Author: Jim

Jim Keefe is the current artist of the Sally Forth comic strip. From 1996-2003 he was the writer and artist of the Flash Gordon comic strip. A graduate of the Joe Kubert School, Keefe likewise teaches Comic Art. Teaching and speaking engagements include SVA in Manhattan, Hofstra’s UCCE Youth Programs, and most recently the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.

Joe Kubert

Joe Kubert – The Nutcracker

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The Nutcracker
by The Joe Kubert School aka Joe Kubert
Click on images to see larger.

The dailies shown above were originally published December 2-25, 1985.
I don’t know if Sunday pages were also produced.
If anyone knows please drop me a line!

-Jim Keefe

– Update –

From George Hagenauer:

“I talked to Joe right before his death about this as I own (among other Kubert originals ) a Big Ben Bolt original that looked like his work.
Basically over the years he would get commercial projects (The Winnie
winkle comic strip, various comic related catalogs etc.) with the idea that
they would involve the students and get them some needed experience and
practice. These projects look like Kubert but usually are not signed by
him. They are often a mix of his direction and the students art .

How much is Kubert and how much is students depended on the students
skill- and sometimes it didn’t work or as Joe said they couldn’t handle
“Big Ben Bolt so I ended up doing it all myself”

From Sam Kujava:

“When I was at Kubert’s School the first year, he offered me a week’s worth of Big Ben Bolt dailies to work on. Joe had already laid out the panels, and I went over them and tightened the pencils, making the art look a little more like my “style”. When I finished, on time, Joe took them back to ink. He showed them to me before he sent it off to the syndicate and it more or less totally looked like Joe did it all. No complaint, just observation.”

From D.D.Degg:

“You probably know by now that the NEA Christmas strips were daily only.

Joe Kubert and School did the seasonal strip from 1982 through 1985.
(Weren’t you a freshman at The School in 1985?)

The Owosso (Mich) Argus-Press ran the 1982 (The Christmas Carol)
and 1983 (Gifts of the Magi) strips.

Unfortunately they switched over to the Disney/King Features Christmas strips in 1984, so I hadn’t seen The School’s Hans Brinker (1984) or their 1985 The Nutcracker – until now (thanks again).

Yeah, they all look like Joe Kubert was deeply involved.

In 1981/82 the Joe Kubert School drew the Winnie Winkle strip. Some of those look like Joe took on more of a role of layout/art director and let the young’uns go at it.

These were actually signed J.K.S., for Joe Kubert School.

D.D.Degg also mentioned “…they switched over to the Disney/King Features Christmas strips”

Coincidentally I colored the Disney strips in the 90s when I was on staff at King.

Examples of Disney holiday strips I colored for King Features.

Many thanks for the added info – greatly appreciated! If I find out anything more (like students who helped work on them) I’ll be sure to keep you posted…

-Jim Keefe

Tags Happy Holidays, Joe Kubert, Merry Christmas, The Nutcracker

King Features

King Features – Frank Chillino

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When I was hired to work on staff in the Comic Art bullpen at King Features back in 1989 my immediate boss was Production Supervisor Frank Chillino (1920-2007).

Frank worked under a number of Comic Art department heads. Among them…

Sylvan Byck (1904-1982)
Head of the Comic Art department from the 1950s until 1978.
Bill Yates (1921-2001)
Head of the Comic Art department from 1978 until 1988.
Jay Kennedy (1956-2007)
Head of the Comic Art department from 1988 until 2007.

Frank Chillino was the guy at King Features who made sure the trains ran on time. He also devised and implemented the standardized system to format strips for newspapers that’s still used today – a template where a strip drawn in a half page format could be reformatted to a third or quarter page quickly and efficiently. It helped streamline the process saving countless hours of production time (and money) for King.

He was there with the pioneers of the industry – Chic Young, George McManus, Harold Foster, Alex Raymond, Jimmy Hatlo, Roy Crane, Milton Caniff, Fred Lasswell and Bela Zaboly just to name a few.

