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Birthdays
| Bob Montana 1920, comic strip artist who created the central characters published by Archie Comics. At the age of 21, he created Archie for MLJ's Pep Comics (December, 1941). The success of the character led MLJ to assign Montana to draw the first issue of Archie (November, 1942). In 1946, Montana drew the daily and Sunday Archie comic strips for 700 newspapers. |
| Eric James Shanower 1963, comics artist and writer, best known for his Oz novels and comics and the on-going retelling of the Trojan War as Age of Bronze. |
| Rayford Barnes 1920, actor, Capt. McLaren - The Invisible Boy (1957), Radar Sgt. - Steve Canyon (1 episode, "Operation Jettison", 1958), Andrew Watkins - The Twilight Zone (1 episode, "A Quality of Mercy", 1961), Alien Deputy / Alien Driver - The Invaders (2 episodes, 1967-1968), Riot Control Commander in Plaza - Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972), Pierce - The Invisible Man (1 episode, "The Klae Dynasty", 1975), Lt. Weil - Wonder Woman (1 episode, "The Feminum Mystique: Part 2", 1976), Sgt. Archer - The Astral Factor (1976). |
| Una O'Connor 1880, actress, Jenny Hall - The Invisible Man (1933), Edythe - Tales of Tomorrow (2 episodes, 1952). |
| Richard Sidney Yager 1909, cartoonist, most famous for his work on the Buck Rogers comic strip. Yager was hired by the National Newspaper Syndicate in 1933 to work on the Sunday Buck Rogers page. Thus Yager began a 25 year run in which he was to be the backbone of the popular newspaper comic strip. One of Yager's first contributions to the strip was a series of rocket ships that appeared in the last panel of each page - some of these designs would later be licensed by other companies and made into Tootsietoy rocket ships and balsa wood construction kits that sold by the tens of thousands during the Buck Rogers merchandising craze of the mid 1930's. Another of Yager's early creations was the famous "Spider Ship" which was featured in the popular pop-up book "Buck Rogers in Strange Adventures of the Spider Ship". By 1936 the multi-talented Yager was not only the strip's artist, but the feature's writer as well. Yager was responsible for many of the strip's most memorable story lines. These stories were invariably accompanied by the beautifully streamlined rocket ships that were his trademark. One such rocket was the "El Dorado", a ship made entirely of gold. Yager also dreamed up many of the feature's most beloved characters, notably "Admiral Cornplaster", the mischievous little green alien who could climb walls and hang from ceilings thanks to his vacuum-cupped hands and feet. For the first decade of his work on Buck Rogers Yager worked as a "ghost artist", which was a common practice in that era. The pages were signed by Dick Calkins, the newspaper strip's original artist, until 1943, then co-signed by Calkins & Yager until 1948. For the last decade of his work on the strip Yager was finally allowed to sign his own name to his work. During this phase of his career Yager also took over the daily Buck Rogers strip - both art and story line; he was assisted by Len Dworkins from 1951-56. At the time Yager left the National Newspaper Syndicate in 1958 due to a dispute over contracts, the circulation of the Buck Rogers daily newspaper strip was at an all time high. After having been read by millions of people every day for decades, the Buck Rogers strip fell on hard times after Yager's departure. By 1965 the Sunday page was discontinued, and in 1967 the plug was pulled on the daily strip as well which by then was down to a handful of newspapers. After leaving Buck Rogers Yager created a new Sunday only comic strip entitled The Imaginary Adventures of Little Orvy in 1959. Little Orvy began running in newspapers across the United States including many major markets as the new decade began. The strip remained popular but shortly before it was to enter its 4th year, Yager received an offer to take over the Sunday Grin and Bear It page from George Lichty. This was too good to pass up as Grin and Bear It was syndicated in more than 300 newspapers, so Yager reluctantly decided to abandon Little Orvy in order to take the reins on Grin and Bear It beginning in 1963. Few people realize, even today, that it was Yager at the helm of Grin and Bear It all those years and not Lichty himself. Yager ghosted the Sunday page for a quarter of a century, until he finally began signing the strip himself in 1988. This continued until 1992 when failing eyesight forced Yager's retirement from the strip and from cartooning altogether. From the early 1960s until the mid 1980s Yager also produced the "Cappy Dick's Young Hobby Club" page for children, which had a wide national syndication as well. During the 1930s and 1940s Yager created multiple comic book features in addition to his newspaper comic strip work. Among them were Land O' Nod, Mystery Island, Wild Bill, Buzz Balmer, and Ace Kelly. These were published in Krim Ko Komics, Tops in Comics, Komik Pages, and Bang Up Comics. |
| Jimmy Aubrey 1887, actor, Plainclothesman - The Invisible Man Returns (1940), Wedderburn ( the Innkeeper) - The Invisible Man's Revenge (1944), Wave Tracer - Superman (1948)[Ch.10]. |
Events
Nothing to mention today, but stay tuned for tomorrow.
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