Post Hayle

Saturday Leftover Day.

I know I am late with this 'saturday' post, but there was a lot of scanning and cleaning to be done to make it as complete as possible.

I recently bought an issue of the fifties men's magazine Jackpot. The reason I bought it, was that I had seen on eBay that the art editor was comcis book artist and later newspaper strip creator Howie Post. In the late fifties, like everyone in the business, he was struggling for a job. After doing some excellent work for Stan Lee's Mad magazine imitation (where he was the only artist clearly writing his own stuff) he did some not so impressive work for some of the other Mad magazine imitators (all shown in my book Behaving Madly). He had not yet tarted working at Harvey, where his career got a second wh=ind when he illustrated Hot Stuff, Spooky, Wendy and even Casper. Later it would get a third wind when he created the newspaper strip The Dropouts. So this probably was just another gig to pay the bills. But apart from art editing, he also did a couple of (unsigned) illustrations and a signed pin-up in his best Petty/Vargas style. Most of these are recognizable, because Howard Post could not help but drw cute, however scary of sexy he tried to be.

The big surprise however, was that Howard Post wasn't the only interesting artist in that magazine. There also was a four page article (and a cartoon) that solved a mystery for me that I hadn't been able to solve for Behaving Madly. In the late fifties and early sixties a frequent artist in the Mad magazine imitations (mainly Frantic, Zany and the early Cracked) was a 'modern' artist signing Sam Hayle. He was quite good and quite humorous. But apart from his name I could not find any information about his. And here in Jackpot #2 he was again, with a four page illustrated piece just about him. The woring of the intro to The Twisted World of Julius Hayle even suggests he might have been i other issues as well. I have #2, I wonder how many there were. Seeing him named as Lucius Hayle here, made it possible for me to identify him (probably) als Samuel Lucius Hayle, born in 1911 and died in 1996. That would fit the description as him not being an "angry young man". As Lucius Samuel Hayle he also gets a mention in the online description of the Monogram musical feature Silver Skates, as "New York artist Lucius Samuel Hayle" who "completed 'special posters' for the film".

The unsigned drawing next to the contents page could be by Howard Post.

Post did spot drawing like this for Thimk, one of the Mad magazine imitations he worked for.

I don't think the illustration on the left is by Post, but the vignette with the naked ladies is just cute enough to be by him.

This parody ad is similar enough in humor to his saire work to be by Post. In any case, it is worth showing for it's Mad/Trump/Humbug style.

And this is the masterpiece, of course. A signed pin-up. Makes me curious about the other issue(s).

Her is Julius Hayle's satirical article on coffee drinker.

Finally, for this gag Hayle chose a different style than his normal simplified one.

Post Haste

Friday Comic Book Day.

Howie Post started out as a Walt Kelly imitator. His stories about young boys and their magic elephants were so much like that of the later Pogo creator, that Dell actually approached him to take over the Fairy Tales comic book series, when Kelly left. Instead Post directed his energies elsewhere, doing work for several publishers in the late forties and early fifties, before landing at Harvey, where he had a solid career as one of their most important creators. Along the way, Post also worked for Stan Lee at Timely Atlas in various forms. His first important contribution was when he took over the girl teen strip Nellie the Nurse. Written by Stan Lee, most of the stories were an excuse to string together as many dumb jokes as possible. Something Stan Le was really good at and did with lots of success for My Friend Irma (drawn by Dan DeCarlo) for more than twelve years. Nellie the Nurse was not as big a hit and disappeared after a couple of issues. Maybe that's why it's so hard to get these days. I have one copy out of the more then ten Post did and I have found just as few online. Here are two of the Nellie the Nurse stories anyway, followed by a horror story by Post from a few years later. My feeling is that Post wrote most of his material for Stan Lee himself, certainly after the Nellie the Nurse years. He seems to have either adopted a quick and easy style of just done the job very quickly for those.

Scratchy And Iffy

Saturday Leftover Day.

After doing funny animal comics for DC for a couple of yeras, Howard (Howie) Post tried his hand at a more realistic Syle for a shortlived run of Rodei=o Rick in Western Comics. After that, he got some funny teen work at Atlas and it wasn't before long he was doing crime and horror stories for them as as well. This time, his realistic style was more scratchy and less.. well, realistic. When I wrote my article on the Mad magazine imitations 0f 1954, I concluded that Post may have written all of his own material for Crazy, Wild and Riot. I think the same may be true of his horror stories.

Acid Free

Saturday Leftover Day.

Not many great new newspaper strips were adden in the seventies. In the history of the comic strips there are these periods when the old and tired strips are winding down and there seems to be no room for new talent. The eighties was terrible that way. In the seventies, at least some of the old greats were still doing fine (strips like B.C, The Wizard of Is and Beetle Bailey were still surprisingly fresh). But there were some highlights, like this typical seventies strip by Howard Post. Featuring not the kind of drop-outs the seventies usually generated, but still highly likebal and well drawn.

The Post With The Most

Saturday Leftover Day.

The early career of fan favorite Howard (Howie) Post is not highlighted a lot. Most fans know he did a great series of short stories for DC's More Fun in the late forties in a style pretty similar tot that of Walt Kelly and some may even know that he almost filled a complete run of a fairy tale series called Wonderland for Prize beforeand during that. I knew he did more for DC, but I was surprised to see how much he actually did for them from 1947 to 1952, before jumping over to Stan Lee's Timely Atlas group. I also showed a couple of other fairy tale type stories he did for other companies before and during this period. I still think a man of Post's talent and speed may have done other stuff as well. Anyway, here are two stories from a book called Slapstick Comics, as yet unentered in the GCD. It doesn't have a date, but I suspect it is 1946, slightly before Wonderland appeared. As such, it may be Post's first published work. Either that, or it is extremely rushed. The Walk Kelly influence is already there, but not as outspoken.

Whoa Nellie

Friday Comic Book Day.

I haven't done a lot of Howie Post lately, so here are a fw storie from Nurse Nellie #32. We do not only get the whip 'em out graphics of Mr. Post, but also the equally quick and easy humor of Stan Lee. Together they did quite a few of these books, which are rarer and more expensive than you would expect. After looking for them every now and then on e-bay, I have not managed to get three of them and only one readyscanned.