Technically, the comic strip Gasoline Alley began in 1918 but by the 1960s it had been taken over by artist Dick Moores, who changed its look.
Unlike other strips in this series, Moores did not use a photorealistic approach. He clearly mastered the technical skills of drawing, so he was able to place figures in a setting and draw with perspective but his style was closer to the style of a children's book illustrator such as William Heath Robinson.
In the 1960s, the size and pacing of comic strips enabled Moores to populate his panels with lots of characters and interesting details. In the following strip note how Moores stages the introduction of a mysterious new character.
You won't find a similar example of the dramatist's art on the comics page today. Comic strips have become a different kind of art form.
To get a sense for what has been lost, enjoy some examples from a story about a character who was a cross between Ebeneezer Scrooge and Scrooge McDuck:
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| Angle shots showing layers of privacy (door after door) details such as floorboards, cheap plumbing, cluttered desk, cracked plaster, broom and pail-- these are all essential for the story. |
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| Dangling locks and chains and a cartoonish vault worthy of the Tower of London |
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| In a Christmas time delusion the Scrooge character impetuously gives away his money to the poor, enlisting the aid of two incompetent handymen. Moores draws it from every angle. |
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| As they reach shantytown, it starts to snow. Every snowflake is a separately drawn circle, every shack has its own personality. Moores no longer needs the facial expressions of the handymen so they are expendable. |
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| Of course, the scrooge character snaps out of it and decides he's been robbed. How will this end? |
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| The poor people are honest and return the money, receiving a laughable reward from the old skinflint. |
During the golden age of comic strips, master storytellers were given the tools to keep large audiences mesmerized, with strips such as Gasoline Alley or Little Orphan Annie. Readers became emotionally involved with the characters and stories. They couldn't wait to see what would happen next.
Note that with a richer, more nuanced set of tools, cartoonists could take up topics like the selfish rich, the perpetual poor, the educated and the uneducated, or disputes between neighbors without immediately resorting to Defcon 1 the way political cartoons do. The same human foibles existed, but sometimes they were just met with bemusement or used for a parable.
That mysterious new character trope goes back to the Frank days. If I recall correctly he introduced Phyllis Blossom over the course of several strips from the back only. It’sa fascinating narrative effect, since it takes on the tempo of meeting a neighbor in real life.
ReplyDeleteThere was always a sense of quiet melancholy about Gasoline Alley during this period that informed the stories and art. As a kid, I was aware of it, but being a kid, couldn't really identify what it was. But I loved the strip and the finite subtext of the characters, and felt that I was somehow part of a grown-up conversation.
ReplyDeleteAnd that was just as rewarding in its own way as the more action-oriented strips above and below on the newspaper's comics page.
“Quiet melancholy”
ReplyDeleteNicely put. I felt the same way about gasoline alley, like it had a built in nostalgia even when current. The Sunday strips were more creative and inventive, and the Fall strips were fantastic.
I'm a huge fan of the Sundays from the 1920s and 1930s. These seem like a different strip entirely. Different style of drawing, certainly. But also, in my view, all the subtlety is gone from the characters and situations. The gentle realistic observations are no longer there for you to pick up on your own; these feel more moralizing in tone, mechanical in scenario (The moneybags plopping out one by one from the exactly shaped hole in the wagon bed), and obviously prearranged in its conclusions; pat in pedantry.
ReplyDeleteInteresting style - reminds me a little of British cartoonist Posy Simmonds
ReplyDeletehttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posy_Simmonds
And a tiny touch of (Carl) Giles whose one frame cartoons used to fascinate me as a child for the character and household details.
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ReplyDeleteThere was always a sense of quiet melancholy about Gasoline Alley during this period that informed the stories and art. As a kid, I was aware of it, but being a kid, couldn't really identify what it was. But I loved the strip and the finite subtext of the characters, and felt that I was somehow part of a grown-up conversation.
ReplyDeleteAnd that was just as rewarding in its own way as the more action-oriented strips above and below on the newspaper's comics page.
You've flagged up an often neglected aspect of youthful experience there Vanderwolff. Because although, as an Englishman, I'm unfamiliar with American newspaper strips, I recall the same kind of feeling reading and looking at the strips in my dad's newspapers. Having first digested the exciting-looking stuff and attempting to prolong my entertainment with what appeared to be less-appealing material was often the rabbit hole to deeper levels of awareness.
And on a broader note I think this demonstrates how increasing choice can become a sort of prison - the dark glass rectangle...