Bill Peckmann &Books &Comic Art &Illustration 24 May 2013 05:54 am
The SmokefromGasoline Alley – pt.2
This is the second part of the book for youngsters written and illustrated by Dick Moores from his comic strip, Gasoline Alley. Moores took over the strip when Frank King, the originator, retired. I’ve written frequently that i love this edition of the strip. Dick Moores’ open, rounded line work is just beautiful to me, and I like his compositions as well.
It’s interesting in this book how he keeps to closeups of the characters leaving a lot of white space to work against his linar shading. Only rarely do we get a longer, establishing shot of the scenes. It’s quite effective in its own way and, at the same time, gives it a variance to the strip done for syndication.
Many thanks to Bill Peckmann for scanning and forwarding the book to us for posting. I love it.
Book Cover
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Notes about the book series.
on 24 May 2013 at 3:20 pm 1.the Gee said …
In the comments for the first part, there are links to a couple of Sundays that Frank King did. Both are the in that series where he did homages to what was then Modern Art.
The thing about this book which impresses me is how well he uses the one panel format. The dimensions and the space aren’t wasted on any of the pages. The composition is just well done and there is a lot of variation on what is depicted. The close-ups are nice and the wide shots are done using dramatic angles. (i guess even using Dutch Angles)
Look at page 58. That simple choice to draw her pulling it up a slight incline in the rain shows the strain in a wonderful manner. That page also visually mixes up what is shown for that sequence aiding in showing the distance she travels and the difficulty of making the trip.
I know that seems like a minor observation but it is amazing to see how sometimes a comic panel can be too crowded or not-so artfully minimalistic (with wasted emptiness).
As it goes, I’ve never been a big fan of “Gasoline Alleyâ€. It never had hooks that caught me. But, when I was a kid, I learned to look forward to the Sunday strips that ushered in Autumn. No matter who did those, those are usually fairly impressive pieces of art. This October marks the 100th year anniversary of the strip. So, that Autumn tradition probably needs to be maintained.
(though, it would be nice if there were just newer, just as beautiful and wonderful comics being made rather than 80-100 year old legacy strips)