In a feature piece in Cartoonist Profile he recalled, “When I joined the bullpen in January 1944, I was twenty four years old. Brad Kelly, who was the comics editor, hired me and placed me at a drawing table next to Bud Saggendorf who was then handling production. For my first assignment, Bud sent me to the supply room for a bucket of benday dots which were used on daily strips for grey tones. Being young and naive I did what he requested. Irving Winters who handled supplies said, “Hey kid, he’s pulling your leg! There’s no such thing as benday dots, only a benday acetate sheet with dots printed on it.” Was my face red! When I brought back the sheets and an empty bucket we all had a good laugh. This was the beginning of a lasting friendship between Saggendorf and myself… About a year later Sag was assigned to draw the Popeye comic books. With his suggestion to Brad Kelly I was appointed comic art production supervisor.”

Some other of Frank’s recollections…

“King had a room set aside for visiting cartoonists then, which offered us the opportunity to watch them at work. These guys could ink their strips without penciling. Roy Crane worked on craft tint paper and when he brought the tones up with his brush on backgrounds, the strips would virtually explode with action.”

“Jose Luis Salinas was brought up in 1950 to pen The Cisco Kid which I lettered for 18 years. He was one of our finest illustrators. Alex Raymond, also a great illustrator, idolized Salinas work. Whenever Alex came to KFS he would sit and watch Salinas pencil and brush through his Cisco strips for hours at a time. Jose worked in our bullpen for about six months before he returned to Argentina.”

“There was an aura about them (the cartoonists) when they visited the bullpen. They were fun guys always playing jokes on one another.”

Frank once wrote of his job at King, “I always believed that maintaining a rapport with our (King Features) cartoonists was of utmost importance. Letting them know we cared, and knew that they were out there doing their thing for us – drawing cartoons.”

When he retired in 1990 he had 45 years at the Syndicate under his belt.

Frank Chillino – Truly one of King Features’ greats!

-Jim Keefe

Tags Frank Chillino

Conventions

Q-Con XXII – Queen’s University Belfast

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Queens University - Belfast, Ireland — Queen’s University Belfast

I recently had the opportunity to attend Q-Con XXII in Belfast, Ireland. It was held June 19-21 and is one of Ireland’s biggest gaming and anime conventions.

Queen's University Belfast - Student Union — Q-Con XXII – Queen’s University Belfast, Student Union

A special thanks to Aíne (red shirt) and Alianne (blue shirt) at registration who got me all set up when I got there.

On a side note, the neck lanyards they gave you on arrival were amazing. They contained all the information you needed and more – incredibly handy.

2015 Q-Con XXII neck lanyard/badge holder.

Of particular interest to me was Q-Con’s Artist Alley.

The following are just a few of the items I picked up.

Note: Click on the pics to go to the artists’ websites.

Coffee sold by <a href= — Coffee sold by Cracked Black inc. Close up of illustrations below.

The following artist had prints for sale but also these amazing acrylic paintings he had done on hand.

As mentioned, I went to Q-Con primarily for their Artist Alley, but there was plenty of great cosplay on hand as well.

For more pics from the weekend, check out Q-Con on Facebook or Twitter.

As this was my very first time overseas, here’s hoping I can make it to more comic cons abroad in the near future…

Tags Belfast, Ireland, Q-Con XXII

Ramblings & Reviews

David Letterman

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Late Night with David Letterman premiered in 1982 and was a staple of my tv viewing during my formative years (ages 17 on up).

Madonna and Sandra Bernhard on Late Night with David Letterman - 1988 — Madonna and Sandra Bernhard on Late Night with David Letterman – 1988

When I first moved out to New Jersey to go to the Kubert School, one of the first priorities was to get on the waiting list for tickets to a taping of Letterman.

Letterman caricature done my first year at the Joe Kubert School (January 1987). — Letterman caricature done my first year of the Joe Kubert School – January 1987

When I eventually did get tickets, it was a show featuring Jerry Garcia & Bobby Weir from the Grateful Dead. Going to 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City to see the taping was one of those memories that stay with you. The lobby at 30 Rock was filled with Dead Heads offering hundreds of dollars for anyone wishing to sell their tickets. (The tickets were free). Having waited so long to get the tickets, selling them never crossed my mind.

