Rudy in Hollywood

In his career William Overgard was a Golden Age comic book artist, assistant to Milton Caniff, the writer/artist of the comic strip "Steve Roper and Mike Nomad," an author of several novels, and the creator of the comic strip, "Rudy." Rudy was a talking chimpanzee who, when I saw the strip in my local newspaper on its initial run, I "heard" in George Burns' voice. The strip was short-lived, but luckily it's still available if you can find the book, RUDY IN HOLLYWOOD. I've scanned up to page 21 and would like to show you more at a later date. The strip appeared as a continuity strip surrounded by minimalist daily gag strips, which probably led to its doom. The shrinking size of newspaper comics is evident in Overgard's approach to the drawing, but he did a lot with the space he had available to him.

Overgard, who was born in 1926, died in 1990.

RUDY IN HOLLYWOOD By William Overgard. An Owl Book, Holt, Rinehart and Winston. First edition, 1984.

Rudy comic strips Copyright © 1983, 1984 United Feature Syndicate

Rand Holmes in a fog

The superbly talented cartoonist, Rand Holmes, appeared in the Canadian underground, FOG CITY COMICS. These are the pages he drew from issues #2 and #3. "Killer Planet" was later reprinted in color, but this is its original appearance. It shows Holmes' ability to draw science fiction in an attractive style that owes a lot to Wally Wood, but is still unmistakeably Holmes. "And here he is...the artist himself" from FOG CITY #3 shows his ability with humor.

Holmes, age 60, died in 2002 while undergoing treatment for cancer.

Holmes material from FOG CITY COMICS #2 © 1978 Rand H. Holmes
Holmes material from FOG CITY COMICS #3 © 1979 Rand H. Holmes

"I Want You!"

Yes! And we want to bond with her!

This is the last of the postings from THE GREAT AMERICAN PIN-UP CALENDAR, issued by Taschen in 2004. I hope you've enjoyed these beauties, and it's been my pleasure to make them available.

If you want to see the rest of the calendar postings go to the search box in the upper left corner and type in TASCHEN or GREAT AMERICAN PIN-UP CALENDAR.

Copyright © 2004 TASCHEN