MAY2013: THE  121st  ARTICLE FOR BASEBALL GURU

                                                    ONEMOREINNING

 POW, WHAM, ZAP: BASEBALL COMIC STRIPS:PART TWO

 

   Over the years there have been several Comic strips, Comic books, Graphic Novel's and animated features that have dealt with Baseball. Some of them are worth talking about and all of them can be found on the Internet. This is the second part of a two part series:

    In 1992 Revolution Comics put out a series of Comic books called Baseball Legends and that's exactly what they dealt with. There were a total of 19 of them. The books consisted of a series of illustrated biographies of some of the immortals of the game. Initially they sold well enough. The art work was superior to most of the comic books in the market at that point and the bios were accurate and not overly sensationalized. After a few years though the market for them faded away and so did the books. These days though they have made a comeback and are highly prized as collectibles.

   Some of the titles were:

   BABE RUTH   TY COBB   TED WILLIAMS   MICKEY MANTLE   JOE DIMAGGIO   JACKIE ROBINSON   SANDY KOUFAX   WILLIE MAYS   HONUS WAGNER   DARYL STRAWBERRY   YOGI BERRA   BILLY MARTIN   HANK AARON   CARL YASTRZEMSKI   JOHNNY BENCH   SHOELESS JOE JACKSON   LOU GEHRIG   CASEY STENGEL.

    For readers of the Daily News a highlight was going to the back pages of the newspaper to find Baseball Bertha and Yuchie (the one panel sports strip by Bill Gallo. For many years the two characters chronicled the adventures (many frustrating, some worthwhile) of New York's Met's. When it came to describing his art style the best that could be said about Gallo was that it was OK, awkward, stiff and not well delineated. However New York sports fans loved him and he became the cartoon voice of the New York Mets. Gallo was also involved in other sports as well. His drawings of Mohammed Ali were well received and Ali had kind words about them. Over  the years he became quite knowledgeable about the history of baseball and sports in general. Many sports historians would come to him for advice which he was pleased to give.

By the time he passed away in 2011 at the age of 88 he had become a New York sports Icon

   What can one say in referring to the remarkable Willard Mullin except that he was the very best around during his period. Nobody since has equaled his skill and popularity and probably no one will come close to it in the future. His art was a wild combination of meticulous detail and highly exaggerated shapes and forms. His figures existed with bodies that were wild with abandon and joyous zest. He worked for The World Telegram and Sun and practically every other sports media at that time.

   He is responsible for giving us the Dodgers "Brooklyn Bum." he died in the 1970s at the age of 76,

    The art of sports cartooning is dying out. Most media people consider it to be an antique form  from a bygone era and the great sports cartoonists who enriched the game of baseball are disappearing. Here is a list of some of them:

DREW LITTON  BURRIS JENKINS  DAN O'MEALLA  T. McCRACKIN  J. C. DUFFY  CHARLES McGILL  BRUCE STAAKE  KARL HEENTHALL  JOHN PIEROTTI  THOMAS PAPPOCKI  DICK DUGAN  LOU DARVAS

                                                                    THEY WILL BE MISSED