Wednesday, June 24, 2015

"Mary Poppin Fink"--Artist


"Yesterday's Monster" in Charlton's Strange Suspense Stories v2 #1 (October/67), from which comes the first page above, is credited to Mary Poppin Fink. (I can't help wondering if the story's writer, Denny O'Neil, contributed the name.)

Responding to my previous post, Jake Oster by email and darkmark in a comment wondered if the artist on the very first Rang-A-Tang story at MLJ might be Edd Ashe, who's listed in the Who's Who as doing the feature in 1939-40. I don't think so after comparing the old-fashioned cross-hatched style of that story with Ashe's contemporary signed work at MLJ.

But speaking of Ashe and the Who's Who, it says he had work in Strange Suspense Stories from Charlton in 1967--that would be "Yesterday's Monster." The second page above is from "Spirits Can be Good Joes," credited to Ashe as full artist in ACG's Forbidden Worlds 133 (Jan-Feb/66). I could take Charlton job as pencils only, as per the WW, but with no idea of the inker.

The Who's Who actually gives all sorts of credits to Ashe at Charlton in the 60s that I haven't stumbled across yet, mostly on anthology stories. He's supposed to have done Space Adventures in 1967 too, which led me to look at the story drawn by Spoonerized jazzman "Melonious Thonk" in #60, but that's in quite a different style. (It too was written by Denny O'Neil, and again I'd suspect he christened the artist.)

3 comments:

  1. I don't have a handle on any of Ashe's styles, but what about the first story in Texas Rangers In Action #40, found on the PD site comicbookplus ?

    ReplyDelete
  2. It looks something like Norman Nodel's work to me.The Who's Who gives the single issue of Emergency Doctor as another Ashe credit, but most of that one too I'd give to Nodel.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Good thing I said I didn't know Ashe's work, Wonder who gave Jerry those credits? Happy to say it wasn't me. I'm bowing out unless I look at a lot more known Ashe work. I think I am looking more at the composition than line work. which may explain it.

    ReplyDelete