1942
1942, the first full year of Canadian wartime comics, was a year of transition and expansion. Canada had been in the war for more than two years. 1941 had given us the birth of Canadian comics with comics from that…
Comic Book Daily
Discussing the minutiae of comic book collecting.
Comic Book Daily
Discussing the minutiae of comic book collecting.
Tag Bell Features Comics
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The kelly connection
Today’s column orbits Bell Features artist Fred Kelly whose best-known creation was probably Mr. Monster. It does so because, last month, I came into possession of 21 pages of original Bell Features art and this was due originally to the…
Cy Bell Textual Box 1: Contest back covers
If you want to research, first hand, the Bell Features holdings of the Library and Archives of Canada (LAC) up in Ottawa, you have to go into an imposing solid block of a building located just west of Parliament Hill…
Jack Tremblay at the Montreal Comic Con
It was great to meet up with Jack Tremblay and his son Rick Trembles at the Montreal Comic Con this past Saturday. Jack turned 91 this on May 1st and now lives in a retirement home after a fall that…
Forest City Con and Shusters 2015
The second edition of the Forest City Comic Con was held this past Sunday at the London Convention Centre. My day there began hosting an advertised panel with Patrick Loubert and Michael Hirsh. However, Patrick had apologetically written me midweek…
TAS: Masks, Calories, and Beavers
In late 1944, Steele seemed to have come up with the idea of doing cut-out masks of a few of the lead Bell characters on the inside covers of some of the Bell Features books. We modern collectors look back somewhat aghast on this because, just like Bell’s placement of cut-out coupons in similar locations, it must have led to wanton disfigurement of many of these books, but such were the ways of the world back then towards something that was seen as ultimately disposable and easily remaindered. Steele signed these "fathead" portraits with his shortened monogram "TAS."
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