device of having Stub Goodman, one of the leading characters of Mitzi McCoy, narrate the story to a young boy, Dick Dixon. And in each instance fan mail greatly increased. Several editors urged period illustration on a regular basis.”

A month after the announcement, the final episode of “Mitzi” ran, the tale of the McCoy family legend.

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The following Sunday (October 1, 1950), the action continued, but under a new shingle. It began with Kevin saving Mitzi’s ancestress, Moya McCoy. However, the focus soon shifted as Kevin left Moya (and Mitzi) behind. As penance for a wild youth, Kevin had pledged a fight against oppression wherever he found it. He waged his battle for the next eighteen years in the funny papers, until another major plot change occurred.

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