The Who's Who has Bill Williams at Tower drawing Tippy Teen in 1965 and her boyfriend Tommy in 1968--but wait, there's more. And this is not necessarily a complete list.
I found it easier to figure out Williams' style from his Fifties features like Henry Aldrich than from his Sixties work like Dunc and Loo, Kookie, Millie the Model, and Debbi. On the latter two, for instance, the editors have him emulating the styles set by the main artists at the time: respectively Stan Goldberg in serious mode, and Henry Scarpelli. And at Marvel and DC the inkers like Giacoia, Colletta, and McLaughlin further set him off from this work at Tower, where he has any number of inkers (possibly himself among them).
On the Tippy strips his work stands out from the other artists' by his characters' habit of throwing their heads back. The page above is from "On with the Show" in Tippy #1.
Bill Williams Pencils on Tippy Teen
| Nov/65 | 1 | Better Date Than Never | |
| On with the Show | inks: Rudy Lapick | ||
| Jan/66 | 2 | A Sight for Sore Eyes | |
| Apr/ | 4 | Potions of Love | splash art: Samm Schwartz |
| Mar/67 | 11 | Kissin' Cousins | |
| June/ | 13 | It's a Mod, Mod World | |
| Nov/68 | 21 | Whatever Lulu Wants [TOMMY] | |
| Sept/69 | 24 | 3rd Degree Burns [TOMMY gag] | |
| Higher Education [GO-GO gag] | |||
| Oct/ | 25 | What's Cookin? [TOMMY] | |
| Wheeling and Dealing [TOMMY] | |||
| Peddle Meddle |
On Go-Go and Animal
| Sept/67 | 5 | Thrown for a Loss [ANIMAL] |
| Sept/68 | 10 | Painful Lesson [GO-GO] |
I suspect that I'm the source for the Tippy Teen credits in the Who's Who. Indeed, many of Williams credits came from me. The Pee Wee Harris strips dates are because I didnt have any earlier issues of Boy's Life, and my collection of Tippy Teen was spotty for sure. I like his work, but he got little notice from collectors. Indeed I have an unpublished Ricky, a Standard story from circa 1952, and it was sold to me as being Mike Roy. I,of course, knew Bill Williams when I saw it.
ReplyDeleteAs I was finishing up this post I recalled there were ads signed by Williams in early Fifties comic books that might have helped me work out his style, but I didn't know, among so many companies and titles, where to look for them anew.
ReplyDeleteThis isn't related, but do you know who the writers were on Harvey's kid comics (Casper, Richie, etc.)?
ReplyDeleteIn the Who's Who I see Lennie Herman, Stan Kay, and Angelo DeCesare, who moved over to do some credited work for Marvel's Star Comics. Ralph Newman wrote the Harvey characters after doing Terry-Toons for Marvel and St. John. Bill Kunkel and Al Kurzrok I recognize from other companies, and of course Carl Wessler.
DeleteThe problem is that when I tried IDing individual stories some time ago, I couldn't. I believe editor Sid Jacobson (also in the Who's Who as a writer) may have rewritten scripts the way Al Feldstein did at EC.
Can you tell me what quirks Kunkel, Kuzrok and Wessler had in their scripts that help you recognize their style? Kinda curious.
DeleteHere I meant just recognizing them as Marvel and DC writers. I never tried to work up Kunkel's and Kurzrok's styles after realizing the Harvey scripts were probably rewritten.
ReplyDeleteI stopped investigating Wessler's style when I saw his records were around to do a better job of IDing his stories. Still, on his mystery stories he used variations of "Ngyaah" and "Nyaaaaaa"--although if I recall, Michael Fleisher used those too. Wessler used the name Harrow a number of times for his characters.
A year and two months later, using the Star Comics adaption of "The Muppets Take Manhattan", I've ID'd at least two stories in my collection as being written by Kay ("Big Blowhards", C&N #15) and "The Missing Guadrulnik", Strange Ghost Stories #1, although it's definitely a reprint from an unknown issue of Casper or Ghostland). He seems to use "Gyulp" for gulps instead of the more conventional "Ulp" or "Gulp", and he used the name "Revilo" at least twice (the name also shows up in a Hostess ad, which Mark Arnold tells me were all written by Kay).
ReplyDelete