Thursday, July 27, 2017

A Yosemite Sam Artist: John Langton

Gold Key's Yosemite Sam starts in 1970 as a reprint title, with Bugs Bunny and Porky Pig stories relogoed. With issue 6 new stories begin by the usual crew like writer Don R. Christensen and artists Phil DeLara and Pete Alvarado.

With issue 14 it switches from the West Coast offices of Western Publishing to the East Coast. In the next years there are stories by Paul S. Newman, Arnold Drake, and Steve Skeates. One of the artists known to the Who's Who is John Langton. Since he did a lot of work for Cracked, his style is easy enough to pick out. (The signed tier is from "A Cracked Alphabet Book About Politicians" in #70, August 1968.)

Cracked 70, YS 15

I'm missing a few issues, but #14 through 47 does seem to be the range of Langton's original work on the title.

John Langton art on Yosemite Sam

June/73 14  Shore 'Nuff
A Hair Raising Experience
Aug/     15  Sing a Song of  Pirates

Steer Clear
Sep/     16  For Snoring Out Loud
Oil's Well That Ends Well
Dec/     18  End of the Line
Feb/74 19  How the West Was Won
Apr/     20  Man Overboard
Noah's Ark Is Sunk
June/     21  Sam's Slapjacks
Aug/   22  Friends to the End
The Last of the Bad Men
Oct/     23  Rioting Rivals
Wanted!
Dec/     25  The Secret Formuls
Feb/75 26  Keep Dreaming
Apr/     27  It's a Gas!

Bum's Away
June/     28  Seaweed Sal
July/     30  The World's Greatest Mustache
Sep/     31  Lucky Day

Sea Scout Rout
Dec/     33  If It Isn't Christopher Columbus
Feb/76 34  Mop Art
June/     36  Model Behavior
July/   37  High Seas
The Old Shell Game
Radioactive Rabbit
Aug/     38  Laboratory Retriever
Sep/     39  Wind Wagon Sam
Oct/     40  Take Pity on a Pioneer
June/77 44  Fat's the Way It Goes
Aug/     46  Wanted
Sep/     47  Policeman's Brawl

9 comments:

  1. Yosemite Sam was the only Warners comic I didnt follow that well - so I do appreciate the listing of Langton stories. Now what about John Costanza - and did he letter the stories he penciled?

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  2. On the GCD I see that he did, but evidently he lettered ones he didn't draw as well--for instance, he's credited with art and lettering on all four stories in #34, and I can see that he could have drawn the last three, but the first is definitely by Langton. I will look more closely for his work on the title now.

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  3. At some point, I hope. Those mentions of Newman and Drake come from my noting down Newman? and Drake? a few times as I powered through the run of YS primarily looking for the artists.

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  4. There was a very ugly internal fight at Western when YOSEMITE SAM and TWEETY & SYLVESTER were moved from the West Coast office to the East Coast office. The editors in Los Angeles were furious.

    You mentioned Don R. Christensen. Want to see him? He was in a video I embedded on my site.

    http://www.newsfromme.com/2017/07/29/todays-video-link-2528/

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  5. Thanks for the link, Mark. I guess Don R. Christensen's records are available, so his scripts are known and I don't have to track them down; but as I'm looking through, for instance, the pre-Gold Key Warner Brothers strips, his work is distinctive enough to jump out even without a list of writing characteristics in front of me.

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  6. Thanks for ID'ing this artist, Martin. Was wondering for the longest time as to who this fellow was.
    PS: Where can one find Carl Wessler's records?

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  7. Robin Snyder has printed a lot of the data from the records in Robin Snyder's The Comics, and much of that is reflected in the Grand Comics Database.

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  8. Langton’s Cracked artwork is beautiful

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