“Water Lore”

Mackinac Island

After making a couple jokes about cars and drivers in previous episodes, it should come as little surprise that Heather’s destination was Mackinac Island, noted for being completely free of automobiles. However, there are other ways to get around the island, as Erik and Dave soon discover.

Coming ashore meant becoming reacquainted with civilization—for better or worse.

In the sequence’s final episode, it accurately portrays how the artist Kreigh Collins continued working as he plied the water—his mail was forwarded to Post Offices along their route, and Collins continued to send and receive artwork along the way. The episode ends with another blow against the cliche of the pampered life of a sailor.

A nice personal touch to the March 30, 1969 is the name of the Erik’s girlfriend—Judy. Erik and Judy were the names of my parents.

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

Out of the Storm and into the Steamer Lane

Sailing on the inland seas known as the Great Lakes, weather conditions can change rapidly. I can personally attest to the situation in the February 16, 1969 episode.

It might seem that Jane and Dave have the easier station during the storm, but in rolling waves, being belowdecks is no picnic—it’s much easier to get seasick down below (to which I can also attest).

Sometimes the bathing beauties even showed up in the topper!

Sturdily built, the Marlin’s schooner survives the storm handsomely, though she was 30+ years old. In real life, Heather was a half-size model of a noted schooner designed for polar expeditions.

Bowdoin (left), shown in waters north of the Arctic Circle, and Heather (right), docked in Annapolis, Maryland.
A couple summers back, my brother Brett and I joined my Uncle Kevin on a sailing trip through much of Lake Michigan aboard Kevin’s sloop, Legacy. Though we didn’t reach Mackinac Island, we did make it to Charlevoix.

With the rough weather behind them, Heather and her crew now had to deal with other problems—iron tubs of all sizes.

Continued next week…

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

Launch Time

Apologies for this week’s meager selection of color comics—my collection is a bit spotty as far as “Up Anchor!” episodes are concerned—but going forward in this chapter, things will brighten up considerably.

As the Marlin family gets ready to launch their boat, they first have to deal with on-shore know-it-alls. Luckily, sailing is a team effort, and that includes putting obnoxious folks in their proper place, done this time by Jane Marlin. Jane was loosely based on my Gramma Teddy, and one thing the two shared was an inability to mince words.

In the “Water Lore” topper, Kevin and Jane Marlin make a rare appearance (possibly the only time this happened).

With the boat finally launched, there is rigging and provisioning to be done before setting sail.

In the fifth panel, where Kevin points to the nautical chart, it also shows where my family was going to relocate, a few months after this episode was published. We moved from Ann Arbor, Michigan (near the lower part of mitten-like Michigan’s “thumb”), to Fredonia, New York when I was just shy of five years old.

It’s a shame that I don’t have a color version of the February 9, 1969 episode—it features a couple of strategically-placed bathing beauties modeling some of the season’s finest swimsuit apparel. It also features a character who offers an explanation of why Collins and his family spent so much time on their boat during the summer.

Continued next week…

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

Leaping Lizards, er, Lads!

Six episodes in, and so far two of Heather‘s crew have fallen into the drink. I wonder who’s next?

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

Secret Weapon

Heather's Crew

Kreigh: “Teddy, let’s sail the Great Loop with the twins.” Teddy: “Wouldn’t that be grand!”

“Up Anchor!” was narrated by Jane Marlin, who was loosely based on Kreigh Collins’ wife, Theresa. “Teddy” also had a hand in writing the strip, and the the November 24, 1968 episode, she also pitched in a bit with the illustration. I clearly recognize the handwritten labels on the drawings Jane holds from her numerous cards and letters over the years (and there were plenty of years—she lived to be nearly 102!)

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Teddy definitely fit the idiom, “Behind every great man is a great woman.” After all, besides “the Skipper” and eight-year-old twins, she served as Heather‘s only crew during it’s year-long circuit of the 6,000-mile Great Loop. Made plain in the strip, traditional gender roles were largely held, so she was responsible for cooking, cleaning, and all the other typical roles of a mother. The original plan was to home-school (boat-school?) Kevin and Glen during the journey, so teacher could be added to the list, too. Of course, Teddy was used to adventuring with her husband—shortly after their 1929 wedding, they took a steamship to Europe and spent several months exploring the continent (mostly France). She chronicled the Great Loop journey in her diary, and later the material was published in an article that appeared in The World Of Comic Art. The late 1966 article was reprinted and used as part of an NEA promotional push, and some of this material was repurposed as “Up Anchor!” storylines.

