Monthly Archives: December 2009

I would be remiss if I didn't note the passing at age 88 of the extremely prolific comic book artist, Irving Tripp. I was already too remiss by not being aware that Mr. Tripp, who retired around 1983, was still with us. Tripp produced thousands of pages of fine comic art during his career, about 95% of which featured Little Lulu or the other moppets from her little world.

Lulu started life as a magazine cartoon by Marge Henderson Buell but was better known for her appearances in animated cartoons produced by Paramount Studios…and even better known for a run of Dell (later, Gold Key) comic books that were issued, beginning in 1945, in response to the popularity of those cartoons. A talented gent named John Stanley handled the conversion to the comics, writing and drawing her adventures and creating most of her supporting cast. By 1948 or '49, demand for increased frequency of Little Lulu comics was such that Stanley couldn't handle it all. The editors at Western Printing and Lithography — the firm which handled the editorial and printing work for Dell then — paired him up with one of their artists, Irving Tripp.

Thereafter, Tripp did most of the art while Stanley wrote, occasionally drawing a cover or story. Lulu scholars have been known to argue over whether certain works were drawn by Stanley or Tripp or both. Like many of the writers who worked for Western, Stanley sketched his stories out on typing paper, handwriting out the dialogue and doing rough drawings of the scenes. This has prompted some to credit the work completed by Tripp in some form like, "Layouts by Stanley, finishes by Tripp," and that may be accurate. But since in most cases, the original sketched script by Stanley is unavailable for inspection, there's no way of knowing to what extent Tripp followed Stanley's designs and placement. He probably did most of the time but perhaps not always.

Stanley burned out on Lulu around 1959 and thereafter, Tripp drew scripts by others for the book for more than twenty years. He also worked on some of Stanley's other projects for Western. In 1962 (as explained here), Western parted company with Dell and thereafter, Stanley did most of his work for Dell. Tripp occasionally worked on some of these comics, such as the Clyde Crashcup book above.

Tripp seems to have retired about the time Western stopped publishing comics so he worked for the firm for a little over 40 years, not counting several years in the Army during World War II. Someone else will have to do the math on how many pages he drew but it's a staggering total and their quality had everything to do with the enduring popularity of Little Lulu. Tom Spurgeon has more.

Quite a few e-mails have asked me, "Where's your Gene Barry obit?" I wasn't going to post one because I have no special insight or experience with Mr. Barry to share. I enjoyed him in his many TV shows and I thought he was quite good in the musical, La Cage Aux Folles. I have no idea if Mr. Barry had an ounce of gay in him but if he didn't, he did a great job of acting like he did…and if he did, he did a great job of playing one who was good at passing for straight.

I told him that the one time I met him…a brief chat at one of those Hollywood Collector Shows. We also talked a bit about the Bat Masterson and Burke's Law comic books that people were bringing to him for autographing. He hadn't seen much of them back when he was starring in those shows and was only now discovering what was in them. (I identified for him the artist he thought drew him best. It was Gene Colan.)

Pre-Masterson, Barry had been a Broadway actor and a successful one. In 1983, he startled many by returning to the stage there as one of the leads in La Cage Aux Folles. Today, it would not be risky for a "leading man" type to play gay — whether he actually was or wasn't — but back then, a lot of them would have feared damage to their reputations. The job resurrected Barry's acting career and I doubt too many thespians worry about such things these days, thanks in part to the courage of Gene Barry.

He seemed like a nice man. He had a great career. That's about all I have to say. Here's a link to a real obituary.