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would any graphic artist; and he spent most of his energy here rather than on the less visually challenging dailies. And on the Sunday pages, Crane did some of his finest work. Since he was drawing for the addition of color, Crane shaded these pages very little, so his artwork here is refined to its unembellished essence. And in its essence, Crane's work demonstrates the marvelous precision and telling efficacy of a line so simple it seems naive. But appearances in art are as often deceiving as they are in life. The simplicity of Crane's linework is the ultimate sophistication of irreducible economy, the absolute in purity of graphic expression.
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simply designs: they were devised to give visual impact to the story. When Crane drew Easy at the brink of a cliff, he gave depth to the scene by depicting it in a vertical panel that is two- or three-tiers tall. When Easy leads a cavalry charge or paddles a canoe down a lazy river, the panel is as wide as the page, giving panoramic sweep to the scene depicted.
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Following Turner's departure, the strips passed to his assistants, Bill Crooks (art) and Jim
Lawrence (story). The pair produced both the daily and Sunday strips from January 19, 1970, to May 23, 1981. When Lawrence left in May 1981, the Sunday page ended. Mick Casale joined as the new writer, and he
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Crane's Sunday pictures are carefully, lovingly, drawn, every panel composed to tell the story while sustaining the illusion of time and place. And the pages themselves are artful designs, irregular albeit nonetheless pleasing patterns of panels rather than uniform grids. But these layouts are not
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On
Sundays, Crane concentrated on Easy, and these pages soon absorbed him. The art chores on the dailies were assigned to others in the NEA bullpen so that Crane could pour his imagination into the weekly installments of Easy's adventures. Crane loved the spacious potential of the Sunday page—as
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Scott drew the Sunday strip until 1952, when Turner took it over with inks by assistant Bill Crooks. Mel Graff began ghosting the Sunday page in 1960. Turner continued to draw the daily strip until he retired in 1969, with his last credited daily strip running
January 17, 1970.
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However, in 1937, the
Newspaper Enterprise Association syndicate, which employed Crane and owned the strip, introduced a new policy requiring Sunday pages designed so the panels could be rearranged into different formats. Crane then turned the Sunday pages over to his assistant
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After Crane's departure, Turner took control of the strips, with his assistant Walt Scott drawing the Sunday page. Easy was in the Army by that time, and Tubbs had an increasingly unimportant role, so both daily and Sunday strips displayed the name
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Sunday third, which began with gags featuring Tubbs and later puzzles for children. It ran from 10 May 1931 to 9 July 1933. Captain Easy appeared in one strip.
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Captain Easy was a chivalrous
Southern adventurer in the classic adventure-hero mold. After a series of globe-trotting adventures, Easy enlisted in the
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Sundays by Roy Crane in color, in four volumes edited by Rick
Norwood. A fifth volume featuring the best of the daily strip is planned.
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by Crane, who crafted layouts intended to be seen as a coherent whole rather than a disparate collection of panels. Comics historian
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beginning on Sunday, July 30, 1933. The strip ran for more than five decades until it was discontinued on
October 1, 1988.
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Captain Easy, Soldier of
Fortune: The Complete Sunday Newspaper Strips 1933–1935 (Vol. 1)
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strip and dealt with Easy's adventures prior to meeting Tubbs. They are considered a
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and Crooks produced the daily strip until it was discontinued on
October 1, 1988.
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Originally, Captain Easy was a supporting character in the daily comic strip
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Harvey, R.C. "A Flourish of
Trumpets: Roy Crane and the Adventure Strip"
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Syndicated Comic Strips and Artists, 1924–1995: The Complete Index
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Almost the entire 1924–43 run of Crane's strip was reprinted in
326:#1, October 1936 cover date) and 1937 (Wash Tubbs, as early as
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American Newspaper Comics: An Encyclopedic Reference Guide
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http://www.comics.org/issue/128497/cover/4/?style=default
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419:#1, October 1936, at Grand Comics Database website.
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435:#1, March 1937, at Grand Comics Database website.
322:comic books from 1936 (Captain Easy, as early as
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314:Wash Tubbs and Captain Easy were featured in
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330:#1, March 1937 cover date) into the 1940s.
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38:: Volume One (Fantagraphics, 2010)
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191:Captain Easy, Soldier of Fortune
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36:Captain Easy, Soldier of Fortune
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383:Holtz, Allan (2012).
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16:American comic strip
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298:Before the Sunday
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324:The Funnies
258:daily strip
234:Sunday page
195:Sunday page
167:created by
165:comic strip
142:Preceded by
118:Dell Comics
82:Launch date
67:(1970–1981)
60:(1960–1969)
50:(1933–1943)
538:Categories
433:The Comics
363:References
328:The Comics
304:Wash Tubbs
285:Wash Tubbs
268:Wash Tubbs
263:Buz Sawyer
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169:Roy Crane
58:Mel Graff
48:Roy Crane
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