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After a bit of self-deprecation, another educational tidbit was dished out regarding alcohol fires.

Generally, the content of “Water Lore” didn’t reflect the action in an episode of “Up Anchor!,” but the December 1, 1968 episode was an exception, with its focus on cooking. Personally, I don’t have a lot of memories of sailing aboard Heather, but I do recall touching her smokestack once and burning my hand.

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This wouldn’t be the last time Heather went aground.

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

I’d Rather Be Sailing

In late October of 1968, with the final episode of “Kevin the Bold,” our hero made good on something he’d been trying to do for years.

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The end of the trail found Kevin in his friend Pedro’s homeland, Spain, but if he was going to settle down, it would mean more than time travel—a change of scenery was also in the cards.

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A true measure of local renown is not needing to list a street address on one’s stationery.

Set on Lake Macatawa, in western Michigan (the same place Collins docked his boat, Heather), “Up Anchor!” was Kreigh Collins’ final NEA comic feature. It launched on November 3, 1968 and was an attempt to adapt to changing times—adventure strips like “Kevin the Bold” had fallen out of favor. His new strip was largely based on his family’s real-life experiences aboard their schooner, Heather—but plenty of license was taken with the plot.

The tone of the strip changed too, as it was narrated by Jane Marlin. Jane was loosely based on Kreigh’s wife, Theresa; “Teddy” helped develop the strip’s continuity, too. With “Up Anchor!,” Collins had finally figured out how to best deal with dreaded third-page reproductions of his artwork—he added a topper strip, “Water Lore.” (For the last few years of “Kevin,” the bottom tier of panels had been considered expendable—an example is shown at the top of this post). When the new strip ran as a tabloid, the smaller of the two “Water Lore” panels was the throwaway; when it ran in a one-third page format, the topper was lost.

While the tone of the strip was more modern than in “Kevin,” there are still some elements that now seem dated, such as a recurring theme of male chauvinism, and even an awkward joke about a black eye in the strip’s debut.

Nonetheless, with summer here, a voyage under sail sounds wonderful.

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The debut introduced the characters, or crew—in addition to Jane and Kevin (remember, this was supposed to be the same character as from the previous strip), we meet the couple’s sons, Erik and Dave. In real life, Erik was my father and David is my uncle, and their little brothers are Kevin and Glen. Once again, Glen seems to have gotten short-changed, but maybe this was fine with him. For what it’s worth, Glen bears a much stronger physical resemblance to his father than his brothers.

Most of the examples I have are third-pages, but I have recreated the full illustrations with the help of black and white online downloads.

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A rather central component of the strip was education, and it wasn’t just relegated to the topper.

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This post has some pretty sweet examples of “Water Lore,” particularly the one above dealing with radar’s precursor, and the November 10 example even previews the following week’s edition.

As the episodes themselves indicate, “Continued next week.”

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

 

Drough Sabotage

The good news is that there aren’t any newspaper.com images this week; the bad news is that one of the BW proofs was “embellished.” But the good news is that whoever did it, did a pretty nice job. (Maybe I’ll take credit for this one, LOL)

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Kevin is up to some of his usual antics, climbing aboard an enemy’s ship, disabling a bad guy and using their clothes as a disguise. He has one more trick up his sleeve.

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In a couple of episodes from years past, Kreigh Collins showed how a sea anchor was used in order to stabilize a boat in the midst of a storm. In this case, Kevin used one as a brake, in order to slow the progress of Grommet’s monstrous ship. This bought some time for Kevin and the townsfolk time to implement a defensive plan—using fire arrows and… WHAT was the other thing?! (Fire arrows were another device Collins had used in the past, but I don’t recall any other instances of cheese ordnance).

I wonder if my grandfather ever needed to use a drough on his own sailboat—sea anchors loomed large enough that I can recall my father describing their use to me when I was young.

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The drough/drogue/sea anchor also was featured in the topper “Water Lore” for Collins’ final NEA comic, “Up Anchor!”

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Here are the three episodes in color, as third-pages.

