Comic Book Interlude: Squeeks - TV Jitters

When it comes to comic books some people will read anything. Don't make me name names, but this post just might be for you. Squeeks the monkey and his foil Tiger Tom are the poor person's Lucky Duck and Rocky Rabbit, which I've posted previously. In fact Squeeks #5 published by Lev Gleason, from which this story hails, is from June 1954, written and drawn in the same era as Lucky. It shows a similar inking line and plot device, except less of each -- meaning a chase just for the sake of chasing, with a lot of scenery destroyed in the process. Nothing wrong with that really, and the pages tend to look better (to me) the larger I scan them. My father also did the covers for this issue and #4. Those human-hand looking feet on Squeeks kinda creep me out...or maybe I'm only jealous because I don't have opposing thumbs on my own feet.

I'm not certain who created Squeeks and Tom. The covers of the first three issues are by Charles Biro and the editor(s) are different. I'll know more when I can get my hands on some copies, hopefully if/when I make it to the NY Comic Con in a few weeks.

Speaking of editors, you might have noticed the name Harold Straubing as editor on this cover. Harold and his family became long-time friends of ours. In an upcoming post we'll revisit, well, a different kind of work my father did for him, almost ten years after this, when Harold led my dad down the garden path toward...

Paramount/Famous Storyboard: Top Cat (2nd half)

Following is the second half of Top Cat. That's the good news. The less-than-good-news is that about three-quarters through the film there is a song and dance number, "When You're Wearing The Right Kind of Hat", that was obviously yanked from these boards. My best guess is that it was given to the animators and composer to work from and never returned. So, I will never know for certain whether my father wrote the lyrics. And, as the credits on the Harveytoon set are all homogenized, it's hard to know who did what. At the least, they must have worked off his key board poses. I say that because I've now seen this cartoon more times in the past couple of days than I care to mention, and much of the finished product is spot on with the boards. More on this in reference to a journal entry page at the end of this post.

So, last we left off, J.C. Bandwagon had sent off his top execs to find a new star for Blockbuster Pictures, only to have them roll snake eyes and come back empty handed. Bandwagon decides to search himself, but ends up in jail after his overture to a dame is mistaken for sexual harassment. Now, he flies off to...

"Hat" song and dance would have been inserted here, between boards 67 & 85.
This is the reason that so many hats appear in board 85
-- they are at the end of the missing sequence.

Here again with missing boards. Film ends with
the music cued and Top Cat doing a small bit while repeating
the last line of the song.

Below I've scanned a page from the personal freelance ledger my dad kept during this period. At the risk of being tacky I've left his payments uncensored. As you can see, he also did the layout on Top Cat, as well as the subsequently listed "Cat 2", which would have been Cool Cat Blues. Within this latter cartoon he gets a small stipend for story development. In fact the story payments are billed much differently than the lump some for the first Cat. I imagine that since there were several more Cat cartoons they wanted some sort of recurring theme and that my dad, or someone, decided that theme should be music. Hey, what else did they expect for a measly $200? A Russian novel? Hence, Cool Cat Blues and especially after that, Bopin' Hood, retain that motif.

By the way, the first entry in the journal, "Boris", refers to Galaxia, which I know you all went and took a look at as per my instructions in the previous post. I only make that bold remark because I don't have many storyboards at all, and I know a lot of you favor them (the boards, not the snooty remarks). So until next time, as The Cat would suggest, wear the right kind of hat!