Swipes!

(Bullwinkle Voice) Hello, Culture Lovers!

In comic art, a "swipe"  is a drawing that has been directly copied from another (and usually better) artist and presented as one's own.  That's different from a "tribute" or "pastiche."  "Swipes" were pretty common practice in the 30's, when comic books were new, but a surprising amount of it still goes on today!

Now, if I were to present this:

a lot of people would recognize it as a famous bit of "Flash Gordon" work by Alex Raymond.

But, a lot of people wouldn't, and would say, "Dayam, that Wolfie can draw!"  

Thank you, thank you.

An awful lot of people have swiped Alex Raymond's work, because he was a superior artist and frequently used live models.  

He even gave lessons on drawing Nekkid Girls in Proper Perspective.

Another guy whose work was lovingly copied to save time and get a nice paycheck was Hal Foster, whose "Prince Valiant" was royal comic strip art.

Hal also did the "Tarzan" newspaper strip for a while in the 30's.

A fellow named Bob Kane was a big admirer.

That final dramatic panel, and just about every other panel in the origin story featured in "Batman" #1 in 1940, was a Swipe!

(Bob earned a very bad reputation as a Pilferer, of both art and credit.  Hardly any of the "Batman" artwork with the big "BOB KANE" signature box through the years was his, and almost all of the writing was done by Bob's fairly silent partner, and Batman's unsung co-creator, Bill Finger.  But I digress.)   

Now, everybody learns by copying at first.  This "Hawkman" page from "Flash Comics" #5 in 1940 is full of "Flash Gordon" swipes by artist Sheldon Moldoff.  As a matter of fact, the first artist for this feature, Dennis Neville, got the look for his hero from the Hawkmen in "Flash Gordon."

The third artist for "Hawkman"  was a young fellow named Joe Kubert, who not only became one of the greats with features like "Sergeant Rock" and a revised "Hawkman," but who began the Kubert School for Cartooning and Graphic Arts.

Kubert told his students that when you copy another artist, you will exaggerate his exaggerations, especially if it turns out you're copying someone else's copy, and the result will be severe and probably unattractive distortion.  He recommended lots of drawing from life, or at least using photographs.  

Say, I wonder how many pole-vaulters, runners, skating stars and boxers from the newspapers and magazines have wound up with Crime Fighting Doppelgangers in the funny books?

(Zooming off)

(Putting Evil Doers In Place)

Okay, now-- remember that Dick Williams magazine illustration? 

Boom, of "OTKatie" fame, pointed out IN THIS POST at "The Chicago Spanking Review" forum the similarity between it and this poster for a 1947 movie with Fred MacMurray and Paulette Goddard called "Suddenly Last Spring!"  Have a look!

The movie is a wacky post-war will-they-divorce-or-get-back-together romantic comedy and has no actual spankage.  But what a dandy Publicity Shot!!  

(Spanking Makes Happy Couples.)

Hey, come to think of it, those two have some other Movie Spanking to their credit! 

Paulette got an on-screen spanking from Ray Milland in "Reap The Wild Wind!"

("Mr. DeMille, can we please do that scene again?  Thaaaaank you!!")

John Wayne was in that picture, too, if ya wanna play "Six Degrees of Spanking Separation."

In the 1944 movie "And The Angels Sing," Fred MacMurray and his pals spank the Angel Sisters-- that is, Dorothy Lamour, Betty Hutton, Diana Lynn and Mimi Chandler!   I've been fighting with Blogger to embed Chross's YouTube clip here, but the smurf-smurfin' thing will not cooperate, so you'll have to click on the blue letters here to see 

THE CLIP!

Anyway, what do you think?  Dick Williams was a fine artist, so did he "merely" use Fred and Paulette as "models," with some kind of permission, or did he actually "swipe" that publicity shot?  Maybe such things were considered "public domain?"  It would help if we knew from whence came the illustration!

Well, The World May Never Know.  But at least in this post I got to do something with / to that Flash Gordon pic that's been screaming to me for Spanking Reinterpretation for forty-two years.