 

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

 

Vanishing Harbor Gates

Expecting a fight, Kevin is in for a surprise.

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While half-page examples of “Kevin the Bold” are obviously preferable to any other format, it is interesting to see how the strip appeared in other configurations. As in earlier examples, tabloid versions excised a single panel, but in these latter-day episodes, the throwaway wasn’t a small panel in the second tier but a larger one from the bottom.

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Because so many newspapers were running third-page examples of the comic strip, Collins began producing his layouts so that the entire third tier could be deleted. The benefit was that his artwork wouldn’t suffer from having all of its panels cropped, but the drawback was obvious. For this post’s first episode, this would be quite unfortunate. For the following pair of episodes, the results wouldn’t be quite as tragic—but a key plot element’s concise description would be lost.

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Lightly showing through the third-page above is another NEA feature, Jim Berry’s “Berry’s World.” Berry and Collins were friends; Kreigh was gifted a signed original. Its date is unknown, but its subject (president Lyndon B. Johnson) makes it about the same vintage as these episodes of “Kevin.”

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The August 20, 1967 episode revisits the workings of the harbor’s pontoon gates.

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A year later, when “Kevin” morphed into “Up Anchor!”, this problem would be solved more diplomatically. Instead of an expandable third tier, a topper strip (“Water Lore”) would appear. While this solution had less effect on the presentation of the feature comic, it resulted in very few papers running “Up Anchor!” as a half page.

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Need a great holiday gift idea?

I think you’d be hard pressed to find a more charming collection of Golden Age comics than The Lost Art of Kreigh Collins: The Complete Mitzi McCoy. 

Drawn and scripted by Kreigh Collins, Mitzi McCoy showcased the artist’s 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 here 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.

Edited and restored by the artist’s grandson, Brian E. Collins, with an introduction by Eisner Award-winning author Frank M. Young, an Afterword by comics columnist Ed Catto, and a new tribute illustration of Mitzi by Butch Guice. 

Available HERE from Lost Art Books.

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

More Lore

Because “Up Anchor!” ran for over three years, Kreigh Collins had to come up with quite a bit of material to fill the two topper panels of its 174 Sunday comics. All of this information needed to be fresh, but sometimes the accompanying illustrations required a bit of recycling.

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December 15, 1968

Say… that lad hopping over the tree stump looks familiar. Where have I seen that pose before?

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At left, from the Methodist Publishing House’s Bible Picture Story Comics, is a young Jesus (1946); at right, Brett from “Kevin the Bold” (1955).

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Brett from “Kevin the Bold” (1963).

Back in the days before the internet, illustrators were wise to keep a “morgue,” where reference images were stored. These images came in handy for future assignments, and I’m unaware of a pose Collins copied more often than the boy playing leapfrog.

Here are some more examples of “Water Lore.”

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After three weeks of “Water Lore,” I am happy to say that I will be making a major announcement in next Sunday’s post.

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

Water Lore, Boat Show Edition

After the launch of “Up Anchor!,” a promotional event for the new comic strip was held a few months later at the New York City Boat Show.

 

The New York Times ran articles about the show opening and closing; unfortunately, there was no mention of my grandfather’s participation. They did mention 434 exhibits and 14 educational booths, I guess that will have to suffice.

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Kreigh Collins was accompanied by his new NEA boss, Robert Molyneux.

At the boat show, Collins worked on the episode of “Up Anchor!” shown below. Note the inscription beneath the strip’s logo, “Drawn at New York Boat Show.” The episode ran  May 4, 1969, and because the boat show lasted from January 25 until February 2, it shows the cartoonist was still working with his customary three-month lead time.

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In addition to nautical trivia, sailing regulations, and knot-tying how-to, “Water Lore” featured personal anecdotes based on Collins’ travels with his family aboard their 45-foot schooner. The Collinses encountered much in the 15 years they spent aboard Heather, sailing the Great Lakes, off shore in New England, and on their travels along the Mississippi River, Erie Canal, and Intracoastal Waterway. Here are some of those first-hand observations.

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In addition to nutty things his kids did or saw, others were based on places they had spent time while cruising.

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Lake Huron and the St. Clair River were crossed during any trips eastward through the Great Lakes, and Holland, Michigan was the location of Heather’s home port on Lake Macatawa (which connects with Lake Michigan).

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