When Letterman eventually moved to CBS and the Ed Sullivan Theater I mailed in a request to be put on the waiting list again. The Late Show with David Letterman debuted August 30, 1993, and I was able to get tickets within the first few weeks of it’s premiere.

Top image: Postcard saying you were on the waiting list. Bottom image: Ticket to the Late Show. — Top image: Postcard saying you were on the waiting list.
Bottom image: Ticket to the Late Show.

Having been passed over to host the Tonight Show in favor of Jay Leno, Letterman’s move to CBS with his own show was monumental and every show those first few weeks Letterman got a standing ovation. The show I attended was no exception. Coincidentally Jerry Garcia from the Grateful Dead was on the show that night as well, playing with Paul Shaffer and “The World’s Most Dangerous Band.”

Initially Letterman’s Late Show beat out the Tonight Show with Jay Leno in the ratings, but eventually the ratings slipped and Letterman was behind Leno and Ted Koppel’s Nightline in the ratings. Right in view of the Ed Sullivan theater a billboard went up in Times Square proclaiming Leno as number one.

Letterman followed up brilliantly with the following…

One of the things that made Letterman so great was that he had on guests no one else knew how to handle (Howard Stern, Andy Kaufman and Richard Simmons come to mind), and though sometimes there was a danger of the segment jumping the rails, Letterman always kept it on track and made it memorable.

And then of course there were guests that no one else would have had on.
Like underground comics creator Harvey Pekar…

Letterman was the gold standard as far as talk show hosts go in my book.

Norm MacDonald (at the end of this stand-up clip) has summed it up better than anyone else, so I’ve leaving with the following…

For more Letterman clips, check out…

Variety – Top Ten Moments from the ‘Late Show With David Letterman

Rolling Stone: Letterman, Seriously: Dave’s 10 Most Profound Moments

CNN – Top 10 reasons David Letterman is a comedy god

Tags David Letterman

Greg Howard Sally Forth

Minikahda Club – The RETURN…

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Back in 1981 Mickey Rooney did a made-for-TV movie (that’s what they called them back then) called “Bill”. The movie was a docudrama of Bill Sackter’s life story, a mentally challenged man (Mickey Rooney), who was befriended by young filmmaker Barry Morrow (played by Dennis Quaid).

Barry met Bill at a staff Christmas Party at the Minikahda Club in Minneapolis where Bill had been employed as a dishwasher.

Cut to the Minikahda Club the summer of 1982 where a high school age Jim Keefe is bussing tables, wanting to become a cartoonist but with no clear path.

The buzz Keefe overhears from members of the Club is about Mickey Rooney and the film crew that has just wrapped filming there, but also about a local lawyer who had quit the profession to become – of all the crazy things – a cartoonist.

The lawyer/cartoonist’s name was Greg Howard. The strip, Sally Forth.

Greg Howard - circa 1982 — Greg Howard – circa 1982

Pic by Alan Light from the 1982 Minneapolis Comic Con.

Strips from the inaugural first week of Sally Forth.

With the cartoon landscape of the 1980s showing housewives mostly in the mold of Blondie and Hi and Lois, Sally Forth would become part of a new generation of comic strips (along with Lynn Johnston’s For Better or For Worse and Cathy Guisewite’s, Cathy) that showed woman taking center stage in a more modern setting. Because of this – and the fact that they were original and funny – success in newspaper syndication followed.

The camera fades to present day as we open on the Minikahda club on a cold winter’s morning.

Today’s Rotary Club speaker is the current cartoonist of Sally Forth, who skipped the law school route, and instead attended the Joe Kubert School.

The camera pans to reveal none other than… Jim Keefe!

I had a great time speaking and would like to thank Christine Daves of Think-Organized.com for the invite.

And also thanks to the Minneapolis Uptown Rotary and the work they do for the community, part of which was a donation in my name to the Jefferson Community School.

Epilogue: I mentioned to one of the wait staff at the Minikahda Club before leaving that thirty-five years ago I had been a busboy there. Her answer, “Thirty-five years ago I hadn’t been born yet.”

Here's mud in your eye! — Here’s mud in your eye!