Comic Ads: Sam Spade Loves His Hair Tonic!

Things can get pretty weird when fictional characters are endorsing commercial products. Turns out that decades before Spider-Man and Batman were fighting evildoers over Hostess fruit pies and Twinkies,Sam Spade was getting some payola action for endorsing his favorite hair tonic: Wildroot Cream-Oil.

Even though the stories are beyond ridiculous,
these pages are pretty well drawn.
The art has been attributed to the great Lou Fine!



In the first of three full-page ads, Sam Spade shows that a guy can fight crime and look good at the same time...thanks to Wildroot Cream-Oil!


Check out the full page below:
(Click on the image below for a BIG-sized comic scan!)

The second adventure in grooming follows the same ridiculous pattern...





Check out the full page below:
(Click on the image below for a BIG-sized comic scan!)



...but by the third page, Sam Spade is actually fighting crime with his trusty bottle of Wildroot Hair Cream! And he's got pretty good aim, too! Tommy guns don't stand a chance against a guy who knows how to handle a bottle of hair tonic!



Check out the full page below:
(Click on the image below for a BIG-sized comic scan!)



I just can't help but wonder what Dashiell Hammett thought of these tales. By the way -- Wildroot Hair Groom is still available at your local drugstore! ...although now it kinda looks more like a bottle of ArmorAll or transmission fluid than anything else!

These scans are from DC Comics'
A Date With Judy
issues 4, 6 and 10 1948-49

UPDATE: Ger Appledorn has just posted
a whole bunch more of these
Sam Spade Wildroot ads at -


http://allthingsger.blogspot.com/2009/02/if-i-had-hammett-wednesday-advertising.html

...And if you liked this post, please help me share it

(Click one or more of the links directly below) Thanks!

How to Draw Funky-Good Cartoons and Comics

Check out this fantastic little drawing lesson by cartoonist Brian Ralph. There's an awful lot of great ideas and drawing philosophy in this delightfully-drawn cartooning tutorial! Brian Ralph shows you how to draw cartoons and comics that are lively and funky! The nice surprise is that this is a brilliant example of storytelling. Click on the drawing below to see...
(It's a long vertically-scrolling comic strip, so make sure to keep scrolling down when you read it...)

Brian Ralph manages to combine real drawing lessons with some personal rants, and by adding in some autobiographical story elements, he comes up with a comic strip that's so good I wish I had a poster of it on my wall right now. Man, I LOVE it! Great stuff! If you want to read some great cartooning tips, Check it out HERE at http://firstsecondbooks.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/2008/01/11/drawlikeralph.jpg

Check out Brian Ralph's website at http://bralph.com/

How to Get and KEEP a Job in animation

For anybody interested in getting a job ( and KEEPING a job) in animation, this tell-it-like-it-is straight-talkin' article is must-reading. It's penned by Steve Hulett, biz rep for the cartoonists' union The Animation Guild, and it appears on the Guild's very informative blog.


The advice Steve gives is full of street-smart truth (and some salty language) that rings 100% true to my experience in the cartoon factories over the last fourteen years. If you wanna know how to draw cartoons for a living, this advice goes beyond the basics and talks about the stuff that's more important than what goes into your portfolio.

Now, don't skip the opening of Steve's "Getting Started"? article, but the REAL truth starts at about the halfway point with the words:

Assuming your talents are solid, and your work ethic is productive and energetic, there's another thing you need. That thing is not being an annoying a**hole.

...but Steve doesn't use the asterisks.

I used to be totally ignorant about the various goings-on around Cartoon Town, but since the rise of blogs and RSS readers like Google Reader, it's really easy to keep a bird's eye view of what's happening in the world of animation. For those who may care, here's a look at a few of the animation blogs I regularly read:

John K's Blog -- http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/
Cartoon Brew -- http://www.cartoonbrew.com/
Animation Nation -- http://www.animationnation.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php
AWN Animation World Network -- http://forums.awn.com/

It's a lot of stuff to keep track of, but I use the awesome Google Reader to throw most of these website feeds into one convenient bucket. They call it an RSS feed aggregator. Here's what Google Reader looks like on my computer screen each day:

I love the convenience of having all my favorite blogs in one window where I can read the headlines and expand the posts if I want, put stars next to the ones I want to remember, share links with friends, etc. Only one drawback: sometimes you start reading a few articles at lunchtime, and then next thing you know, it's dark out. (Or worse: it's daybreak!)

TAG Blog: "Getting Started"?