Utroligt at man efter så mange år i eens hobby stadig kan gøre nye opdagelser i det gamle guld, og golden age tegneren Ray Willner må så absolut være een af tegneseriemediets bedst bevarede hemmeligheder. Men så har vi jo Lost Art Books, der specialiserer sig i at grave de gamle drenge frem fra glemslen; Ray Willner arbejdede sporadisk i golden age, men landede så et fast job hos Brown Shoe Co., hvor han tegnede syv numre af hæftet The Adventures of Robin Hood i 1956. Serien gik ind, som så meget gjorde i de turbulente hetz år, hvor de kulørte hæfter fik nådesløs kritik, og offentlige afbrændinger var helt almindelige! Willner bliver i Robin Hood inket af EC giganten Reed Crandall, og Crandall er så stærk en stilist, at man godt kunne tro, der var tale om originale Reed Crandall tegninger. Hurra for Joe Procopio og Lost Art Books, hurra for Ray Willner, Reed Crandall, og golden age guldet, The Adventures of Robin Hood! En fin pendant til Frank Bellamy’s Robin Hood, udgivet af The Book Palace… Lost Art Books, et forlag man skal holde ØJE med!
The Lost Art of Ray Willner: The Adventures of Robin Hood Paperback – September 14, 2014
Product Details
- Paperback: 212 pages
- Publisher: Picture This Press (September 14, 2014)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0990693201
- ISBN-13: 978-0990693208
amazon.com review:
COLLECTED FOR THE FIRST TIME ALL 14 BEAUTIFULLY RESTORED STORIES IN AN OVERSIZED FORMAT
Ray Willner was a casualty of the culture wars. With a comics career dating to 1939, Willner produced impressive work for publishers small and large throughout the 1940s. By 1949 he landed one of the only steady gigs in his career for an unusual publisher: The Brown Shoe Company. While working initially on their “Buster Brown Comic Book”-a giveaway created to drum up business in stores selling Brown’s footwear for kids-Willner found a simpatico spirit in fellow artist Reed Crandall. Although their collaboration on the Brown Shoe Co. series “The Adventures of Robin Hood” lasted less than a year-cancelled in the wake of the scaremongering backlash against comics in the 1950s-the seven issues produced by Willner with Crandall represent a seldom seen high-water mark in comics art. They were the last comics Willner would ever draw.
“The Lost Art of Ray Willner” collects all of those Robin Hood stories for the first time since their original publication in 1956 and includes an introductory essay on Willner’s life and career.